Extra Calvinisticum

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I seem to have a frog in my proverbial throat.

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I'm glad you tuned in today to listen and learn hopefully and we want to talk about the

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Lord Jesus who never compromised. Over the years we've switched from a discernment ministry to a ministry that talks about the

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Lord Jesus who never compromised and you can write us info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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Well, what's on... I was going to say on tap but that doesn't seem to make much sense. It's a Christian show, right?

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What's on draft? Root beer.

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We could have ginger beer. We could have root beer. We could have birch beer, right?

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You could have birch beer. That's something you could have. What else could you have as a Christian? You could have non -alcoholic beer.

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O'Doul's. When I was growing up, the non -alcoholic beer, the only one was called

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Near Beer. Maybe N -E -E -R -B -E -E -R or maybe it was

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N -E -A -R. It's close to it. That's what they were trying to promote. Anyway, we could probably talk about Bud Lighter, all kinds of things, but this is not a show about alcohol or beer or anything like that.

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What I want to talk about today derives from my exposition in the

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Gospel of Jesus according to Luke. And here's what I want to talk about today.

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I want to talk about the extra. The extra. What do you mean the extra?

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Is that some kind of beer brand? Of course not. The extra Calvinisticum. The extra

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Calvinisticum. And I have pulled up several articles from the internet, off the internet, called them

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C -U -L -L -E -D. And I want to talk about the extra

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Calvinisticum. And before you tell me that I'm plagiarizing, I'm telling you that I got these from the internet, from a variety of sources.

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And I'll probably put some of my own words in there. But I want to talk about this doctrine that I think one man said, a biblical doctrine with a silly name or something like that.

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If you just say the extra, people should know if they're in the know. This is the extra

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Calvinisticum. And you're like, what in the world is that? Listen to John Calvin in the

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Institutes. When the Son of God was incarnate, his divine attributes, immutability, immensity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, were not given up or diminished, even if they were veiled.

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The incarnation involves addition or multiplication, not subtraction or division.

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When you think about the incarnation, it's called the mystery of godliness in 1

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Timothy 3, verse 16. What happened there? Did, in fact,

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Jesus give up attributes? What was going on when Jesus was in the womb of Mary?

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That's a good question right there. Probably we need to start off by saying Jesus' incarnation, he has two natures, correct?

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Human nature, divine nature. I think you probably would agree with that. And you would probably believe one person, right?

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And did Jesus leave behind divine attributes when he took on human flesh?

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That's what we're talking about today at No Compromise Radio Ministry. Calvin goes on.

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But some are carried away with such contentiousness as to say that because of the natures joined in Christ, wherever Christ's divinity is, there also is his flesh, which cannot be separated from it.

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Okay, so now you see where Calvin's going. But from scripture, he said, we plainly infer that one person of Christ so consists of two natures, that each nevertheless retains unimpaired in its own distinctive character.

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Surely when the Lord of glory is said to be crucified, 1 Corinthians 2, 8, Paul does not mean that he suffered anything in his divinity.

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But he says this because the same Christ who was cast down and despised and suffered in the flesh was

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God and Lord of glory. In this way, he was also son of man in heaven, John 3, for the very same

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Christ who according to the flesh dwelt as son of man on earth, was God in heaven.

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In this manner, he is said to have descended to that place according to his divinity, not because divinity left heaven to hide itself in the prison house of the body, but because even though it filled all things, still in Christ's very humanity, it dwelt bodily,

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Colossians 2, that is by nature and in a certain infallible way.

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Hang in there with me, dear NoCo listeners. There's a commonplace distinction of the schools to which

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I'm not ashamed to refer. Although the whole Christ is everywhere, still the whole of that which is in him is not everywhere.

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And that should, and would that the schoolmen themselves had honestly weighed the force of the statement for thus would the absurd fiction of Christ's carnal presence have been obviated, end quote,

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John Calvin Institutes. All right, what are we after here? Well, as some have asked, who upheld the world before the incarnation?

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Well, you could say the triune God did. And of course, if we thought about inseparable operations, the father, the spirit, but of course, we would also add with Colossians one and Hebrews chapter one, that Jesus, or you could say the son of God, the eternal son, before the incarnation, he upheld the universe, right?

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He upholds the universe by the word of his power, Colossians 1 17. That's, sorry, that's

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Hebrews 1, 2, Colossians 1 17, and in him, all things hold together. Who upheld the world before the incarnation?

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The son did. The next question, as we think about the extra, who upheld the world during Christ's earthly pilgrimage 2000 years ago.

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So when Christ was on the earth, the eternal son takes on human flesh, assumes human flesh, who was upholding the universe then?

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Well, I hope you say the eternal son. Question three, who upholds the world now?

