God Centered Podcast - Episode 4 - Solus Christus

God Centered Theology

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Hello there, and welcome back to Foundational Theology with Pastor Andy Cain, and it is the year 2020 now, and it is just a joy to be back with you as we just continue along and take our time looking at the definitional and foundational concepts of theology and the

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Christian life, everything from the Trinity to justification by faith, and we've been going through the five souls of the

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Reformation, and I believe we've already covered Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, and Sola Fide, and today we'll be covering

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Solus Christus, which means in Christ alone. Every one of these five solas means something alone or something by itself, and this one that means

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Christ alone or in Christ alone, and as with all the rest of them, I am teaching from the

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Word of God. I am a Sola Scriptura Christian. I believe all Christians should be Sola Scriptura Christians.

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We should have Sola Scriptura churches, and because of that and because of what the

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Bible teaches, we find out that Jesus Christ alone is the exclusive Savior for mankind.

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He is the exclusive Savior for the sins of the world. It is only, in fact,

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I believe in the book of Acts, it talks about how there is no other name under heaven by which a man must be saved.

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It is in Christ alone that you find the perfect atonement for sin, and to bring this out,

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I want to look at two passages with you. We're going to look at one in Hebrews, and we're going to look at one in Philippians, and so if you will turn in your

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Bibles with me to the 10th chapter of the book of Hebrews, the 10th chapter of the book of Hebrews, you're coming off of chapter 9 where, if we'll back up for just a moment to chapter 9, it says in verse 11,

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But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation.

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Jesus Christ is an eternal being. Time is a created thing.

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Jesus Christ is God, therefore He exists outside of time because Jesus Christ Himself created time.

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So not of this creation. He is not a created being. And not through the blood of goats and cows, but through His own blood,

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He entered the holy place once for all. The holy place, if you'll remember the Old Testament, the holy of holies, that place that only the high priest could go, and I believe it was once a year when

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He made the atonement for sins. It was always that separation between man and God, and now in Jesus Christ alone, so is

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Christus, in Christ alone, we have full access to the holy of holies.

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Full access to God's throne. Hebrews chapter 4 tells us this, that we can go boldly before the throne of grace in time of need because of Jesus Christ.

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Now notice it says, not through the blood of goats and calves. So this book, Hebrews, written to Jewish people,

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Jewish Christians, who are still struggling with wanting to hold on to the old system, He's telling them there's change that has come.

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Just as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, he talks about how we're a new creature in Christ. Old things have passed away, behold new things have come.

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So what he's trying to help them understand is the blood of those animals that were sacrificed, that was only to foreshadow what ultimately the

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Messiah would do for His people in making the perfect atonement that would once and for all take care of the sins of His people.

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So notice it says, not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, through the blood of Jesus Christ, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained or purchased eternal redemption.

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He came and entered His own creation and bought back, redeemed His people, purchased them with His own blood.

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He owns us. We are His purchase. And then notice as we move into chapter 10, it's the one sacrifice of Christ being sufficient.

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Now, many people will get this wrong and they'll extend the atonement saying it's sufficient to cover the sins of all people in the sense that Christ died for all people.

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But that misses the point. Christ's death is sufficient because it perfectly saves each and every single person it was intended to save.

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When Christ died, He actually paid for the sins of the people He was dying for. So to pay for the sins of someone that was never going to repent and place faith in Christ, then they'd be going to hell paying for sins that were already paid for.

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The atonement isn't just theoretical. It isn't just some abstract or something that isn't in reality.

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It is a real atonement, a real payment, a real transaction that occurred, and it is a real accepted sacrifice.

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It actually obtained eternal redemption for His people. And so it's the one sacrifice of Christ is sufficient, meaning that for me to be saved because I have been regenerated and had the heart of stone taken out, the heart of flesh put in, and I've been raised to spiritual life and I've repented of my sin and put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ, I don't need

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Christ to die over and over and over and over again like we did in the old system with the Jewish people. They would have to have sacrifices of animals over and over and over again.

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With Jesus Christ, you don't need that. It took one sacrifice, one time through His own blood to purchase my eternal redemption.

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That's all that's needed. You say, well, Andy, what's the point of evangelism? Well, the point of evangelism is because we've been commanded in the

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Word of God to evangelize. We've been commanded to tell all men to repent and believe, and all those that repent and believe will be saved.

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The issue comes later, and we'll deal with this later, in terms of the spiritual condition of lost people and whether they have that capability, which

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I believe that they don't, to place faith in Christ without first being regenerated. I believe that's what the Bible teaches.

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That's a hard truth to wrap our heads around. It certainly, from our vantage point, may not seem fair, but we are here to understand and to teach the

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Word of God for what it says, not what we want it to say or not what we think it should say.

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There's differences there. Now, notice it says, All throughout the book of Hebrews, you hear some repeated phrases, and one of them talks about those who draw near.

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I believe in chapter three, it talks a lot about this, those of the household of God versus the household of Moses, and drawing near, meaning drawing near to God, wanting to be in fellowship with Him, and that fellowship can only be with God and righteous people.

