Incarnation, Part 2

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Romans 8:18-25 (The Spiritual Life, Part 3, Pastor Jeff Kliewer)

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Father God, it's our privilege to come together again this afternoon, first of all studying your work, being together in fellowship under the ministry of the

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Holy Spirit as Pastor Jeff is leading us, and as we consider the blessing of the incarnation of the enfleshment of the

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Son of God, as we learned last week. We pray, Lord, that we would understand the full extent of the miracle, of the gift, of the implication that it is to us here today in the 21st century, and we pray,

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Lord, to open our hearts to hear and to rejoice in this message, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Amen. John and I just had the privilege of having breakfast with a group of pastors over in Philadelphia, fellow

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EFCA guys, and one of them, before we were leaving, shared one of his favorite points about the incarnation, and that is the picture of swaddling cloths, that when this little baby, born and laid in a manger, was wrapped in swaddling cloths, he's pinned, he's held.

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He is a baby wrapped in cloth, in the same way

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God wrapped himself in human flesh. He took on the limitations of having to use the bathroom, and having to sleep, and getting hungry, all of the entrapments or the limitations of being a human is what it means to be incarnate.

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So last week, Rick gave us a term that, in your notes, I decided to enshrine, and that term for the incarnation,

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I don't think it's probably original to Rick, he probably heard it, because I've heard others say that before as well, but it is a great term, enfleshment.

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The incarnation is the enfleshment of the Son of God, which involved an emptying of divine privileges.

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Now, we're going to spend some time talking about that today. John, last week you gave us the overview, 30 ,000 feet, and my job last week was to listen.

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You did well. To pay attention to what we were talking about, and think about what points we interacted on that required a deep dive.

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So I'm the guy to go deep down under the ocean, you went 30 ,000 above. So as I was listening, it seemed to me that the question that provoked the most conversation, that needed the most clarity, was around this idea of emptying.

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What did Jesus empty himself of when he took on flesh?

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So we're going to go today to the primary passage on that, which is Philippians chapter 2.

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And we're going to talk about what does it mean, and it's right there in your main idea. The big idea today is that when

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Jesus emptied himself, the kenosis of Philippians 2, he did not leave his divinity behind in heaven.

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Or even the prerogatives of his divinity, his ability to do miracles, to be omniscient, to do anything, he did not empty himself of divinity.

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He remained 100 % really, fully God. What he did empty himself of is the worship and adoration of angels in heaven.

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His place of privilege and riches, and so many other things, we'll get more specific as we go through.

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He left the glories of heaven, the beauty, the worship, and he limited himself in the sense that he took on flesh.

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So we're going to kind of parse that out from the actual language of Philippians 2, because a lot of people get confused at this point.

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And much of the wrong theology that you hear taught comes from Philippians 2, from those who think that Jesus actually left behind attributes of his deity, which he did not.

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So we'll explain why that is, also why people are confused by it, but today will be a study on Philippians 2, 6 to 11.

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It's a deep dive on the subject of emptying and enfleshment. Where would you go if you wanted to hear the

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Christian Christmas story from our perspective? Yeah, from the human perspective.

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Luke chapter 2 and Matthew. Mark doesn't have the birth narrative.

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John has it, but in theological form. So he says, the word became flesh.

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He doesn't tell the story of Mary and the angels and the shepherds and the star and the little town of Bethlehem.

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He just says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So he tells the story theologically. So in the same way,

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Philippians 2 is the Christmas story from heaven's perspective. It is the theological occurrence.

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So let's go there. Philippians 2, it's really 6 to 8, but then 9 through 11 gives us the reward of Jesus' work on earth, when he's given the name that is above every name.

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So Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 to 8. I'm just going to ask John if he wouldn't mind just reading it one time through, and then we'll take a deep dive.

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Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man.

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He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.

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Okay, the first pertinent phrase here is in the form of God. When you think of the word form, what comes to mind?

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Perhaps it would be a mold that you could fill to make a plaster statue or something like that, a form that you fill out to complete an application.

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The word form in English can connote an appearance, not a substance or a being or an essence.

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And the result of this confusion in the English language is that many people have created a false theology of kenosis.

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Have you ever been watching TVN? And maybe you don't watch.