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I hope you say the son. So you see where we're going here? What happens when

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Jesus is in the womb of Mary? Remember, the Holy Spirit overshadows

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Mary, quite delicate language, nothing of the sort that is of pagan mythology and kind of gross sexual talk.

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The Holy Spirit overshadows, think tabernacle, think

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God's presence when there's an overshadowing. And of course, God was present because the

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Holy Spirit, he is God. The world is upheld by the eternal son of God.

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It has always been upheld and will always be upheld by the son.

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The triune God upholds the universe and he, the triune God, as the language goes, subsists eternally as the father, the son, and the

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Holy Spirit. And they will and act and do things and operate inseparably as one

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God, because there is only one God. Now let's think about a little bit.

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The Lord Jesus, he was younger, he grew and he learned and he did everything a human would, right?

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His person, he, how would he be real human if he didn't learn and grow?

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He'd have to be. So that his human nature, he learned and grew.

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But what about his divine nature? Immutable, eternal? Yes. Do you think so?

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Zacharias Ursinus, think Heidelberg Catechism, 1563. Question 47, by the way, this is for Scott Clark.

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I'm hardly on social media anymore. So Scott, I don't know what you're doing these days, but you're probably doing something provocative.

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Question 47, but isn't Christ with us until the end of the world as he promised us?

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Answer, Christ is true man and true God. In his human nature, Christ is not now on earth, but in his divinity, majesty, grace, and spirit, he is never absent from us.

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Question 48, if his humanity is not present wherever his divinity is, then aren't the two natures of Christ separated from each other?

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Answer, certainly not. Since divinity is not limited and is present everywhere, it is evident that Christ's divinity is surely beyond the bounds of his humanity that has been taken on.

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But at the same time, his divinity is in and remains personally united to his humanity.

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All right, now let's think through this a little bit. Jesus in the womb, he, human nature in the womb, where's his divine nature?

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Well, divine nature is omnipresent. Well, let's make it easier because Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1,

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Jesus, baby, weak, small. I mean, what can a child do?

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But he is upholding the universe, even in the womb of Mary.

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That's pretty amazing. That should make us scratch our heads, be in awe, wonder, worship.

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One writer said, the one in the manger is both swaddled tightly, yet filling the heavens. Clinging to his mother, yet holding every

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Adam in place. Crying for comfort, yet sustaining the stars. Sleeping among the donkeys, adored by the angels.

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Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity.

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Here's an easier quote from Calvin. The Son of God descended miraculously from heaven, yet without abandoning heaven, was pleased to be conceived miraculously in the virgin's womb, to live on the earth and to hang upon the cross, and yet always filled the world as from the beginning.

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This is important to think about, and it will help you if you realize that Jesus on earth, right, the incarnation, he assumes human nature.

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So, he has divine nature, and he doesn't get rid of that when he assumes human nature.

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He assumes human nature, and he always has divine nature. How can you have a

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God less than God? How can you take away something? So, if God is invisible,

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God is immutable, God is simple, God is omnipresent, God is omnipotent, what we are not saying at the incarnation is that any divine attributes, any divine perfections, any of the essence of God, the nature of God is changed.

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We can't have that. We have, if you will, I don't like to use the word addition, so let's use took on flesh, or let's use assumed human nature, but it's definitely not a subtraction.

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While maybe you don't want to talk about addition, you can't use subtraction.

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So, today on No Compromise Radio, we are talking about the extra

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Calvinisticum, and Calvinist didn't come up with this bad name. I believe in it.

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If memory serves me correctly, maybe the Lutherans did it, and you can think about the Lutherans and even their view of the

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Lord's Supper, consubstantiation, in, with, by, under, a variety of different prepositions, and I'm not going to get into that part right now.

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I am just trying to tell you that there are two natures, and the two natures yield not perplexion, really, being perplexed, excuse me, but I want you to think of wonder and praise and amazement.

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Jesus upholds the universe. He always has. So, no matter where He is, He's upholding the universe, because how could

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God be less than God wherever He was? I'll just decide not to be God in these particular attributes right now, and this hyper -canonic emptying language that has often been misthought of, misused, thought of wrongly.

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Athanasius. We like Athanasius. Why aren't there churches called Athanasius Bible Church?

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Well, because we're not going to worship Athanasius, but we realize that Jesus gave gifts to men, Ephesians chapter 4, and one of those gifts was a man named

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Athanasius, and here's what he wrote. For he was not enclosed, he's talking about the

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Lord Jesus, he was not enclosed in the body, nor was he in the body, but not elsewhere, nor while he moved, that body was the universe left void of his activity in providence.

