Article 9 - Jesus

You like steak and lobster? Neither one of those are on the menu for Wednesday night, just to be very clear. This one. As I was making my coffee tonight, I was pouring some sugar in and it just went so the whole bottom of the cup is just nothing but one.

Well, I'm gonna waste it and honestly, I don't like the taste of coffee. I just like the sugar taste anyway. Hey, truth is truth. Coffee, I have to kill coffee with cream and sugar and all kinds of stuff and I do want to, again, shameless plug here, you know, Brother Andy talking about the authority of the Word of God.

He mentioned about the King James. Today's podcast, and I do a podcast every week, today's podcast is about the question of the King James Version. Should that be the only version we use? So if you're interested in that particular subject, there's a 30-minute lesson that went live today, so you can look it up and find it.

The Person and Work of Jesus Christ in Article 9

We are on Article 9 and this begins a section of the confession that is going to focus us in on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the next several weeks, Brother Andy and I are going to be going through the articles.

Tonight, we will have Article 9, but next week Andy's going to do 10, 11, and 12 because it looks at Christ as the mediator and I'm going to do 13 and 14 because it continues on with Christ as mediator.

So just just so you know, we're going to be we're going to be combining a few as we look at the person and work of Jesus Christ and before we read the confession, can I say that when we talk about the person of Jesus Christ, that tends to be unfortunately, one of the most debated and confused subjects in modern history.

When you hear people talk about Jesus, it's almost never that you know exactly who they're talking about until you start digging into it with them. If somebody comes to your door, can we talk about Jesus?

Aren't you just afraid because you have no idea what's going to come flying out of their mouth? You know, if somebody came to your door and said, can we talk about Jesus? Do you expect that you're going to have a good Christological conversation?

Honestly, that could happen. You know, I've had a few churches that went door-to-door and had a great conversation about Jesus, but ordinarily the people that come to your door, rap-rap-rapping upon your chamber door, are the people who want to give you the false view of Jesus.

Whether it be the Aryan view of Jesus, which is proposed by the Jehovah Witnesses, or whether it is the false view of Jesus as the son of Elohim, a man who once lived on another planet. That is the view of the Mormons.

Mormonism is science fiction, bro. If you don't... sorry, bro. Mormonism is odd. Well, let me just say this. Islam is closer to biblical Christianity than Mormonism. As far as their view of... what's that?

It is. It's very confusing. Their view of Jesus is very contrived and not biblical in any way, shape, or form. And yet, they look very, you know, they're clean-cut, nice, you know, boys on 10 speeds, nice t-shirt, or church ties, you know.

They would present themselves as very Christian, and yet, they're polytheistic. They believe in many gods. They believe you can become a god, you know. They believe their god was once a man. Therefore, you're a man.

You can become a god. So there's a lot of... there's a lot of things. When you just say Jesus, there's a lot of confusion. And so I'm thankful that our ancestors, the men who wrote this confession 400 years ago, took the time to enunciate the things that are most essential for us to believe about the person of Jesus.

And like I said, it's not just tonight's article, but the articles in the weeks to come. But tonight's article gives us somewhat of an overview. So we're going to look at tonight, and I have 12 points.

I got a lot of sugar in me. But what I'm saying, there are 12... There are 12 truths that are affirmed in this article of the confession. So we're gonna look at 12 truths that this confesses. We're gonna read it first.

So we'll read it as it's written. The Lord Jesus Christ, of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, the Apostles preached, He is the Son of God, the brightness of His glory, etc., by whom He made the world, who upholdeth and governeth all things that He hath made, who also, when the fullness of time was come, was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham and David, to wit of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her, the power of the Most High overshadowing her.

And He was also tempted as we are yet without sin. Now, if you're familiar with the scriptures, you'll note, as I mentioned last week, all the article is is just a restatement of many passages. It's just basically taking... and you'll see at the bottom there how it gives us passages from Genesis and Daniel and Proverbs and the New Testament as well, John and Hebrews and Galatians.

It's basically taking bits and pieces of these passages and putting them together for us into what I would say is a 12-part basic Christology. And here are the 12 parts. I don't know if you want to try to write them down.

You don't have to. By the way, if you ever want, just photocopy my notes. Then you don't have to sit there and try to break your hands writing. Just come get it when we're done, make a photocopy or take a picture of it with your phone.

But here are the 12 truths that are affirmed in this article. Number one, Jesus is Lord. Now, that may seem simple, but I met a lot of people who don't believe Jesus is Lord. I've met a lot of people who believe Jesus is a good teacher.

I met a lot of people who believe Jesus was some form of prophet. But there are people who believe, as you said, Confucius is a prophet. There are some people who believe Nostradamus was a prophet. And so to say Jesus is a prophet, unless you define what you mean by that, there's really no meaning to it.

