July 17, 2018 Show with Dr. Stephen J. Wellum on “God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ”

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Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet

earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all happy.

What is today?

Today is Tuesday.

It's been a long day and I forgot what day it was but I know it's Tuesday, July 17th now

and I am so delighted to have for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio Dr. Stephen J. Wellam and I actually, although I already

was aware of Dr. Wellam and his work and his ministry, I was so

delighted to hear from a listener, a faithful listener in Cork, Ireland, Mary,

who highly recommended that I interview Dr. Wellam because Mary is actually

a student of Dr. Wellam's in Ireland.

Dr. Wellam, first of all, it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens

Iron Radio.

Well, it's.

Great to be with you Chris and thank you for allowing me to come and talk today.

Yeah, and.

Let me give a little bit more background to our listeners.

Dr. Wellam, who received his PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity

School, is a professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky, or should I rephrase that because I know that some people get upset if it's phrased that way, it's THE

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

He's also an editor of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology and today we are going to be

discussing Dr. Wellam's book, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ,

and Dr. Wellam, if you could tell us how a listener of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio

in Cork, Ireland became familiar with you and became a student of yours.

Well, sure, I'd be delighted to.

Therefore, for a number of years one of my colleagues here at the seminary, Dr. Michael.

Haken.

Yes, I've had Dr. Haken on the program a number of times.

Yeah, so he's all over the world.

And particularly he has a love for Ireland because of his family roots.

I think it's on his mother's side.

And there were a number of five, six churches in the southern part of the

Republic of Ireland in the Cork area in the province of Munster, Baptist churches that

are faithfully proclaiming the gospel in a very, very spiritually dark land.

And they said we need some extra theological training and ministry and so they started

Munster Bible College and I've had the teaching some of

the theology courses and Mary, who recommended me, is part of the churches there

in the Cork area and also a student in the classes.

So that's how I got to know her and it's great to see what the Lord is doing in Ireland.

Pray for that country, but the churches there are doing a great job and they're being faithful and that's always

good to see.

Yes,.

In fact, I highly recommend among everything else that Dr. Haken, who you mentioned earlier,

among everything else that he has written, I highly recommend all of it, but one in

particular, since we're talking about Ireland, is his book on St. Patrick.

Yes, that's right.

And if you could now tell us something, tell our listeners something about the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

in Louisville, Kentucky, where you serve on the faculty.

Well, yes, I'd be happy to.

It's.

A great privilege to be here at Southern.

I've been here since 1999 and they let me come here

as a foreigner because I originally grew up like Dr. Haken in

Canada, in the Toronto area, and then even though I did my studies at Trinity Divinity

School in Chicago area, but I've been here since 1999.

Southern is the flagship of the Southern Baptist Convention.

There's six institutions in the Southern Baptist Convention, Southern being the first, and

it went through a big change in the 1990s, 80s, 90s, with the conservative

resurgence and recovering the truth of scripture and the foundational issues of the gospel, and so

it's been a privilege to be here since 99 teaching theology and trying to be

faithful in raising up a new generation to proclaim the glories of the gospel and Christ in our local churches.

Amen.

By the way, I'm going.

To give our listeners our email address if they have questions.

The email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e

-n at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and

private matter, and I could see possibly that being the case, even though our

subject is of a theological nature.

If you perhaps are in a religion or church that denies

that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, or you're

from a church that has some radically different position, or any different position, from what we are discussing today,

I can understand that you might want to remain anonymous, but if it's not personal and private, though, please give us at

least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

What we usually do, Dr. Wellum, when we have a first -time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, is we have

them give a summary of their personal testimony of salvation, what kind of

religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in, and what were the providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to him,

and how specifically they came to embrace Jesus Christ as their Lord,

God, Savior, and King, and came to trust solely upon his finished work on Calvary as their

only hope of.

Salvation.

Yeah, they weren't happy to do so.

I had the privilege of being raised in a Christian home, and that's not true

for everyone, but in my case it was.

As I mentioned, I was raised in Canada, born there in the, we'll just say roughly the Toronto

area, technically it's Burlington, Ontario, but out in the larger Toronto area.

And I, by the time I was the fourth of four boys, and then we had a

little girl that we adopted after myself, and my parents

were converted in the 1950s or so,.

Influence of their background, but also Billy Graham and others like that, involved in

evangelical churches, and then in the late 60s, early 70s,

really wanted to be instructed more in the truths of God's word, and they went

and started a church with a man named.

Bill Payne, or William Payne, from England.

Yes, I had the privilege, it's funny that you mentioned William Payne's name, I'm sorry to interrupt you

here.

Yeah, no problem.

But William Payne, what a powerful preacher he was, and I know that he is

with the Lord for eternity now.

As soon as you mentioned William Payne, I happened to glance upon an endorsement for your book,

where it was written by my friend Fred G. Zaspel, who I've known, I've known him

since the late 1980s, and I used to attend a conference that no

longer is taking place, but it took place for a number of years.

I used to attend this conference called the Bunyan Conference, named after John Bunyan, that Fred

Zaspel and John Riesinger would orchestrate, and William Payne was

at least one year one of the speakers on the roster, and he totally blew me away when he spoke.

Well, he was my, I had the privilege of having him as my home pastor, so you know, I was

about six years old or so when Trinity Baptist in Burlington, Ontario started,

and you know, I heard him faithfully expound scripture, my parents taught

me God's Word, but it was around 16 that really I came to know the Lord

myself.

You can't, you're not a Christian because you're raised in a Christian home, or you sit under the preaching of God's

Word, you have to own it yourself, and through a variety of circumstances with my

brother and Pastor Payne and a man named Bertie Crooks, a

Presbyterian minister who was up in the Northland in Ontario cottage country, hearing him

when we were away on vacation, the Lord brought me to himself and opened my eyes to see my

sin before him and the need for the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus, and calling out to him, and I was

converted at 16 and then from there was baptized and

wanted, sent a surreal call to Christian ministry, whatever that would look like, whether pastoral or teaching,

and Bill Payne was helpful in giving advice and counsel, and so I went from there

to eventually university or college in Upper State, New York at Robert's Wesleyan College,

and then Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and then into the ministry and pastoring and teaching and so on.

Great.

Well, I want to.

Read three endorsements for your book because they're so powerful, and I've had all three of these

individuals on my radio program, and not only does Fred Zaspel go back

many years with me and my own Christian life, but also Michael Horton, who actually preached at the

church where I was a member back in 1995, and I actually couldn't be there because it was the same night

that my mother's funeral was being conducted.

But Mike Horton, I've known him so long, believe it or not.

He was a single man when I first knew him, and he used to ask me to help him find a girlfriend.

Interesting.

But I've interviewed him many times, and he is also a dear brother.

Well, first I'm going to start with Fred Zaspel's endorsement, and Fred Zaspel writes

of your book, which is also the theme today, God the Son

Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ.

Fred says, Wellum's treatment of this glorious subject is

comprehensive in scope and is marked by precision, clarity, biblical fidelity, and a

close acquaintance with the centuries of discussions surrounding it.

It is the most helpful book on Christology I've read, and it is a pleasure to

commend it to you.