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Yeah, we don't watch TVN. And the charismatic preacher will talk about how greater works you will do than what

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Jesus did, drawing from that teaching in John, which has reference to the advance of the gospel to the ends of the earth, which

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Jesus remained localized in Israel. The quality of miracles that Jesus did, raising the dead, opening blind eyes, walking on water.

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Raise your hand if you've superseded that in your walk with Christ. Again, no hands, no

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TVN, not today. So why would the charismatic teacher say that you can do every miracle that Jesus did?

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Well, that might be the heart motive, but at the level of their teaching, here's what they say, that when

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Jesus emptied himself, he left the form of God and took on the form of man.

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Therefore, every miracle that Jesus does is only by his depending on the

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Holy Spirit, who also lives in you. And so there's an analog there in their mind between how

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Jesus does miracles and how you can do miracles and equivalency, where there's really no separation because their view of kenosis is that he left the attributes of deity behind in heaven and came to earth.

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And do you know where they get this wrong teaching? From a misunderstanding of the

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Greek word morphic form. Look back at Philippians two, verse six.

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The context here is referring to Christ Jesus, because in verse five, it says, which is is yours in Christ Jesus, who?

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So Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not account equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

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The word for form there, make note of it in your Bible. If you write in your Bible or else in your notes, if you know the word here for form is morphic.

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You could write it, it's in your notes, M -O -R -P -H -E with a line over the

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E. And the question then is not a matter of English semantics, the semantic domain of the word form, because that's the translation of morphic.

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What's so important for us as Christians to know is how this word is used in the

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Greek in the Bible, and then also its semantic domain in the Greek language, in Koine Greek, as it was originally written.

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Very important. The word morphe does not refer to a mere appearance.

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It refers to the being or essence of a thing. The being or essence of a thing existing in the form of God, the morphe of God.

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That means in his being, in his essential nature, he is

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God. Now, does that comport with the rest of Scripture? Because when we're handling the text, we always have to compare

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Scripture with Scripture and make sure that we're not contradicting anything by the theology we form from a particular verse.

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So let's look at three verses that confirm that this is in fact the case. That the Son of God, and we know this, prior to the incarnation, was actually in very being, very essence, very nature,

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God himself. He is God. We'll go around the room this way. John, could you look at John 8, 58, and then

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Stan, you're going to have a larger section to read. Colossians 1, 15 to 20, and then

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Sandy, if you could read Hebrews 1, 1 to 4. Again, this opening phrase, if you miss the understanding of morphe, you're going to think that it's something that can be left behind.

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You can't be emptied of your very essence or being. Nowadays, we live in a culture where people are trying to change their identity.

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Or maybe they think gender is just something that's not the real being or essence of a person.

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They might be born with a certain outward appearance, and that could be changed.

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They think they could change their actual gender. But what you cannot change, first of all, gender is part of your

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XY chromosomes and your anatomy. It's not something that can be changed by a surgery. But the very being or essence of being a human cannot be changed.

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You can't become a dog, although people have tried that as well, right? The idea here is that essence or being is the very fundamental nature of a thing.

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That's what John's translation. Yeah, that's what the NIV says, nature. Oh, very good.

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And so read that for me. Yeah, this is the non -inspired version. So the

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NIV got it right here. Are you reading the NIV? Yeah. Oh, I'm surprised.

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I know, I'm surprised. Who being the very nature.

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Nature. The word is morphe in the Greek. So it doesn't matter what the English says. They're doing the best they can as translators, but you can miss some of the nuance there in the

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English. So that's why we're not just throwing around big Greek words for no apparent reason. We're trying to really dig deep into what does this word mean?

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And it is nature being essence, the very substance of a thing. Go ahead, if you would read it again in the

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NIV. Thank you. Being in the very nature, God did not consider equality with God to be something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.

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Very good. Thank you. Okay, John, let's confirm this. John 858. Can I ask a question first?

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Yeah. This year caught my ear in the lyrics of Silent Night. It says,

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Jesus, Lord at thy birth. Hmm. So what are they saying in that lyric?

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Are they saying exactly what you're teaching now, do you feel? Or is it more that he was born, that he was created?

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So the promise of 2 Samuel 7 verse 13 is that David will always have a son to sit on his throne and a son of David is the king.