So the first thing that we see is they indicate the Lord Jesus Christ, identifying him as Lord. This is only the second time the name Jesus has come up in the confession. We are now nine articles in, but he was mentioned one time in a few articles before as the one who saves us.

But now we are getting to his person and work. Jesus is Lord. That's number one. Number two, Jesus was written of in the law of Moses and the prophets. Let me ask you a question. I don't know how you guys are on your biblical history as far as dates, but approximately, and again, approximately, Jackie, I'm going to look to you because you've been in all my classes.

She's my academy superstar. She's been to all the classes so far, except for Greek. Didn't take Greek. No pressure, Jackie. So if we put Jesus as 2 ,000 years ago, you know, 2 ,000 years ago from us, and then we go backward in time to the, what we would call the BC, before Christ era, where would we put Moses and his writings?

How long before the cross? Approximately 1 ,450 years. So right around 1 ,500 years is the time of Moses. So we have about 1 ,500 years before Jesus. Now, just to go back for a second, I want to show you something kind of cool.

If you go back another 500 years, you get to Abraham, right? And the reason why this is kind of neat is because from Abraham to Adam, there's about a 2 ,000 year spread. This is how we start coming up with the age of the earth based on genealogies and things.

We have 2 ,000 years before the law, and we have 2 ,000 years of the law, and we have 2 ,000 years post the law, or in the new covenant era. And so, 1 ,500 years, about the time of Moses, when Moses wrote.

So when this passage says, or when this confession says, Moses wrote about Jesus, they're saying Jesus was talked about 1 ,500 years before he came on the scene. Open up your Bibles. Open up. I can't help but at least look at one passage.

Now, this is not Moses. This, we're going to look at Isaiah. But this, Isaiah comes in around 700 B .C., all right? So Isaiah, 700 years before Jesus. And just listen to this and what it says. Beginning at verse 3.

Isaiah 53, beginning at verse 3. This is one of the ones the confession actually cites. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. That's about Jesus. It was written 700 years prior to his birth. And so, I remember a lady came to my office.

I think I've told this story before, but it's a good story, so I'll tell it again. A lady came to my office one time and she said, you know, she was new. She visited the church, never seen her before.

After church, she said, can I talk to you? Yes, we walked into my office and she says, you know, I just don't know if I believe in Jesus. I said, okay, and we began to talk about why not. She had questions about the integrity of the Bible, as Brother Andy was just referring to.

And I said, well, let me just share something with you. I said, I want to read a passage, and I read what I just read to you. I said, who is this about? That's about Jesus. I said, this was written 700 years before Jesus was born.

Her eyes were very, like, wide open. Okay, now I understand. This book is a book that is from God, by God, and for God's people. And so, we have Jesus written about by Moses and the prophets. And this is obviously the prophets.

Moses talks about Christ. In fact, this Sunday, I'm preaching Genesis 12, verses 1 to 3, where the Bible says Abraham received the gospel. Paul says that in Galatians chapter 3. He says, God preached the gospel to Abraham.

Imagine God preached the gospel to Abraham. This is an amazing reality. And what's the gospel? Through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed. How will they be blessed? Through your seed. Who is the seed?

Jesus Christ. He is the seed of the woman, Genesis 3 .15. He is the promised seed of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. In fact, that's one of the things that's mentioned here. Let's move on because I have ten more, and I'll run out of time if I do this with everyone.

So, it says Jesus was written of in Moses and the prophets. It goes on to say Jesus was preached by the apostles. One of the great things that we have that confirm our faith is the preaching of the apostles because they signed their sermons in their own blood.

Those men went to their deaths, not for what they believed, but for what they had seen and beheld with their own eyes and their own hands. They saw the risen Jesus. They held his hands, his nail-scarred hands, and they proclaimed Jesus to the world.

Paul going all the way to Rome and Greece with the gospel. Thomas going to Asia with the gospel. Amazing. That's actually not in the book of Acts, but the Thomasian church is found through Asia. That's where he went.

And so, we have history. These men went and died for the truth. So, not only is he written of by Moses and the prophets, but he is preached by the apostles. Then it goes on. It says Jesus is the son of God, the brightness of his glory, and I love that they write et cetera.

And I've got to just imagine. And again, this is a little sanctified imagination. I just imagine they're sitting around going, we could put so much here. Jesus is the brightness of his glory, the radiance of his majesty, and so on.

So, we just put et cetera. Because he's so much. And that little et cetera there is to indicate there's more, not less. He is God's son. This is an amazing thing to even consider Jesus as the son of God.

You know, that was the cause of Jesus' issues with most of the religious teachers because he identified God as father. Go through the old covenant scriptures. You do not find God being referenced as father in the same way Jesus referenced God as father.