That's Fred Zaspel, pastor at Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia, Pennsylvania, and author of The

Theology of B .B. Warfield, A Systematic Summary and Warfield on the Christian Life Living

in the Light of the Gospel.

And I've interviewed Fred on his book on B .B. Warfield, his biography.

Michael Horton, who we just mentioned earlier, says, Exploring our Lord's person and work from a

variety of angles, Wellum engages a wide range of issues and conversation partners,

consolidating the gains of evangelical Christological reflection.

This volume makes gains of its own, particularly by wrestling clearly

and carefully with contemporary trends in biblical studies, as well as philosophical, systematic, and historical

theology.

That's Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, California,

and host of the White Horse Inn radio program.

And David Wells, who I've had on the program several times, he says, This is a clear,

comprehensive, and compelling study.

It shows Christology to be like a fabric made up of many threads, all tightly woven

together, a doctrine with presuppositions, connections, and consequences for the age in which we

live.

This doctrine is here seen in its wholeness, and that is what makes this

study so theologically wholesome.

It is fresh and excellent.

David F. Wells, Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary, and author of The Courage

to be Protestant, Truth Lovers, Marketers, and Emergence in the Postmodern World.

Well, those are very powerful commendations for this book.

And if you could, Dr. Wellum, as you know, the

topic of God the Son Incarnate, the doctrine of Christ, this topic has

been written about numerous times, not only by great heroes of the

faith of the past, whether they be ancient or more recent, such as the

16th, 17th, and 18th and 19th centuries, but also from, it has been addressed by

contemporary authors, and I've had some of those authors on this program.

What did you think was needed in writing on

this particular subject that drove you to say, I need to write this volume, because although there may be many

excellent things available, there's just something that I.

Want to contribute myself?

Yeah, that's a great question, and obviously we stand on the shoulders of those who've gone

before us, so in some sense we don't, on this particular doctrine, because of its

careful exposition through the ages, we're not really saying anything brand new in

the sense of, oh, here's a new insight.

Yet, for every age, every day, there needs to

be an articulation and a re -articulation of the foundational truths of the

faith for the Church today, and that's really the job of systematic theology, to make sure

that we are speaking in the context of some of the challenges, the

problems, the trends, and so on that are going today, and to lay out a faithful exposition.

And so a part of the series that the book is part of is

Crossway's series on the foundations of evangelical theology, is to lay out each of the

doctrinal areas in such a way that it's saying, here's what evangelicals should be

affirming today, and doing so in light of things that are going on, and, you

know, historical reflection where we are in the 21st century.

So, one thing that, you know, it's nothing new here, yet, you know,

when I wrote the work, I was very deeply burdened to make sure

that, and this shows up in part one of the book, that we approach doctrine and

theology, and particularly this subject of the person of Christ and

Christology, according to the Scriptures, and we do it faithfully, and we do it with a

proper theological method, which is not always done.

And so, history of the Church, there's been a uniform witness

all the way to the Enlightenment times, we'll say to the 1600s of,

you know, in the early Church, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the post -Reformation,

who is the Lord Jesus Christ?

Well, He's God the Son Incarnate.

In light of the challenges of the Enlightenment, and critical theories, and so on, we

need to be able to withstand those challenges, and we need to do so firmly on the basis of a Christian

worldview, a Christian theology, a proper Christian methodology, and so that, in some sense, was a little

new, because it had to address the challenges of the day, and so that was part of

the part one, so how do we move from biblical text to proper theology in light of the challenges of

the day, to give a full biblical defense and worldview defense, and then thereafter was in

one place, Church has actually said, unfortunately,

as we live in the 21st century, there's a lot of historical amnesia,

right?

So we think that part of our age is to, and so

what was going on in evangelical thought that were departures

from what I'm going to

call, they had to be dealt with.

I think many, many people in the evangelical Church thought, well, there's really no, there's no difference of opinion on who Jesus

is with among evangelicals and Bible believers, but that's just not the case.

So I had to, as we worked through the work, at the end of it, take on some of those trends that were

going on in the evangelical world.

So all of that brings the book up to date, shows contemporary

issues that need to be addressed as we faithfully articulate who Jesus is.

And proclaim the gospel today.

Now I'm sure you agree that this problem that you have just just in

detail described of churches and

pastors and denominations and Christian individuals developing these

unbiblical and even heretical understandings of Christ is a

product of the very tragic lack of

genuine exegesis of the scriptures and genuine study because you will have

in many churches across the American landscape, and I'm sure globally, where they just

love to lift up the name of Jesus and they love singing to him and about him,

but they really don't, for the most part, possibly not ever, dig deep

and plumb to the depths of the unsearchable riches of the word of God to really

exegete and bring to the surface, to bring to the light of day,

who Jesus Christ was, is, and ever will be.

Because there seems to be a championing of shallowness in regard to

who Christ is, as much as people may love to talk.

About him and sing about him and sing to him.

Well, that's exactly right, and it's not an engagement with scripture, it's not a proper

exposition and exegesis of the text, and alongside that is also the

adoption of ideas and assumptions, or what we sometimes even

say presuppositions and so on, that are foreign to the scriptures, so that even if

they do some exegesis, they are already not understanding

what scripture is saying as a whole, they're not understanding those texts in context, they're not then understanding how

the church has understood these passages, so it's a combination of things.

It's not doing engaged exegesis, it's the wrong interpretive methods as well that are

being brought to bear, it's adopting false ideas that are

alien to the Christian theology and Christian worldview, so it becomes a complicated affair, but at the

bottom, the bottom line would be they're not taking scripture seriously, and they're not

following scripture's own presentation of who the Son of God is, from old to

new, a whole Bible, and realizing that he is the Son from eternity who has

become incarnate, and so there's a whole host of things that are going on, especially in our day that it's so

easy to pick up false ideas from the society around us.

Well, I think it would be wise for you to begin in as much of a summary

fashion as you can, letting our listeners know, what is the

truly biblical description of Jesus Christ,

God the Son incarnate, and if you could give us the the primary things

that all Christians should and must believe in regard to this very important doctrine,

and by the way, it's interesting that you have as a subtitle, The

Doctrine of Christ.

It's a very bold subtitle in a day and age when doctrine is dismissed

as being nothing but divisive trivia that really just

prevents the enthusiasm and the ecumenism

of those who claim to love Christ, and they look down upon doctrine as if

you can actually say anything that you believe about what the Bible teaches without

bringing up doctrine, but it is an interesting phrase, the Doctrine of Christ.

Before we go into your specific description and definition of God the Son incarnate,

if you could tell us why you chose to use that phrase,.

The Doctrine of Christ.

Well, because doctrine is that which summarizes and

states as a whole the biblical teaching, and doctrine is very close to the older

understanding of dogma.

This is what we ought to believe.

This is what God's Word teaches.

This is what the whole counsel of God teaches from Genesis to Revelation, and to

not maintain these doctrinal truths, these theological truths, these

dogmas, especially in this case, is a life -and -death issue, so that

the doctrine is saying, these are just nice wishes and thoughts.

This is dogmatic.

This is theology.

This is truth.

This is objective truth that Scripture gives to us, that God has made known to us, and this needs to be

embraced, believed, proclaimed, loved, and taught, and all of that gets bound up

with the Doctrine of Christ.