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So that verse in the lordship at his birth is saying that the king has been born into the world.

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I think the idea there is that the Davidic king, the king of the world, the king over Jerusalem is here.

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He is the king. There is a sense in which you call God king, even before the foundation of the world, he's king of kings and lord of lords.

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So he's always, but to locate it at the birth is saying, even if he's not going to be recognized by the world, he's going to be rejected by his own people, crucified and killed.

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Would you crucify your king? As Pilate says, he was the king when he was born. He is the king.

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He's the Davidic king. He won't take his throne, his Davidic throne until his second coming. But the prophecy has been fulfilled.

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Yeah. But he already reigns in heaven as God. Yeah. In his nature. Let's take that back just a few months.

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When Elizabeth visits Mary, it's clear that even in the womb, he was already

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Lord. But it doesn't rhyme to say, Jesus Lord at your conception.

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Thank you. Jesus said to them, truly, truly,

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I say to you, before Abraham was. I am. I am.

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I am. Mine says, was born. NAS says, was before Abraham was born.

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Yeah. I am. I am. Yeah. What does the ESV say?

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Um, was. The ESV says, was. I say to you, before Abraham was.

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Mine says, before was born. It says the same thing.

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I just like to get the word. That's why I like to use a different trend. What does the Greek say? He can do that real quick.

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Why don't you read Colossians 1, 15 and 20, and I'll pull that up. He is the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, from the thrones of powers or rulers or authorities.

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All things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

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And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

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For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

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Yeah, I am glad you asked me to look that up. If you turn on your notes to the back page, when it says being made in the likeness of men, that word made is genemenos, right?

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To become, becoming. In the same way, from the same root, genestai, was born.

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Let me read that verse for you and then tell you what the answer is, whether it's was born or become.

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Amen, amen. Lego hymen, that's I tell you. Yesu apen autos,

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Jesus declared to them before preen, abrein, genestai, translated as was born or became, so it is to cause to be, to become, it has a latitude.

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There's a latitude here between, meaning there's a semantic domain, a prolongation and middle voice of the primary verb of to cause to be or to become.

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We got it. So yeah, so let me just give you the short answer. When it says was born, the born is supplied there by the translator.

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Genestai could communicate becoming by birth or it could have a broader meaning, so was would probably be a more precise answer to that.

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And it even parallels. The significance of that passage is that Abraham had a finite beginning and a finite end.

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Yes, exactly. Before that finite beginning, finite end, whether it was or was born, got.

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And that's the contrast, why it's so important to look at these things, because contrasting between he became,

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Abraham became, he was born, there's a, like your vector, there's a point in time before which there's no line going forward.

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Contrasting that before Abraham became or was born, I am.

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Do you see the contrast? Yeah, I am is from everlasting to everlasting versus Abraham has this big becoming is the idea.

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I like it. In fact, that makes it. Yes, it makes it very clear to see the separation between getting no end.

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Yes, where we have a beginning. Abraham had a beginning. Yeah. And it goes back to God the

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Father, Exodus 3, 14. Yes, I am who I am. Jesus is equating himself with the pre -existing

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God. Yep. Part of the power of this message of the incarnation is that Jesus, son of God, I am no beginning, no end.

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Right. Jesus, son of man. At the point of inception.

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Yes. Yeah, perfect. So Abraham becomes Jesus. I am always.

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I just am who I am versus the beginning point. Yeah, so perfect. Let's go on. Hebrews 1, 1 to 4.

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God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world.

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And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power.

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When he made, had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.

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Okay. So theologically speaking, we know this is true. John read, I go in the

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I am. Colossians 1, he's the preeminent son before all things and in him, all things hold together.

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He is the creator. And then Hebrews 1, the radiance of God's glory, the exact imprint of his nature.

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It's clear Jesus is in essence and being God. And so that comports then with what we have in Philippians 2, 6, though he was in the of God.

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Morphe there actually means essence being nature. It doesn't mean just a form as in something that you can transform from this form to that form.

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The word Morphe actually means nature or essence, very being or essence.

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That's very important. Okay. Let's look at the next phrase being found in appearance as a man.