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God can have no fellowship with the unregenerate, sinful, wicked person. He has to wash you white as snow and make you righteous first.

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And so, those sacrifices, while they did in the sacrifices themselves, it wasn't a works -based thing, but in faith, by doing those sacrifices, because that's what

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God had commanded, and just like in today's world, there's certain things God has commanded us to do, and we do these things not because it makes us righteous, but we do them because we are righteous, because we have faith in God.

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And those things could not make anybody perfect. Those things could not make anyone perfect who draw near, otherwise, would not they have ceased to have been offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins.

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See, if those sacrifices could actually cleanse sin, and forgive the people, and have them washed white as snow, as Christ's blood alone does for us, and for all people that put faith in God, the sacrifices would have stopped.

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You could have went in and done your one sacrifice, had your sins forgiven, and you'd been good. But no, they had to continually do sacrifices to have their sins covered.

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See, we don't have to do that. In fact, no sacrifices or no things that we could do, could do anything with our sin anyway.

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But Christ alone, Christ's one sacrifice, the one payment for sin he made, is so superior to animals, it's so superior to any created thing could have done.

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It is a supreme saving, if you will, super saving, if you will. It is perfectly sufficient and perfectly capable of doing everything it was intended to do.

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God cannot fail. God in the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when they planned eternal redemption and eternity past, no part of that plan can fail.

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Why? Because they're God. He's God. And so notice it says it would have ceased. It says, but in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year.

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You're constantly reminded of your sin because you're constantly having to make sacrifices. Can you imagine if we still had to do that today?

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No. I don't have to do anything to make atonement for my sin. I don't have to do anything about my sin.

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My sin is completely forgiven and is completely washed in the blood of Jesus Christ.

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And that's the promise for you too, my friend. If you have repented of your sin, placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and his atonement and what he did for you on the cross, you are completely forgiven.

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You are saved. You are regenerated, made alive in Christ and only because of his sacrifice, not because of anything you did, your dad did, your mom did, your pastor did, anybody, but because of what

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Christ did. It says for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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Why? They're animals. They're created things. Take animals out of the picture.

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It would be impossible for me to take away your sins or for you to take away my sins. You can't have anything that is sinful, make atonement for another sinful thing, and then somehow that sinful thing becomes unsinful.

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You see, in the eyes of God, we are perfectly righteous. The book of Colossians is very clear about this.

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We will stand before him and be presented by Christ to God the Father as perfectly righteous, perfectly holy, perfectly blameless, as if we never sinned, just like Christ.

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It wasn't just that Christ didn't sin, he wasn't capable of sinning. And we're going to be presented as if we are that because we have the very righteousness of Christ becomes our righteousness when we are in Christ, when we become a new creature in Christ.

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Because it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats, it's impossible for you or I, it's impossible for anything created to do what

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God can do. See, we're going to look at this in Philippians in just a minute. God had to enter into creation.

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God had to become a man to save man. Man can't save himself. Therefore, when he comes into the world, this is speaking of the

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Messiah, speaking of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, when he, Jesus Christ the word, comes into the world, he,

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Jesus Christ says, and it's the Old Testament quotation. Let me look at the reference real quick here.

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This is 10, five, Psalms chapter 40, or excuse me, Psalm 40, verse six, an

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Old Testament quotation. It says, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

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In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold,

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I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will. Oh God.

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And after saying above that sacrifices and offerings, the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure of them, which are offered according to the law.

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Then he said, Jesus Christ, behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

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By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Why? Because salvation is in no other name. Salvation is in no other person.

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Righteousness is in no other name. Righteousness is in no other person. But Jesus Christ, and it isn't just that Jesus Christ was just the best among a bunch of other people, but somehow

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Jesus Christ got first place or he stood out in the crowd. Jesus Christ alone, meaning no one else could have even come eternally within the space between my fingers could have internally come that close to doing what he did.

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Only Jesus Christ can save. Only Jesus Christ can save because only Jesus Christ is the perfect sinless son of God who could make and be qualified to make this atonement.

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So we are sanctified. Sanctified means to be set apart as holy unto God. We are set apart out of the world of sin, the slave market of sin, set apart unto

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God as righteous and blameless and holy in Christ alone.

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It means we've died to self in Galatians 2 .20, Paul talks about being crucified with Christ.

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And so as we wrap up this edition of Foundational Theology, looking at solus Christus, in Christ alone, let's turn our attention to Philippians chapter 2 for just a few moments and understand what

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Christ did in his incarnation and in his atonement and why he was able to do that.

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In chapter 2 of the book of Philippians in verse 5, it says, have this attitude.

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The old King James English says, let this mind or I like the translation have this attitude is more accurate, more understanding for the way we talk today.

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But there's something very comforting in the old King James English sometimes and let this mind be in you.

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Just it takes me back in a nostalgic way and remembers some of the old preachers saying it that way.

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But what it's talking about is having the mind or the attitude or the disposition, the same as that was in Christ Jesus.