This is what the whole Bible teaches regarding who the Lord Jesus is, and we have to say, with

the area you commented about, some who see doctrine as divisive, and this type of thing, the truth of the

matter is that they just impose their own doctrine.

These individuals who will say, well, you have doctrine, and we don't, and we just love Jesus, well,

you just have to push further and realize that they have a whole doctrine, it's just not the correct doctrine, and

they are just, in fact, they are the ones who say, we must fit into their mold, and you

see this in theology, and you see this in all areas of life, especially morality, and these kind of things,

and so we cannot be pushed by that.

We have to say, wait a second here, you need to articulate accurately who you

think Jesus is.

There's many Jesuses running around, but there's only one Jesus of the Bible, and that is what doctrine

seeks to say, this is the Jesus that is presented to us,

and that's what the Doctrine of Christ is.

Always keep that in mind, everyone has a doctrine, everyone has a theology,

they just don't.

Now, when we come to our understanding, then, of who the Jesus of the Bible is, I try to capture that in

many ways with the title of the book.

Often, when we speak of the Lord Jesus, we just say God incarnate, but that's a little

misleading if you're not careful, because the word we

are saying that,

of course,

the Lord Jesus, isn't just

the entire, now

tying us to the Doctrine of the Trinity, so that there is a Father, there is a Son, there is a Holy

Spirit, divine nature, the

same essence, a number of ways of saying that.

There's one true and living God, and it's the Son of God from all

eternity, the Son, who has always been there in relation to the Father and the Spirit,

is fully God, just as the Father is fully God, and the Spirit is fully God, the Son is fully God, the

Son, at a point in time, adds to Himself, human nature, Philippians 2, or John

1, 14, the Word, the Son became flesh, so that the Lord

Jesus Christ is the Son, who is fully God, He is the One who shares the divine

nature with the Father and the Spirit, and He adds to Himself a second nature, a human nature, so

that He is fully human, so He is the Son from eternity, the divine Son,

who remains a divine Son, and always is a divine Son, who then becomes the One who is

incarnate, the One who is the Man Christ.

In the language of the Church, Chalcedon, or Chalcedon, the famous Council in

451, often this is summarized, who is the Lord Jesus Christ?

Well, He's the Son, the divine Son, one person,

fully God, fully man, gives you some sense of

the title, picking up the summary of the statement, this is the Lord Jesus Christ, God the

Son from eternity, who has become...

Amen, and we're going to go to our first break right now, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a

question of your own for Dr. Stephen J. Willem, on God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, please send us an

email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N

-Z -E -N at gmail .com, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live

outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Dr. Stephen J. Willem, after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with a little less than 90 minutes to go, is

Dr. Stephen J. Wellam, and we are discussing his book, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of

Christ.

If you have a question that you'd like to ask, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail

.com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

And we already do have a listener question that I was going to wait a little bit before we took listener

questions, but this one I think helps sets the stage further for this very important

topic.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and Susan says,

as much as we can say that the Bible has very vital and necessary

teachings about who Jesus Christ is, must we not be very careful

in going beyond what is written and thinking that we can possibly grasp in perfection

things like the hypostatic union and other things.

That are beyond our comprehension?

Yeah, it's a great question, and obviously we have to, as we think through all the

scripture says, we don't want to say anything that is adding to scripture or

contrary to scripture.

What I would say, though, is that that's not what's taking place when we think

about things such as when we move into theology, the hypostatic union, and wrestle with these areas.

It really comes back to the question of what theology is and how theology is to be

done.

Theology best goes back ancient in the history of the churches, is faith -seeking

understanding, and by faith I mean that which is tied to what scripture says and what

scripture gives.

It's not a blind faith, it's a faith in God's word and what he has revealed of himself.

But we also, as we receive God's revelation and we read it and we then try to

understand, in this case, who is the Lord Jesus?

How do we make sense of all the biblical data about him that leads us to

then try to understand?

And in fact, God wants us to understand.

He's given us his word so that we will know him and we will love him and serve him and honor him.

And as we read his word, we then see who the Lord Jesus is.

As we work right across the Bible, we see that the Lord Jesus is the Son from eternity.

I think the best place for that is, say, in John 1.

In the beginning is this work to face with.

Realize then that he has become flesh, and we then

think through the biblical data regarding the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and we then

begin to say, this is how we are to understand how that material is to be put

together to be faithful for itself.

Because some will put the data together in such a way that begins to deny the scriptural teaching, is

what we call.

So some will say, well, he can't be the Son from eternity.

He must be a created being, which would be, say, a Jehovah's Witness or ancient Aryans.

And we say, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what the scripture says.

That's unfaithful to it.

So as we then try to put the pieces of scripture together, according to the way scripture teaches

these things, inevitably, we then say, we start wrestling and giving terminology

to hypostatic union, or what does it mean for him to be fully God and fully man?

What do we do with passages that speak of him, John 8, 58, where Jesus

will address himself as, before Abraham was, I am.

And he takes the very name of God to himself from Exodus 3, which has to mean that he's

claiming to be the Lord.

He's the God of the Old Testament.

He's the one who is the Lord, the Son, who is God equal with the Father.

And yet, at the same time, he will say, only my Father knows the end, or

I don't know.

We don't eliminate any of the data.

So what theology is doing is trying to wrestle with all,

yet it's using, sometimes, terminology to then account for, or make

sense of, what scripture is teaching, so that we preserve the full scriptural teaching

against denials of what it actually says.

So, yes, we have to be too careful that you don't go so far.

We stay with what scripture says, but scripture itself is driving us to think through

these matters very carefully.

When Jesus says in John 5 that, you know, I can do nothing on my own,

other doing, and then says, whatever the Father does, I do, we have to think about that, and we have to

meditate on that.

What does that mean for the Son of God to do everything that the Father does, which means create

universes, and bring judgments, and sustains all things, which is an act of deity?

Yet, at the same time, he says, I can do nothing on my own.

Well, we've got to put both of those together if we're going to take,

and that leads us then to think theologically about all that God has

said.

And that's where the church then thinks about hypostatic union, and the relationship of the two natures of

Christ, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And it's not adding to scripture, it's not going beyond scripture, it could.

You have to be then instead saying, what we're doing.

Here is being...

Now, just before we leave the concept of hypostatic union,

does this not especially focus upon the fact that Christ is

fully God, and fully man, and yet there is no.

Mixture of the two?

Yes, I mean, hypostatic union, the very term itself, is from the

Greek, which is picking up what we would say today, person, right?

So that there's a long history of from the Greek, to the Latin, to English, and so on.

But when we speak about the hypostatic union, we're talking very specifically about what John 1

14 teaches.

John 1 14 makes it very clear that the Word

became flesh.

It doesn't say that the divine nature became flesh, it speaks of

the Word, which is identified in John's Gospel as the divine Son, the person

of the Son.

Now, the language of person, we've now, you know, sort of now making sense of this data, that there's a Word

in relationship to the Father, the Son in relationship to the Father, what are they called?

Well, they are persons who share the same nature, and it's the person

who became flesh.