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You see the contrast then between Morphe and the Greek here word for appearance is it's in your notes, schema, the schema.

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The schema is what people outwardly see. There's an outward appearance.

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I'm going to turn to John MacArthur to explain the difference between these two words. Pretty trusted source.

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But to understand here in the text between Morphe and schema. Morphe is the being or essence of who the son of God is.

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Schema is the appearance as people see him. When they saw Jesus walking among them, he looks to them as John, just an ordinary person.

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In fact, Isaiah will tell us he has no form or appearance that anybody would desire. His outward appearance isn't even particularly attractive.

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He's just an apparent, apparently just a man. They can't see his divinity. That's the idea.

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His essence is divine, but his appearance is just as ordinary as any of us.

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That's how he looks. Okay. So who would like to read the John MacArthur quote? I think we're up to Barbara, right?

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I'm going to ask you if you would just read all the way that what he wrote about Morphe and schema under being found in appearance as a man.

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And then you want me to read what John MacArthur writes. Paul was praying that Christ would be fully formed in us.

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He used the word Morphe. He wants to see the complete reality of the living Christ in the inner life of believers.

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That's Morphe. Schema is used, for example, in 1 Corinthians 7 .31.

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It's translated the fashion of this world, the appearances of this world.

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Satan's schema. Satan fashions himself. 2 Corinthians 11 .14.

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Into an angel of light. He looks like an angel of light on the outside, but essentially he's an angel of darkness.

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That's the difference between the word schema and the word Morphe. Doesn't that help clarify it?

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When you see Satan in that verse, he takes on the appearance, the schema of an angel of light.

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But what's his essential nature? His Morphe? Angel of darkness. The outward appearance.

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So the word schema and all John MacArthur here is doing is showing the difference of the words themselves. Morphe versus schema.

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Because you can't really understand Philippians 2 without that. Without that, you're getting confused.

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You're thinking, oh, he changed forms. He had a God form in heaven, and then he took on a human form here.

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No, no, you're missing it. He had the Morphe essence being of God, but he has appearance of just an ordinary man.

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That's the contrast there. Between the outward appearance versus the essence and being of who he really is.

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He is God in flesh. In flesh, man of Jesus. Okay, so that's a very important point.

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The schema is what people saw. All right, so back to Philippians 2.

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It says he did not count equality with God, something to be grasped.

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Now, what does Paul mean there? What does it mean to grasp? Someone could have to grasp for something that they're trying to take.

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Isn't that what Jesus was accused of doing? You being a man, make yourself

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God. Like Satan was grasping for divinity.

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He wanted to make himself God. Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28. Satan's grasping for that.

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They accused Jesus. You're a man. You make yourself God. Or something that you have to grasp as in hold on to tightly so as not to lose it.

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That's what grasping means. It wasn't something he had to hold on to for fear he might lose it.

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When I read that, I had some trouble with it the first time I read it. Right, but I thought it was that Christ was

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God and therefore didn't have to grab anything.

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Yes, right. His equality. That's it. 100 % right. He is so confident and secure in who he is in his essence.

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He doesn't have to hold on to it for fear of losing. It's not something he has to grasp after to make himself something.

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That's the idea there. Many people think, oh, he was the canonic.

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What I'm telling you is canonic theology. That's the error of TBN. Canonic theology is he emptied himself of his divine attributes.

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Refill the tank with humanity. Yeah, in order to take on him. No, that's not what it's saying. It's saying he has such an essence as divine.

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He doesn't need to grasp after it to hold on to it. He's confident as if limiting himself in human flesh would somehow threaten that divinity.

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That's the idea. He doesn't. He has no fear of losing it. He doesn't have to grasp it or hold on to it.

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It is his very essential nature. It can't be changed. We live in a world where people can make themselves whatever they think they can be, but they can't.

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Their essential nature is what it is. Jesus is God. It's not something he has to grasp.

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He doesn't have to go attain it, and he doesn't have to hold on to it. It is his. That's the idea of grasping there, and I think that's a part of why people miss the point.

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John MacArthur again says he doesn't need to seize upon godhood, nor does he need to clutch it as something he might lose because it is his bi -essential nature.

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Make sense? Okay, next it says he emptied himself.

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Bob, would you grab for us John 17 .4? Sue, would you read?