Because in the old covenant, the fatherhood of God was more on like a creator perspective. God was the father in the sense that he made us. Abraham was the father in the familial sense. God was the father in the creative sense.

But Jesus puts God in the familial. God is our father. And how did he teach us to pray? Our father. He says, my father sent me to do his will, and I have come to do my father's will. And Jesus spoke of the father as relational and imminent.

And Jesus declared himself the son of God and the brightness of God's glory. Now, from a Trinitarian perspective, not that this is in the confession, but it's important to note, we talk about the sonship of God.

The sonship of God is not something that happened in time. The sonship of God is something we reference as something that is eternal. We call Christ the eternal son of God. Therefore, he is both son of God and God the son.

So we affirm both. Number four was that one. So number five, sorry. Jesus is the agent of creation. Notice it says he is the son of God, the brightness of his glory, etc. By whom he, that being God the father, made the world.

Christ is the agent of creation. We see this in John chapter one. Turn with me to John one. Again, the guys who are the men who wrote this confession are not simply pulling things out of thin air. They're they're affirming what the scripture says.

And in the gospel of John, it tells us this very thing. It says. In the beginning was the word. The word there is referring to Jesus, of course, it says in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. The hands that Mary held in the in the first day of his birth. In a sense, were the hands that created all things.

And there's the song, Mary, did you know? You know that this child that you've delivered will soon deliver you. This is. The agent of creation. Honestly, that that that should cause us to should cause us to be in awe.

Number six. He's also not only the agent of creation, but he's the one who upholds and governs all things. Notice it says that it says he uphold it. Throwing that nice Elizabethan English, he uphold it and governeth.

That's right. That's the way it should be. Right, brother? Should be upholded and governeth all things that he hath made. How many things did Christ make? All things. Therefore, he upholds how much? All things.

And he governs how much? All things. I mean, yell it out when you know. Yeah, it's all because it says he upholds and governs all things that he made. Well, what did he make? All things. And therefore, it is the promise or the truth, rather, of Christ that he he upholds our life.

I've over the years have been moments that were really meaningful in my life. And one of the most meaningful was just the day I realized that apart from Christ holding my life together, I would cease to exist.

He not only keeps my heart beating in my chest, he keeps my very life in his hand. He ensures that I continue to be. You know, Descartes said, I think, therefore I am. And what he meant was, I don't know if I exist, but I think.

And my thoughts prove to me that I exist, because if I didn't exist, I wouldn't think. And therefore, thought proves existence. We've talked about that in apologetics, right? It's actually not the case.

It's not true. Your thoughts don't prove anything because you can't trust your thoughts unless there's some reason to trust your thoughts. But why do we trust our thoughts? Because God made us to think.

C .S. Lewis said, if I didn't believe my brain was made for thinking, I would have no reason to trust my thoughts. Therefore, when I think about the fact that my whole life, my whole being, my whole understanding, rationality, logic, and everything else that I have is because Christ upholds me and governs my life.

My life is not by chance. We talked about that last week in Providence. But it's upheld and governed by him who made me. Number seven. Jesus was born of a woman. Which is pretty standard. I mean, pretty standard.

So why does that matter? Why does that matter? A couple things. This is actually a citation from Galatians. It says, in the fullness of time, God brought forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.

And when I preached on this, I preached through Galatians at Set Free, and I talked about this. I said, why does he stress born of a woman? Everybody's born of a woman. Yes, but Jesus is born of woman only.

He's not born of the union of man and woman. He's born through a miraculous intervention of virgin conception, which brings about a birth of the woman without the agency of the man. He's born of woman, and it says, of the tribe of Judah.

This is the next, number eight. He was of the tribe of Judah. Why does that matter? Because that was the prophetic promise. The Messiah, and you can get this because this is going to be huge in our study of Genesis.

The Messiah is the high priest of our covenant, but he does not come through the priestly line. You see, the priestly line was the line of Levi. That was the line of Moses and Aaron. That was where the priests were born out of.

Yet, in Genesis, Judah receives a promise. Judah's promise is the scepter, that being the king's rod. The scepter will not depart from your house. There will be a king who comes from your loins. Of course, that king was David, but it wasn't just David.

David becomes the line of Jesus, who is the son of who? David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the son of David. Jesus is in the line of David. That scepter that was promised to Judah was for Christ.

So, Jesus is in the line of Judah. He holds that scepter as king. He is prophet. He is priest, and he is king. The Bible says he is the lion of the tribe of Judah. He came once as a lamb. He will come back as a lion.

Number nine, he is the descendant of Abraham and David. That's an important reality that we should not forget. Jesus is in the line of Abraham and the line of David. Real quick, we have two genealogies for Jesus in the Bible.