So it's the person of the Son who added to himself a human nature, so that there's two

natures, yet the deity, the divine Son, who shares with the Father and

Spirit, the divine nature, it doesn't lose that deity, it's not blended with his human nature, is

that he adds to himself a human nature, so there's now two, and the hypostatic union then reflects,

how is it that the person of the Son has two natures?

How are those natures then related, and all of them, the implications of that, as in the person of

Christ, we preserve what is foundational to Scripture, the creator -creature distinction, the difference between

God and human, the divine nature and the human nature, all of that is being wrestled with when we talk.

About the hypostatic union.

Well, I think that it would be very wise of us now to discuss, so we can

basically warn our listeners where not to wander in

regard to current known Christian

evangelists, pastors, writers, and so on, but if you

could, let our listeners know something about contemporary Christology

and the two major.

Trends in contemporary Christology.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's a number of trends that we have to think about in terms of

outside of the larger evangelical world, and then obviously the trends that go on within

the Christian Church and the evangelical world.

All of these trends need to be set over against the,

not in every doctrine, but there's a number of doctrines, the doctrine of the

Trinity, and particularly the person of Christ is what we're looking at here, the doctrine of Christ.

There has been, from the very beginning, agreement.

The Scriptures are teaching this.

They're teaching that the Lord Jesus is God the Son incarnate, that he is God the Son, fully

God, fully man, one person, two natures, and that then got put into

creeds and confessions that were consistent throughout the history of the Church, all the

way until, say, the 1600s or late 1500s, right?

So that's the trend that's gone, and it's been, that teaching has been put together in a very

specific way, trying to account for all the scriptural data and do justice to the biblical data and so

on, and that's why we call that a classical view of

who the Lord Jesus is, and there's been a whole history of that that's gone to

our recent days.

Now, outside of the Western world,

where you have the influence of Christianity on Western culture in Europe and so on, people began to

depart from these things, and there's trends that basically reduce the Jesus of the

Bible, they deny his deity, they deny the Trinity, they deny the uniqueness of the Lord

Jesus as fully God, fully man, and they then recreated Jesus in terms of the search

and trends for Jesus.

You know, a contemporary figure today, like a Bart Ehrman and others like that, which would deny anything of

what the Bible is saying, and they reconstruct the Bible.

That's a whole trend that you'll pick up in the universities, you'll read in the

magazines, you know, a whole liberal Christianity that moves in that direction.

We need to oppose that, because they're not taking seriously the Jesus of the Bible.

Yes, in fact, Bart Ehrman specifically, I think one of the things that makes him more dangerous is that he is

an agnostic who believes that Jesus actually historically existed.

So sometimes, when you're listening to him, you might not be aware that he is not a Christian.

He is not a believer that Jesus is God.

He used to be.

Well, I don't know, obviously, he obviously never truly believed it, because as a

Reformed Christian, I don't believe that a genuine believer can become an apostate like

Bart Ehrman, but he professed to believe, was an evangelical, and in fact was

considered a rising star by some amongst evangelicalism.

But he can be very dangerous, because you're listening to him speak about the historic Jesus, and you might not even be

aware that you're talking or listening to an enemy of Christ, an agnostic.

Well, that's right,.

And he's just part of a whole stream that has taken place now for,

you know, 300, 400 years that's been growing of really those who stand outside of belief

in the Bible.

They try to take the Bible and reconstruct its history.

They don't take seriously what the Bible actually is teaching, they don't receive it as God's Word, and they're doing then sort of a

historical analysis.

But all of that, I try to show in the book very briefly, is already dependent on a

non -Christian worldview and assumptions, and it has to be dealt with at the sort of what we call apologetic

level, defense of the faith, where we're really dealing with a different theology, a different worldview.

The Jesus that they are presenting is just another historic Jesus, that after they get done

their work, he looks a lot like them.

I mean, that's the problem, is that it really fits in our pluralistic age, Jesus is

just one religious figure among many.

Well, that's clearly not the Jesus of the Bible.

That's one huge trend that you'll see in the universities, you'll see in the, you know,

many, many liberal seminaries, the mainline churches are moving this direction, and so on.

That's not historic Christianity, and that has to be opposed as an entirely different

worldview, theology, that has to be rejected, hook, line, and sinker type of thing.

And then within the evangelical church, within historic Christianity, we'll stick within

evangelicalism broadly, we won't get into Roman Catholicism, that has, you know, they've affirmed

these historic truths too in this area, as well as Eastern Orthodoxy, but within the evangelical, the

Protestant, evangelical, and even...

There have been consistent embracings, we see that in

terms of the Council of Chalcedon, Jesus is fully God, fully man, one person, two

natures, but what happens is, is that there's a redefining of terms, there's a

redefining of what a person is, or maybe what a nature is, and it

takes different angles, but what happens is, is when it all comes out in the end,

you don't have the position that the Church has affirmed, and I think, rightly, the Church

has affirmed that which is true to Scripture, so you have some kind of scriptural distortion, which then

becomes dangerous.

And if you get your Christology wrong, and then his person and work wrong, and the

doctrine of God wrong, your whole gospel...

Some of these trends within the evangelical world, they're not nearly as bad as outside of the evangelical

world, but there is a distortion of the Church that I would argue is

true...

Now you mentioned pluralism, if perhaps.

You could just be a little more descriptive in regard to pluralism,

because of the fact that you do have some people

who claim that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, that his

death on Calvary is what purchased sinners

and paid in full the penalty of their sin, and they were

redeemed by him and atoned by him, but you don't have to know that.

For instance, unfortunately, in fact, I was just watching again with a

friend over lunch, a pastor friend, the notorious video

clip of Billy Graham and Robert Shuler having a conversation where Billy

Graham was tragically describing in his view that people

are coming to God from the Muslims and the Hindus and the Buddhists and the atheists,

and yet they are not leaving those ideologies and religions, but they

are coming to Christ anyway because they are really.

Worshiping Christ without knowing it.

Yes, yes, yes, we have to carefully, carefully think of these positions, and

also the term pluralism and so on, so usually how it's stated, and there's always

various, what we call nuances to things or qualifications to things, but

pluralism as a whole would be a term, whenever you add that ism to the

word plural or plurality type of thing, is really, it's a worldview, it's a

mindset, it's a whole viewpoint that says all views,

the plurality of views have something to contribute and all of them have some kind of grasp

on the truth.

No one of them is better than the other or more true than the other and so on.

Now, you have to say very quickly, that's more of our kind of what we call post -modern, post -Christian,

very secular mindset that's everywhere we see.

You can't say Jesus alone is Lord and Savior and so on, he's one among many, but of course the

pluralism tends to try to be tolerant, but then they turn around and just say, you're wrong and we're right,

and so you have all of that, but pluralism is that view which says Jesus is just one

among many, one among all the options out there, and there's no one view.

An individual, there's many individuals that represent this today, but you John Hick and

Paul Knitter in the past, these are famous pluralists and you'll find many of them

today as well.

Now, what you are describing of those who will say, no, no, no, the Lord Jesus is

God the Son incarnate, he has done a work that is the only basis

for salvation, the only ground for our salvation, yet one might not in this

life.