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Oh, I skipped. We've got Isaiah 53 .3. We'll just bounce around.

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The original Bob. See, I skipped the Bob. Which Bob did you want? You could go 2

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Corinthians 8 .9. I went with Bob and Sue first.

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Bob, Bob. Doctor, doctor. And then

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I'll speak to the others because we're right on time if I don't keep it moving. All right, here's a question.

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What did he empty himself of if he didn't leave his divine prerogatives, his attributes, his ability to do miracles, his omniscience?

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Remember, he saw Nathanael under the fig tree when he wasn't there to see him under the fig tree. What did he empty himself of?

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Privileges is a great word. Well, I'm going to say five things. Glory, beauty, riches, for a moment, a favorable relationship with God.

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That's Psalm 22. My God, my God, why do you forsake me? And the independent free exercise of his attributes.

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Okay, so let's do it one at a time. John 17, four. Bob, number two.

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I have brought you glory on Earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

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I have brought you glory on Earth by completing the work you gave me to do. He's glorifying his father and then he'll say, now,

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Father, glorify me with the glory we had from the foundation of the world.

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Glory here means the splendor, the majestic display of the attributes of God.

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There's a sense in the incarnation that he empties himself of that display.

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He's still essentially God. But what is the schema? Just an ordinary man.

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Well, that goes back to the chief end of man. Yeah, it's glorification of God. Glorify God.

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And if he had not veiled his glory in the limitations of human flesh, what would happen to a sinful man in the presence of this

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God? He'd be dead, right? No one has seen God and lived, right?

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If the full display of his glory was in the presence of sinful man, he would have been destroying everyone by his beauty and his holiness and purity.

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But there's a sense the schema, the appearance, the display of glory is hidden in flesh.

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It's wrapped in swaddling cloth. How much of the glory was there on the Mount of Transfiguration? Well, that's the beauty of that is that he began to reveal who you're actually seeing and what did the disciples want to do?

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Fall down and worship and stay there and build tents and tabernacles? Yeah, and that's the idea there. This is my son.

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So yeah, that's the revealing. And Peter talks about that in 2 Peter 1, 19 and following on the majestic mountain.

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We heard the father's voice and we saw we saw with our eyes who this really is.

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His essential nature was for just a moment opened up for their eyes to see. Partially, partially.

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Yeah, yeah. Partially, even it's not like at the second coming, the full. The best. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And so the idea here is in the incarnation, the schema, the outward appearance is just so ordinary.

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That's what he's emptied himself up. The full brightness and display. That's one thing. The second thing, beauty.

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He's got Isaiah 53, 3. We have to see what he has. He is despised and rejected by man.

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A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him.

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He was despised and we did not esteem him. Wow. It says also he had no form or comeliness that anyone would desire in the first two and three.

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Yeah, he's just despised. So he's emptied of his beauty, the beauty of his person.

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That's part of what the kenosis is. The outward schema, not the essential nature, not the morphic, the outward nature.

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He's emptied himself of that. Next, riches. Second Corinthians 8, 9. For you know the grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

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Did you hear that? Though he was rich, he has every star in the universe in his hands.

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All riches. And yet he's dependent on the gifts that three wise men bring from the east for their sustenance.

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What happened to that gold and frankincense and myrrh? They're prophetic. Prophet, priest, and king.

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Gold for a king. Incense for a priest. And myrrh. What happens to a prophet?

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He dies. Rejected by his own people. That's a burial spice. When they came to embalm him, they brought myrrh.

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Well, why was he given gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Speaking prophetically of who he is, but also so that Joseph and Mary now have a way of going to Egypt and protecting him and paying for room and board and making it back up to Nazareth.

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It was all God's providential gift to a poor little baby who in incarnation is poor and homeless.

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And he'll say in his ministry, the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Foxes have dens and birds have nests.

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But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. He's poor in his incarnation.

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But he's rich in his essence. He is the God who has it all. He's the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

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And the hills themselves. But in incarnation, he's poor. So that's the empty from riches to poverty.

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I'll speak quickly to the next two. Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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For a moment of time, he's empty of a favorable relationship with his father that on the cross, he would bear the wrath of God against sin.