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Now notice what he did, although he, Jesus Christ existed in the form of God.

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Now we're not dealing specifically with the foundational theology of the Trinity in this episode. We will deal with the

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Trinity later, but we're going to touch on it briefly here. There was only one God, one eternal being known as God.

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Now he exists in three distinct persons. He exists in three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit.

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Now the father in terms of persons is not the son, the son is not the spirit, the spirit is not the father, so on and so forth.

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But in terms of their being, the father is God, he's Yahweh. The son is Yahweh, he is

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God. The spirit is Yahweh, he is God. Now in our finite minds and the way we understand categories and things like this, we struggle to explain this.

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We struggle at times to understand it, even I do. But the Word of God still teaches that.

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And Dr. James White, I'm sure other people may have said this, but he's the one I have known to say this repeatedly.

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He'll take a Bible and turn to the division between the Old and New Testament, and he'll say this is where the

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Trinity is revealed, right there in the gutter of the Word of God. And he'll talk about the fact that in the incarnation and the outpouring of the

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Spirit is where the Trinity is revealed in time. And then obviously we have the recording of that for us here in the

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Word of God, but that is where it's revealed. And he also said in a debate one time, he was debating a

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Unitarian, and he spoke about the fact that once you have demonstrated that Jesus Christ the Son and the

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Holy Spirit are both Yahweh, the debate is over. You have the Trinity. And so he being in the form of God, meaning

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Jesus Christ as the eternal God, all members of the Trinity being co -equal and co -eternal, he did not regard this equality with God a thing to be grasped or something to be held onto, meaning it was his, he had ownership of it, but he didn't have to keep holding onto it.

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He willingly and voluntarily said, I'm going to set aside it. Now this does not mean he set aside his deity or ceased to be a deity.

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This would be error. What it means is he temporarily set aside some of his independent use and privileges as deity.

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And when he took on human flesh, during that time on earth, he was fully submitted to the will of the

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Father, fully submitted in obedience to the Father. He did not cease to be deity, but he added human flesh to his deity, to where he was a hundred percent

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God and a hundred percent man. Now serving for another day, but fast forward to the resurrection.

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He has a glorified body. He will forever be in the second person of the Trinity, the

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God man. He now, as he has always been, one hundred percent God, and now has a glorified body.

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He's a hundred percent man. He is always, will be the God man after the point of the incarnation. Because it talks about here, he emptied himself.

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In verse seven, laid aside his privileges, emptied himself, it's a note here in my

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Bible. So imagine this. He empties himself. He, in the incarnation, the word becomes flesh.

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He condescends himself down to the point of entering into his own creation. Man, the eternal

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God, tabernacling among us, emptied himself, emptied himself of all rights and privileges, not ceasing to be who he is, but setting those aside to give us that, not just that example, but he had to be perfectly submitted to the

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Father to be that perfect sacrifice. And he says, he took on the form of a bondservant, being made in likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself.

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Can you imagine how much humbling it would take for the God of the universe to come and dwell among us?

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We're just dust. We are frail human bodies, sinful.

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And the God of the universe humbled himself to come and live among us.

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He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. In emptying himself into his work as the incarnated

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Son of God, he emptied himself and fully vested himself in the plan.

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And there was no plan B or C, there was always only plan A. And plan A was for the Son to take on human flesh and be fully, 100 % obedient to the

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Father, so that he could perfectly offer himself, his body, as a sacrifice for sins.

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And that sin payment would be perfectly accepted by the Father, making him a perfect Savior.

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And so, for this reason also, because remember, it's in Christ alone that we're saved.

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God the Father highly exalted Christ because he had humbled himself.

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God the Father highly exalts Christ and bestows on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, at the name of no one else, but at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.

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You will either bow in submission and in faith in Jesus Christ and be saved, bowing in righteousness and being with him for all eternity, or you will bow in judgment.

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Remember, if you've been keeping up with Daily Bites of God's Word, we looked at Psalm 1 and talking about how the wicked will not stand in the judgment.

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They're going to be bowing in judgment, realizing that they have rejected the one that created them, realizing that they are rebel sinners and have lived and choosed and loved their sin.

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Those that are in heaven, on earth, under the earth, all of Satan's angels,

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Satan himself, every being, every created being, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now next time, we're going to look at Soli Deo Gloria, all glory to God alone.

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So notice that even Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, in his humbling of himself, taking on human flesh in order to be that perfect sacrifice, to be the perfect Savior, everything he did was so that God could be glorified.

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God the Father bringing much glory to God because we're going to confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is deity. Jesus Christ is the perfect Savior.

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Jesus Christ is Lord. To the glory of the Father, it is in Christ alone that we are saved.

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Amen. Well, I hope that you have enjoyed joining me today on Foundational Theology as we are looking through these five solas, and we have one more to go.

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We will look at Soli Deo Gloria next time, but I really hope you have enjoyed this look. We could have covered far, far more, but I hope you have enjoyed this look into Christ and why it is in Christ alone that we are saved.