Obviously, when we die, we'll be confronted with him, we'll know him, but in this life, particularly

tied to those who've never heard the gospel, those who have never heard of his name and never presented with the

gospel, they can still benefit from his person

and work without ever knowing it, and they'll come to know that later on

in their mortem experience or something like that.

These are called, by a variety of terms, usually they're called inclusivists.

That's right, yes.

Yeah, inclusivists, and sometimes people call them accessibilists,

and what they're doing is they're holding to historic Christianity in terms of the person of Christ,

even his work, but even then we have to qualify here, is if you press

there's even a distortion or a misunderstanding of Christology in these views, not

all of them, but many of them, and also when it comes especially to the work of Christ, there may be an

exception.

There are a few, what we call, reformed inclusivists.

Terry Thiessen and others have written on this, and so they're the exception, but most

inclusivists are very Arminian in direction, very

much people who deny penal substitution, hold to a different view of the cross,

so even then there's a watering down of many, many, many doctrinal implications regarding Christ's work,

and they will then say people can come to saving faith apart from faith in

Christ because they've never heard of him, and they usually then define saving faith in some kind of

generic or very general sense, so they may have a call out to God as they look at the

creation and say, oh God, save me, and they then come to realize that Jesus has the one that

saved them.

The problem with this view is that saving faith in scripture is always, always, always

tied to God's promises and God's special revelation and the covenantal promises of scripture,

and now with the coming of Christ it's tied to the new covenant promises.

The Bible does not know of people having saving faith apart from receiving the promises of God

that he's specially given through the covenant now centered.

And then there's a whole host of other problems with these views

that have distorted usually views of divine love and divine holiness and divine justice, but this

is a view that unfortunately is found in many, many evangelical churches, so they'll say we believe in a

Jesus who's fully God, fully man, and his work is the foundation of salvation, but then they

distort how we come by grace through faith to receive the benefits of

Christ's work, and it's a very, very dangerous position that has to be abandoned.

And we are going to be going to our.

Elongated midway break.

This is a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida,

requires of us a longer break than normal during the midway section of

our show because they need to air their own public service announcements and other things.

So please be patient as we take this longer than normal break and take this opportunity to write

questions for Dr. Willem and also take this opportunity to write down

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Now we just have a couple of announcements to make before we return to our guest Stephen J. Wellam

on our theme, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ.

First of all, coming up very shortly, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held August 2nd through the 4th

at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine.

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The theme this year is the Glory of the Cross.

The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips,

and Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Wynn.

That's November 9th and the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

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Send your questions to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We mentioned Ireland earlier.

We actually have two listeners from Ireland waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you, Dr.

Wellum.

We have Joy in Currabine, Ireland.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Knowing my track record, I'm probably not pronouncing it correctly.

But Currabine, Ireland.

Joy asks, can you ask Dr. Wellum to explain the limitations that

Christ accepted as he took on human form?

Despite his humanity, he still held the universe in his hands.

How should we understand this apparent perplexity?

Well, I think I know who this Joy is, who's asking from Ireland, and

that question really is at the heart of all of our

worship and adoration and theological reflection on the Jesus of the Bible, because

we have to put a number of truths side by side and not dilute them

in the least.

The first truth is that from the New Testament, the

Lord Jesus is presented as the eternal Son, who's God the Son, who is God equal to

Father and Spirit.

By that meaning, he shares all the divine attributes, all the

divine perfections, all power, all knowledge, and so on.

Yet he also, at a point in time, John 1, 14, the Word became flesh,

and he added to himself a human nature.

Now, what do we mean by human nature?

Well, he added what we have, a body and a soul.

And he then is finite in that human nature.

He is the one who doesn't know everything in that human nature.

You think of Luke 2, 52, he not only was that human nature was

conceived in the Virgin Mary, a virgin conception, but then the Son

of God, in and through that human nature, grew in wisdom and stature and

favor with God and man.

And so you have two things together, two truths together that must be kept

together, and also must both be affirmed that he is fully God and he is

fully man.

And being fully man, the creature is not the creator, in the sense that

the human nature doesn't suddenly become a divine nature.

The human nature remains finite, localized, and spatially tied

to this world, and so on and so on.

And then we then have to say, well, how do we put that together?

And in addition, you've got passages such as Colossians 1, 17

that speak of the Son of God in, as the

Incarnate One.

Paul is describing in Colossians 1, 15 to 20, he says the Son is the image

of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, because he's the firstborn, the ruler over,

preeminent over, because he's the creator of all things.

And then he speaks of him sustaining the universe, Colossians 1, 17, but the

emphasis in the grammar of the text is that he not only has sustained

the universe as the Son, but he continued to sustain the universe, and

continues to sustain the universe, and of course that includes even in the Incarnation, so

that as he takes on a human nature, the Son of

God also is able to simultaneously sustain the universe.

And you say, well, my goodness, how do you put that together?

He's got human limitations of Scripture, he is the Divine Son,

though he has no limitations, he is, even as the Incarnate One, he sustains the universe,

and so on.

Well, I try to wrestle with that, and churches wrestle with that.

We have to affirm properly what we then say, a person

-nature distinction.

The person is the Son from eternity, the subject of the

nature, so the Word, the Son became flesh, so that the Son of God, the person

of the Son, the second person of the Godhead, had a divine nature and

continues to have that, he's fully God.

Yet he also, in taking a human nature to himself, takes human limitations to

himself, so that as the Son, the person of the Son, acts in and

through that human nature, he is now fully human, he is limited in that human nature,

he doesn't make that human nature omnipresent and all -powerful and so on, yet he is not

totally, what we say, circumscribed by, he has another nature, he's always had another nature, is the Son is able

to also act in and through the divine nature simultaneously.

Now, we don't have that in human experience, so we have to be very, very careful that we are led to

a proper affirmation of Scripture, as well as a proper saying, there's nothing in human

experience like, we have to have

his limitations through his human nature, his non, there's no limitation through his divine

nature, the Son of God has two natures, and he is able to act through both of them, and

then we would have to wrestle with when does he act through human nature and our divine nature, and

I try to wrestle with that, but I tie it then to the mission of the Son, the obedience of the Son

becoming last Adam for us, and him acting as our mediator in the

offering to get at an answer to that question that

is very, very, very complex, but so, so important in affirming, rightly, the Jesus of

the Bible.

Amen.

By the way, I forgot to mention earlier that Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who

asked her first question, I forgot to mention to her that she has won a free copy of God, the Son Incarnate

by our guest, Stephen J. Wellam, this is quite the gift you are receiving, this book retails

for $45, and it is a hardback, and it is quite a

gorgeous book, quite a really large book,

and you have gotten this absolutely free of charge by writing in, it's nearly

500 pages long, so please make sure we have your mailing address there in Dauphin County,

Pennsylvania, so cvbbs .com can ship that to you, we thank

our friends at Crossway for providing these books that we're giving away.

Unfortunately, I have to let our friends overseas who have written in questions know that we

cannot ship you free copies of the book because cvbbs .com cannot

afford to take on the financial responsibility of overseas shipping, they would probably go out of business

if they kept mailing our overseas listeners books, so if you do know somebody in

the United States who will ship these books to you, by all means let us know where we can have them

shipped by cvbbs .com, and they can, if they are your friend or family

member in the United States, they can ship it to you.