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John 6 38 and Matthew 12 31. He's emptied of the independent free exercise of his attributes.

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And this is, I think, where canonic theology, they're drawing on these passages rightly in this case.

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The son of God is not walking around doing whatever miracles he wants to do.

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When Mary comes to him to change the water into wine, what's his initial reaction? My time is not yet come.

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And every time he does a miracle, he expresses that it's by the power of the father and the

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Holy Spirit. It is by the empowering of the spirit. It is by the father's will.

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He has submitted himself as the son to the will of the father. So part of this emptying is you see this subordination in the incarnation, not in essence or being, but personally, the person of the father over the person of the son.

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And there's an entire theological debate is whether that's an eternal functional subordination or whether that's only in the incarnation.

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We won't go there now. That's another. That's there's a big controversy between Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware versus the

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Westminster theologians over that question, whether that's an eternal functional subordination.

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But the point here is to say that in the incarnation, he's clearly as the son

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Submitted to the will of the father. He's not just doing miracles willy nilly. He is depending on the father's will and the power of the spirit.

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Now, does that mean he's left his attributes, his ability to do miracles behind? No, when he does a miracle, he's doing it.

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It's by his power that he says he doesn't just pray. God, please raise

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Lazarus from the dead. He commands Lazarus come forth. See, be still.

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Do you see that? It's his power. So his essential nature remains unchanged, but he knows the will of the father.

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He always does the father's will, and he will only do a miracle when the father is green lighting it.

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It's according to God's God, the father's will. So the kenosis here, the emptying here is only the free exercise of his attributes.

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It's not that he can't at will do whatever he wants. He even points this out when he's being arrested.

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Don't you know, Peter, I could call 12 legion of angels right now and they'd come at my beck and call.

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You see, his attributes are unchanged. He did not kenosis. He did not empty himself of the attributes of his divinity.

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Very important point. But he is in that humility submitted to the will of the father to be walking in the spirit, doing these miracles in the spirit.

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Next, what does it mean taking the form? We only have five minutes, so I'm going to fly through these last quick points here.

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Three verses is a lot for 45 minutes. Taking the form of a bond servant, the son became a human servant of God and man.

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That's what it means. He took the form of a servant. You wouldn't think that the almighty

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God would be a servant, but that's exactly what he did in his humility.

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John MacArthur, he donned the apron of a servant. He is a servant, according to Isaiah 52, 13 and 14.

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He's a suffering servant. Psalm 40 verses seven and eight said the Messiah would be a servant.

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He wasn't just playing at a servant. He wasn't just pretending to be a servant. Listen, if anybody was ever a servant, he was a servant.

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Here it is again. He took upon the morphe, the essential inner essence, the very being of a servant.

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It's not just an outward appearance with him. How many people serve others for the outward appearance of it?

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How many people do religious things to be seen by men? With Jesus, it was never a schema.

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It was never an outward appearance. It was the very morphe. Now do you see it?

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Morphe means the essence. At his very heart, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve.

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It's who he is. He's the king who serves his own people. What kind of king serves his subjects?

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That's his very nature. That's how loving he is. That's his humility, even though he is

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God. Philippians 2 goes on to say, being made in the likeness of men.

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Being made in the likeness of men. And it was interesting, same root from Ganesco, which means to become, that we saw in John 8 .58.

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Here, being made. There was a point in time when

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Jesus was not a man. Well, I should say the son of God was not a man. When he was conceived and then born, they gave him the name

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Jesus. But he was always the son of God. The eternal son of God, in a point of time, became, that's that word, geneminos.

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I'll leave you guys here with the words of John MacArthur on this point. Being made, geneminos, a participle meaning becoming.

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Becoming. It speaks of a state which is changeable, which is not necessarily permanent.

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It's a change. That's very important, because he already was who he was as God.

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This was a change. He became something he had never been before. That was a man.

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Isn't that amazing? That God, who had never been a man, became a man at a point in time.

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Was that at his birth? It was at his conception. And now he's eternally a man.

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Yes, and will, yes, he will eternally. And John MacArthur goes on to talk about that. Um, I don't.

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Wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry. Yeah. At the ascension, he began to change.

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You said he was, he was opening and showing, um, more of his divine nature.