Anybody tell me why we have two genealogies in the Bible? One, because of Ruth. I think what you're thinking about is that one gives the line through the mother's side, which that's what people believe is in the gospel of Luke, because Luke and Matthew's genealogy are a little bit different.

But the genealogies are different in this way. Matthew's genealogy only takes Jesus back to Abraham, because Matthew is concerned with proving that Jesus is the king of the Jews. Therefore, he doesn't have to prove anything beyond Abraham.

He just has to prove his connection to Abraham. But Luke takes Jesus back to Adam, because Luke is not demonstrating Jesus as son of Abraham. He's demonstrating him as the son of God. He's demonstrating him as a true man, son of man, son of God.

And so we have both of them showing through the line of Abraham. Number ten, we have Jesus was born of a virgin. Now, that was similar to number seven. We said Jesus born of a woman. Well, it says specifically the Virgin Mary, and it gives the outline of how that took place.

The Holy Spirit come upon her, come down upon her. The power of the most high overshadowed her. We celebrate that every December, don't we? The number 11, Jesus was tempted as we are. A lot of people take issue with that because they say, well, Jesus had divine prerogatives that we do not have.

He had divine power that we do not have. How could it be said that Jesus was tempted as we are? Think of this. Jesus never once gave in to sin. You have never not given in to sin. So his temptation in that sense could be seen as greater because it was greater in the sense that his was compounded by the fact that he never gave in.

We have all at one time or another given in. Jesus never gave in, and that's number 12. He was without sin. That is confirmed in the Gospels. That is confirmed throughout the epistles and confirmed very specifically in the book of Hebrews, which Hebrews 415, this is the last text on your list.

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every way was tempted as we are, yet without sin. Christ was without sin. So what we have in Article 9 is we have a very basic Christology, and in the weeks ahead we're going to stress that further.

Now I have a few final things I want to say, but does anybody have any questions about what the Confession says about Jesus? Pretty standard stuff, but anybody have any concerns or questions? Now when I say standard, I don't mean, this is powerful, but it's still nothing here.

This is very similar. I was looking at it and I was thinking about the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. A lot of this is the same that the Church has always confessed about Jesus, born of a woman, born of a virgin, all of those things which are listed here.

But one of the things that needs to be understood is that Christology, the study of Jesus, has been a divisive subject in Church history. The early Gnostics believed Jesus didn't really have a body. They believed Jesus was basically a living spirit, but that he didn't have a body, because the Gnostics believed they were dualists.

They believed that matter is bad and spirit is good. Therefore, if Jesus had a body, he had a bad, and he didn't have any bad, so he couldn't have a body. And that sort of still lives today in modern dualistic religions such as Taoism, things like that.

You've seen the yin and yang symbol, positive, negative. That's a form of dualism. Arians would later deny Jesus was divine. The early Gnostics denied his humanity. The later Arians denied his divinity.

And some people believed that he didn't have a human nature. They believed he only had a divine nature. By the time of the Reformation, that was basically settled. One of the things we don't see during the time of the Reformation is a lot of debating on the Trinity, a lot of debating on the nature of Jesus.

In fact, history students, when did the debates on the nature and person of Jesus happen? The first four centuries of the Church. The first four centuries of the Church. That leads us to the Council of Nicaea 325 and the later councils, Constantinople and things like that that happened later.

But specifically, it was the early Church that was battling with the Gnostics and the Arians and others on these subjects. And so by the time of the Reformation, which is, again, right before this confession was written, these things were well understood and not really up for debate anymore.

There was one guy historically that I can think of that wanted to deny the Trinity. He wanted to come out opposed to the Trinity. His name was Michael Servetus. He was a doctor, pretty smart guy. He discovered the circulatory system of the human body, very intelligent man.

And he actually tried to get the Reformers to deny the Trinity. And he ended up being burned in Geneva. By that time, it was an accepted reality. This is not what we're debating. We debate justification by faith.

That was the big debate of the Reformation, debating the role of the ministers in the Church and the ecclesiology of the Church. But the doctrines of Christ were well founded and not up for debate. And there are still today those who deny Christ's deity.

We mentioned them already, the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses. And it's important that we understand one thing, and I'll close with this. Christ is more than doctrine, but he's not less. You'll hear people say all the time, I don't want to talk about doctrine, I just want to talk about Jesus.

You can't do it. Because unless you identify who you're talking about, and that is where doctrine comes in, you really can't have a meaningful conversation about who you're talking about. So certainly Jesus is more than doctrine, but he is not less.

And having a right Christology is essential. People don't have to understand the fullness of the Trinity and the hypostatic union and all those things that we refer to when it comes to Christ, but we should all be able to understand what's in this article.

Amen? There's nothing in this article that really should be confusing or up for debate. It tells us in a very basic way who Jesus is. So I hope that was helpful.