Thank you very much, our friend, our new listener, or at least our first time questioner,

Joy in Kirrabini, Ireland, we hope to keep hearing from you when we have other guests on the program.

Now for our second native of the Republic of Ireland, we have Mary in Cork,

Ireland, who is actually a primary reason that we're interviewing Dr. Wellman today, she is the one

that gave me a nudge to interview him, and although I already knew about Dr. Wellman and

appreciated his writings and ministry, she was the one that reminded me that I should be

interviewing him, and the rest is history.

But Mary in Cork, Ireland says, Hi Chris and Dr. Stephen, I

am so privileged, blessed, and humbled to be able to sit at Dr. Wellman's feet, as it were, and

listen as he expounds the wonderful glories of the Son of God incarnate.

My heart thrills as the Word of God is explained and is expounded, and I hear God exalted above

all the modern trends and worldviews and the denial of the Jesus of the Bible.

We truly appreciate Dr. Stephen here in the Munster Bible College in Cork, Ireland, and also appreciate all the other

lecturers God has sent us.

Thank you so much, both of you, for a very life -giving interview.

This was just a commendation for you, Dr. Wellman, there was no question there, she just wanted to give

her regards to you.

Now we have Murray in Kenroth, Scotland,

who says, Does Dr. Wellman's book address recent and current controversies regarding.

The Lord's eternal sonship and generation?

Yes, good question.

I do, but not in a detailed, direct fashion.

The reason for that is the controversy, I mean, the issue has been around for quite a

while, but it was about 2016 where it really hit the

blogosphere, and the discussion took place, and the book was already at Crossway

Readings.

It took a while to get out, but it was already in print, and so to go back and change all of that would have

been difficult.

So I'm very, very much fully aware of it, and I was aware of the issue before it actually became

sort of very, very public on the social media front.

And what's taken in the book, it's there, but what the position that's

taken in the book is what I am arguing is a classical Christology that is tried

and true through the history of the ages, and it would not

directly affirm what we now know as sort of eternal relational authority

subordination or submission.

Instead, it would be saying, I think what Scripture says and what the Church has said is

that the Son is the Son who is from the Father, so we speak of that in terms of the

doctrine of eternal generation.

That's just simply trying to get at the Father -Son relationship from all eternity.

Everything we see in Scripture is that the Son is the Son from the Father, and it's not reversed,

so there's a proper order.

But to speak of that ordering and to speak of those

relations of Father to Son to then Spirit in terms of

authority, in terms of higher or hierarchical kind of authority, I don't think is

quite right.

The Son of God in becoming human takes on our role as mediator and is obedient.

It's fitting is the language of the Church that the Son is the one who becomes incarnate because He is the Son from the

Father.

It's not the Father who becomes incarnate or the Spirit, yet the unique obedience of the Son

is tied to the incarnation and His work, yet there is a proper ordering

of persons from all eternity, but it's not the best way to think of that

from eternity in terms of Spirit

of equal authority, yet they express that authority in terms of their relations

as persons.

So the Son expresses His authority from the Father.

John 5 is very important here, He can do nothing on His own, but all that the Father does, He does.

So He has equal glory, equal worship, equal authority and honor, yet He

exercises that authority, the

issue, but not in a detailed, direct way.

It's all there, but it would be more of the classic.

Well, thank you, Murray.

In Kenroth, Scotland, please continue to listen to the program and spread the word there in Scotland and the

UK and beyond.

We look forward to hearing from you and future questions for our guests.

We have, let's see here, we have John in Bangor,

Maine, and John says, I will not mention this name of a very popular

and beloved figure within Christendom who Chris has actually had on his program years ago.

I will not mention him because I believe he has changed his view on this, but do you believe that it is

heresy to believe that Jesus Christ, although He always existed

as the second person of the Godhead, that He did not become the Son until His

incarnation, as that was His role only as a human?

Yes, yeah, I'm familiar with.

That.

You know, that view that was popular a bit ago, and then there was some in the

evangelical world who, some high -profile people that did hold that, but have now rejected that, so it's

important to see that.

No, I do think that that is not a correct position, and that's one of the reasons why the view

got changed, in that the Sonship of the Lord Jesus

Christ has to be very carefully understood across the Scripture, so that what

they were picking up is one stream of biblical presentation of Christ,

which is tied to His humanity.

So if you work from the Old Testament to the New, the promised plan of God, as it

unfolds through the biblical covenants, you have the promise of a seed of the woman to come,

Genesis 3, 15.

That seed of the woman is then given precision and definition, step by step, through the

Old Testament, and in the Old Testament we begin to see the Son of God tied to

not only Adam, but to the nation of Israel, to the Davidic King, and then to

Messiah, so that clearly the Sonship of the Lord Jesus is tied to His

Messianic office.

He is the greater Adam.

He is the true Israel.

He is the great Davidic King.

He is the Son of God in that way.

Yet, and that's where this view took this, and it solely looked at it from that end, but

it's not just that He is the Son of God in His humanity, and that He becomes Son in that humanity.

He has always been Son from eternity.

So John 5, and even John 1, that uses the language of word, word is still in

John's Gospel referring to the Son of God throughout the entire Gospel, so that it's not legitimate

to think of His Sonship as merely human.

It's eternal.

So He's the eternal Son who takes on our humanity, who becomes Sons.

It's important to keep both of those together, which I try to show is tied to the entire storyline of the

Bible.

The eternal Son who is the Lord with the Father and the Spirit also takes on our

humanity to redeem us, and He becomes Messiah.

He becomes the greater Israel, the greater David.

He is the great one who then wins for us our salvation.

So Sonship has to be both deity and His humanity as

well, and that is, I think, the correct way of understanding.

Amen.

Well, thank you, John.

Please give us your full mailing.

Address at bangarmainandcvbbs .com.

We'll send you, absolutely free of charge, this massive $45 hardback, 500 pages long,

by our guest, Dr. Stephen J. Wellam, and we look forward to hearing from you in

the future with other questions for future guests.

I'm going to email you, I'm going to forward you, Dr. Wellam, a question from

Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, because it's a rather lengthy question, and I figured since we're going

to our final break, you could take the time during the break to look over his question.

And I just forwarded it to you, so you'll be happy.

Yep, just got it.

Okay, great.

And if anybody else would like to join us, we still have several of you waiting patiently, I hope you're waiting patiently,

to have your questions asked and answered by Dr. Wellam, and if anybody would like to get in line with them, our email

address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please always remember to give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with the remainder of our interview with Dr. Stephen J. Wellam, right after these

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We are now back with our guest, Dr. Stephen J. Wellam, for the remaining 23

minutes or so, and we have been discussing his book that I hope you all get

a hold of.

If you don't win it today, I hope that you will go out and purchase this book, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ

by Stephen J. Wellam.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And as you know, Dr. Wellam, I sent you, I forwarded you an email from one of our listeners, Joey

in Clifton, New Jersey, and he says, what do you see as the areas for the Doctrine

of the Person of Christ that need to be explored even now?

It seems that heresies that emerge are really reappearances of those that were dealt with

in early church councils, and yet they seem always to take on new forms.