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At the transfiguration, yeah. If he remains a man, that's a stupid question, where is he?

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Yeah. As a man. And then the question is, where is heaven? Yeah. But as a man, he, he physically bodily rose from the dead.

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Anybody who says it was only a spiritual resurrection is a heretic, right? That's Gnostic teaching, but he physically bodily rose.

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Now, his bodily has somehow changed his human form. That humanity is still truly human, and yet he walks through walls.

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And yet when he goes to the mountain, his physical feet are on the mountain, and then they physically fly up into the sky.

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That's the ascension of the Lord. And then he's caught up in the clouds, removed from our sight, so we can't see or know where he is, except that we know he's now seated at the right hand of the

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Father in heaven. As a man. Fleshly form. Fleshly. Bodily. Yes.

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And when he's out. In that resurrected body. When he's out in space, he doesn't need a space suit, he doesn't need a pressure suit.

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So take, take this to another conclusion. He's less than God. Take this, no he's not.

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That's the thing, he's fully God. Right. He never ceases to be fully

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God. But this form. Even on the earth he was fully God. Yes. But this form of the, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, an improved flesh.

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Yeah. At the point of his ascent, ascension into heaven. Yeah. It's, it's not the same flesh.

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As he will be. Am I, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right, I can ask you, I can ask you a question. At the rapture, are you going to be raptured only in spirit or in spirit and in flesh?

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Well, he says we come from the graves, so there has to be something of a physical nature to be.

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In the eternity to come, will you be in the new Jerusalem only in spirit and in flesh, or will you actually be in hell only in spirit or in spirit and in flesh?

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the big idea theologically here, hypostatic union, which is one person.

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He will always be one person with two natures. There is a divine nature and a human nature.

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United, not commingled, not, not like blended in some way, but each one fully intact.

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A divine human nature united in one person. That's a hypostatic union.

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So when Jesus could talk, I saw Nathaniel under the fig tree. You know what else he did when he saw

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Nathaniel under the fig tree? He kept every heart beating in the universe. He upheld everything by the power of his command.

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He kept the sun from collapsing into the, he was governing the entire universe as God.

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While in the flesh. As to his human nature as a young man, he's learning as a, as a kid, he's in the temple debating as a baby, he's growing and wisdom in that nature as to his human nature.

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So this one person has two natures, a divine and a human always, and always will.

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Nothing changes when he's resurrected. He's got a human nature and a divine nature in the one person.

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So Jesus is one of the three persons of the Trinity, but within the hypostatic union, isn't dealing with Trinitarianism per se.

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It's Christology, Christ himself, one person with two natures. Didn't he come after his resurrection and came to see apostles?

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He came through the wall and then he ate fish. Yes. He still has a human nature.

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This is, he's, he has a stomach. Right. Amazing. But we will see him face to face.

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And that's going to be one of the splendors of heaven, that we will see Jesus standing face as a man looking into his face.

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Now it's different with the father and spirit. No one has ever seen God, the father, John 1 18. He's spirit.

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It will be different relating to the father. It will be no less love, no less, but there is a particular relatability of the son eternally in flesh.

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That's why the incarnation is so important. So, and then here we'll close with this being found in appearance as a man appearance.

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What's our word schema, schema, not more fit, but schema here. It's what they could see.

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They found him people dwelling on earth, see this person and they find him as a man.

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That baby they found in the manger, this miracle worker in Galilee.

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This man on a cross being found in appearance as a man, that's the incarnation that he took on human flesh, emptied himself of many of those prerogatives in the sense of his riches and his glory and beauty.

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And even for a moment, his relationship with God, he empties himself of those things, maintaining his divine essence.

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His Morphe humbles himself found in the appearance of a man.

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Not only does he humble himself in incarnation, but in dying and not only in dying, but in death on a cross, the most humbling death.

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And so we close with this. Therefore, God gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

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And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the

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Father. John, could you close this? Father, we are in awe. We confess Jesus Christ is

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Lord. Our minds can't fully comprehend the truth. He's fully

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God, but fully man. But we just put our hope and our faith in the fact that Jesus, being in the very nature, the very

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Morphe God, took on flesh and humbled himself on the cross because of our sin and that we could be called children of God and we will share glory with him.