Can you comment on what you see as the latest in formidable heresies that have

developed and or research

that you think should be explored?

And he has another question, but I'll wait till you respond to that.

Yeah, sure.

That's a great question from Joey, and I appreciate it.

I think his observation that heresies in our own present day

often are repeats of the past is exactly correct, and this

is one of the reasons why we must faithfully expound and

teach and proclaim the whole Council of God and also teach

what the Church has said in these areas from history as well.

If we don't learn from history, as many have said before, we're doomed to repeat its mistakes,

and this is too important an area to get wrong.

So that as we do go through, especially in this doctrine, because

there's been such universal consent through the ages, that

the Church has thought very possible false

paths that people have gone, and so as we learn from Church history, it will help us

today because, sadly, people do repeat the past, and they do take

paths and directions.

He asked what new forms are being taken, and

in some sense they're old heresies, but they get combined with sort of current thought in terms

of particularly philosophical thought or definitions of what a divine nature is

and what a person is.

This has happened in the evangelical world where there's been a kind of

borrowing from contemporary psychology and contemporary understanding of what a person is, and

that has led to a denial.

It's a very complicated debate, but

the Church has always affirmed that the capacity of willing is tied to the

natures of Christ, and so that there's two natures, there's two wills, so that the

Son of God is able to will humanly as well as will as he always has

divinely in the sense of his divine nature.

Now today, there's been a redefinition of person, and it brought up

the old what was called Apollinarian heresy, and it then

leads to the implication that there's no human will of Christ.

If there's no human will of Christ, we don't have a human mediator.

We don't have one who can act for us as last Adam and obey for us.

Doctrine of justification will have an impact on this, and so on.

And so that's a serious sort of new form, except it's an old heresy, but it's a

borrowing sort of contemporary definitions of persons and natures and

philosophical terms, and so on.

So those are the things that you have to be very, very careful about.

You see a sort of revising or updating of affirming that the

Son of God, when he took on a human nature, he took on a fallen human nature.

The Church has not said this, and that has to be looked at carefully.

He took on our human nature, yet without sin, but also unfallen, and we would have to then

appeal to the unique work of the Spirit of God at conception, and so on.

But that's something that needs to be even the debate, which is

different on this, is whether the Son of God, as the incarnate Son, could have sinned or could

not have sinned.

Even in the Reformed community, some have taken sides on this.

That's the impeccability debate?

That's the impeccability debate, yes.

And there have been good people on both sides, but the dominant view through the history of the Church has been that the

Son of God could not have sinned.

He was impeccable.

Some have challenged that, and that needs to be explored.

I do think that the traditional view of the Church is correct, that the Son of God experienced

temptation and all of these areas, as Hebrews 2, but he

could not have failed.

He could not have sinned in other areas there.

Other debates that need to be dealt with are tied to the Son in relation to the Trinitarian

issues, the functional subordination, those kind of matters.

Some of those can eventually, if you're not careful, lead to what is called,

will have massive impact on the unified work of God in our salvation,

the cross, the nature of the atonement, and so on.

So these are all areas that need to be

reaffirmed.

Transition needs to be taught once again.

So that what I've discovered in teaching theology now for over 20 -some years, is that on these

key doctrines, you really almost sound new when you're old, because going back

to the old historic position of the Church is far better than the so -called new

things that are arising, and the Church

is a kind of mediator and redeemer that we need.

And usually, the implication of all of these views, if you're not careful, will rob us of the

redeemer that we need.

We need God the Son, who has become human, to redeem us.

And certain views today are so emphasizing Christ's humanity, which is good, but if you

don't have the Trinity as the one who

does the divine work for us, then we will not have a divine redemption as well.

We need a human redeemer, yes, but we also need a divine redeemer to

affirm, to preserve the truth of the.

Gospel.

And Joey's last question is, what do you think of the

terminology of eternal begetting?

Yes, well, the language of eternal begetting is fine, it's the historic

position of the Church, and all that it's trying to do, and more commonly, it's seen as eternal

generation.

So what it's wrestling with is the biblical data that the Son of God is the eternal Son,

but that He's never a son apart from His relation to the Father and the Spirit.

We have a triune God that is the true and living God.

So the Son has always, always existed, but the Son is the Son of the Father.

The Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.

The Father is the one who is the one who initiates, yet He never initiates

independent of His Son.

All of the, of all the persons are, what we say, inseparable.

They're united.

It's one act of the triune God.

Now, eternal generation is trying to think through how the Son is from

the Father, how that is from eternity.

So it's perfectly legitimate, it's a faith -seeking understanding, it's trying to wrestle with the truths

of the biblical data.

The Jesus of the Bible is the eternal, divine Son in relation to the Father and the Spirit,

and eternal beginning or eternal generation is trying to do justice to that, to make sense of that,

and in that area, kept in that domain, it is perfectly

acceptable and perfectly fine, and I think even necessary, to affirm, to get our doctrine of the

Trinity correct,.

And also to get our Christology right.

Well, thank you, Joey, and please give us your full mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey, that's so that's cvbbs .com,

and ship out to you the book, I'm sorry, God the Son Incarnate, by our

guest Stephen Jay Willem.

We have Bob in Hartsdale, New York, who says,

I can recall hearing a very well -known and beloved Christian radio personality

years ago making the horrifying statement that Jesus Christ,

at times, wanted to commit sin, but he did not yield to that

temptation.

The reason why this is such a horrifying statement, obviously, is that this professedly

evangelical Christian speaker, who believes in the inerrancy of scripture, did not even

seem to realize that wanting to commit sin is a sin.

How do we harmonize this fact, that Jesus never

even wanted to commit sin, with this very precious and important text that we have

in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15, for we do not have a high priest who cannot

sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet

without sin?

Yeah, no, we have to be very careful as we.

Put this together, because when we think of, say, Hebrews 4, that he's been

tempted in every way like us, yet without sin, we have to make sure that we're not

pushing that to the nth degree, right?

It's speaking of him in his humanity, tempted like us, but the temptation

has to be carefully understood.

It's not the temptation.

He, obviously, in taking a human nature to himself as a man, is not tempted in certain

areas, such as a woman is tempted, and so on.

So people today see that as a liability.

That's not a liability.

He's tempted in his humanity to not to go the

path of what the Father wants for him.

He never wants to do that.

He's never in desire to do that.

But you think of the rocks, the initial temptation, turn these

rocks into bread.

No, that's a temptation.

He has the ability to do so, but he commits himself to the Father's will, to

do the Father's, to unfold the Father's plan.

What is that plan?

It's ultimately to go to a cross.

He will not bring about the dawning of the kingdom and salvation apart from a death on

a cross, and the obedience to the Father's will, and paying for our sins, and going as our mediator.

So he's tempted at that point to not go the way that the Father will.

That's the greatest temptation, to not do God's

will.

That temptation right before him.

He's hungry.

That hunger is legitimate, yet he does not go that path.

He submits himself gladly to his Father's will, but he

experiences alienation here.

His actions are holy.

His desires are never contrary to his Father's will.

There's a sense in which you go to Gethsemane, and he says, not my will, but yours.

In and through his humanity, he's desiring a holy thing, not a sinful thing.

Yet, I mean, it's a holy thing to want to have continued fellowship with the Father that he's had from

all eternity.

Yet, he knows that he has come to do his Father's will, and obey for us,

and to go to the cross for us.

So I think that's how you put this together, is that his affections are holy, and they're good.

He is not, you know, fallen in his human nature, yet his

temptations to go a different way are not tied to a

wrong motive, or wrong desires, but holy desires.

Yet, he submits to us to the very end, and wins for us our

salvation.

And he knows what it's like to experience hunger.

He knows what it's like to experience the loss of a friend.

He knows what it's like to experience, even in a far greater way than any of us experience, the bearing of our sin.

And the Father, whatever is going on there, which is difficult, when he cries, my God, my God,

why have you forsaken me?

He knows the full effect of living in this fallen world.

And Hebrews 4 is reminding us that the mediator that we have knows what we're going through.

Yet, without sin, he is the Lord who is able to help us in the midst of our

fallenness.

And thank God there is a mediator who actually can save us, and is not wallowing

in fallen desires and affections like we are.

Now, could it be that a part of the explanation is that

we very often, and I don't know how many centuries this has been the case, but when we

read the word tempted, especially in our modern day, we are

immediately, typically transported to the thought of somebody rubbing their chin and

going, I sure would like to do that, instead of an external

temptation that's occurring.

Like, for instance, you could theoretically have a man who is so in love with his wife, and

so incredibly faithful to her, that a woman who is trying to seduce him, while

she is tempting him, he does not even give a thought to betraying his wife.

Am I making sense here?

Yeah, no, I think that's right.

And some of the times that we have to carefully define our terms, we're seeing this in, unfortunately

today, in debates over desire, and

desires, and this type of thing.

We have to be very, very careful how we're defining our terms.

So that, yes, the temptation comes from the outside.

Turn these rocks into bread is legitimate.

He's hungry.

He his love for the Father is to obey his will, to bring about our

salvation, and he does not then say, oh, wow, I'm in a really desire to

want to displease my father here.

That never takes place, yet the temptation outside of him is real.

He knows what hunger is like, and he can experience what we experience in that

regard, but he does not experience sinful desires, sinful affections, sinful wants, and just

resist them.

All of his affections and desires are holy desires, even when he says, not my will, but your will, if there be

any other way, this cup, that's a holy desire, yet he knows that he has come

to the eternal plan of God, and that is that which he then

puts his mind to the, you know, his hand to the plow and sees it through to the end.

Well, thank you very much, Bob.

You have won a free copy of God, the Son Incarnate by our guest Stephen J. Wellam.

Please give us your full mailing address in Hartsdale, New York, so that cvbbs .com can ship it out to you.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says one verse that I

cannot wrap my brain around is Luke 2, 52,

where it says, and Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and

stature in favor with God and men.

I understand how physically his stature would grow, but the part, obviously, that is baffling

me is how he could increase in wisdom if he was truly God and fully God, as well as being fully

man.

Yeah, that's obviously a very, you know, question that is not easy to, you know, just answer

in a quick way, and I think how the Church has sought to think through

that, right?

So you have Luke 2, 52.

You cannot deny what Luke 2, 52 is teaching, just as you have to put that

alongside the fact that he's the Eternal Son who does not grow.

He does have all wisdom.

He has all knowledge, all power, and so on and so on and so on, right?

So you have to put them side by side, but to do justice to Luke 2, 52, you have to

put in place the whole biblical presentation.

So the first thing that has to be put into place is that the Son, the Eternal Son,

the Word, became flesh, right?

John 1, 14.

He added to himself what we would then say is a human nature.

What's a human nature?

Well, we would say a body and a soul, right?

We're not just physical, but we also have an immaterial aspect to us, and the Son, who's the

person from all eternity, is now, through that human nature,

able to experience a full human life.

So that when you think of the Son now adding to himself what we would say a body, you think of He grew

in stature.

Well, we know that from the moment of conception that human nature was added to

the Son, right?

That's hypostatic union.

And so there was from conception all the way through birth, then through

infancy, childhood, teenage years,

adulthood.

Crucial here, this is where we have to then affirm, and this is usually, we're not

exactly sure on all of this in terms of ourselves, we don't fully understand human nature,

but we would say that the Son of God, by a

human mind, right?

And what we mean by human mind is we have to church was very careful in making a person nature

distinction.

So the human mind is a capacity, the ability to think humanly.

So that the Son of God, through that human soul, through that human body, is able to

grow in understanding and in knowledge.

So in and through that humanity, the Son of God did not have, through that humanity,

through that human mind, through that human body, through that human will, omniscience.

He did not have omnipresence.

He wasn't simultaneously everywhere.

Through the divine nature, he is.

So we have to keep two natures together, and the Son of God, through that human nature, grows in

wisdom, stature, favor with God and man.

But we have to also, the Son of God has two natures.

The Son of God is not completely limited to that human nature.

This is one of the challenges of heresies today that move in this direction.

The Son of God is able

all simultaneously.

So that counts favor with God and man in and through his

humanity.

In his deity, he's not growing in wisdom and stature and in knowledge or anything else.

And so person, nature, two natures.

I try to wrestle with that in the book in more detail, but that's how the Church is thought to think through all the

biblical data and to account for it, faith -seeking understanding, and to present to us.

The glory of Christ.

Amen.

Well, thanks, RJ.

And you've also won a free copy of God, the Son Incarnate.

So please send us your full mailing address in Westchester County.

We have Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, and I'm assuming he's

asking about what book other than yours, but he says, what post

-Reformation book on Christology would you most recommend?

Well, I mean, you think of some of the post -Reformation authors, excellent.

John Owen, you can't get better than John Owen on...

Not easy to read, though.

Well, once you sort of get his flow of sentences,

you can sort of work through it.

But he has a whole book on the person of Christ, one of his massive volumes.

You have sections in people, the Francis Turretin in his Systematic Theology, Electric

Theology, and others, those key people.

I do think that Herman Bavink, it's a shorter section, is in his Systematic or

Dogmatic, Reform Dogmatics.

Herman Bavink has a wonderful section on Christology.

David Wells's volume, that's out of print, The Person of Christ, was excellent.

It's a short little volume, you can still get it out of print, probably in some places

used in this type of thing.

Donald MacLeod, the Scottish theologian, The Person of Christ, in the InterVarsity

Press series that was done in the 1990s, excellent volume on The Person of Christ.

All of those are very, very good.

Michael Reeves has some popular book on The Glory of Christ and other books that have been

written as.

Well.

Well, Dr. Willem, I think that we need to get you back on a couple more times to

more thoroughly plunge into the depths of this book that you've written.

And I will send you a calendar.

Of dates that are available if you would like to return.

I would love to do that.

After I finished the book, I said to my wife, I don't think I even scratched the surface.

And that's probably.

An understatement.

Well, you definitely made an effort because it's 500 pages long.

By the way, Gordy, you've also won the last copy of the book, God, the Son Incarnate.

Stop by cvbbs .com on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, since you live so close,

and spare them the expense of shipping the book out to you.

I want to thank you so much, Dr. Willem, for being our guest today.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.