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But what is most marvelous, that's what we're after here, I want you to be marveling about this, being the word, he was not contained by anyone, but rather himself contained everything, and as being in all creation, he is in essence outside of everything by his own power, arranging everything and unfolding his own providence in everything to all things.

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Notice what he's doing there? Encompassing language, all. We're not talking about relative all, we're talking about absolute all.

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Does all mean all? On this particular case, it is inclusive all, it is overarching all, it isn't relative all, and giving life to each thing and to all things together, containing the universe and not being contained, but being holy,

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WH, in every respect, in his own father alone.

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So also being in the human body and himself giving it life, he properly gives life to the universe also, and was both in everything and outside of all.

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So, to repeat, the eternal Son assumes human nature. He now has divine nature, human nature, right?

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Divine will, human will. I mean, to be human, you have to have a will. One person. And Jesus upholds the universe by the word of his power, and in him all things hold together before the incarnation, during the incarnation, and after the incarnation.

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That's amazing. That is very, very interesting to me, and something I don't know if I heard about for a long, long time.

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Did Jesus leave behind divine attributes? That would be the ultimate left behind series, because if he did, you'd all be left behind, and so would

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I. What hope would we have with a mutable God?

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Two natures. Maybe it starts with that, with the incarnation, thinking about two natures in one person.

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That's a good place to think about the extra. Now, there's a little punk rock band called

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Chalcedon. Oh, sorry. It was a council. Here's what was said there. To be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.

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The distinction of the natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved.

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So, stop there for a second. Remember, for Jesus to be our representative and substitute, he couldn't be a hybrid type of third thing with a mingling and a mashing of the human and the divine all put together, so now he's something not really

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God and something not really human. You should see what my hands are doing right now. They're making funny things.

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I mean, if you had a weird mixture of God and human, something like this might be said.

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It would be a circus.

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It would be a dog -faced boy. It would be a boy -faced dog. We can't have that to be our substitute and representative.

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He had to be human. Of course, he's more than human. That's true. Chalcedon goes on, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person and one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same son.

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Now, I can't figure out, but I don't think this part is Chalcedon. I think someone else wrote this.

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Let's see if it's right. Whatever we can say about either of Christ's nature, we can say truly about the person of Christ, but not everything we can say about one of the

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Christ's natures can we say about the other. That's good. I don't know who wrote that, but I would agree.

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What do you think about this, Are you a Lutheran? Are you a Calvinist? Do you believe in the extra?

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Did God, the Son, die on the cross? Did God die on the cross?

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Did... See where this is going to go. This takes us back to incarnation and the mystery of godliness.

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Don't forget, this is 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. Remember that great hymn, that great confession found as Paul is writing to Timothy about manifest in the flesh.

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That's what we're talking about here. By the way, even the word in 1 Timothy 3, 16, manifest in the flesh should make you think the eternal existence of the

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Son, begotten, not made, being of substance with the Father. Through whom all things were made.

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I was trying to memorize the Nicene Creed the other day because I memorized it then when I was a Lutheran. And then

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I thought it was just what Lutherans do. And I wanted to get rid of everything Lutheran, all things Lutheran.

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If I pull up the Nicene Creed now, I wonder if I would,

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I wonder if I'd like it. I wonder if you'd like it. I'd wonder if it would help us with thinking about the incarnation properly.

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And I think you would say, yes, that's exactly what it will do. I believe in one God, the

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Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in all things visible and invisible. And in one

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Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the

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Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very

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God, in case we forgot, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the

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Father by whom all things were made. All right, now let's work toward incarnation here in Nicene Creed.

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Who, we're still talking about the one Lord Jesus, for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.

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He suffered and was buried. And the third day he rose again, according to the scriptures, and he ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the

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Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge the living or the quick and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end.

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Interesting, very, very interesting. So my name is Mike Abendroth. This is

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No Compromise Radio. We're talking about the extra Calvinisticum. And I want you to remember the incarnation that the

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Son assumed human nature and he has two natures. And I don't want you to ever think that Jesus is less than God.

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I don't want you to ever think that God, the Son stopped being what he was because God is.

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And since he's immutable, well, that's going to help us. If you want to say, sometimes didn't, you know,

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Jesus didn't just, you know, he, well, certainly he's veiled.

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You could say that. But notice, I'm just, I'm trying to be very, very careful as I talk about this. What about Augustine?

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Did he help us? And we think that something impossible to believe is told to us about the omnipotence of God.

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When we are told that the word of God, by whom all things were made, took flesh from a virgin and appeared to mortal senses without destroying his immortality or infringing his eternity or diminishing his power or neglecting the government of the world or leaving the bosom of the

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Father, where he is intimately with him and in him. Maybe that's the best quote so far.

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Thinking rightly, he takes, Jesus takes on, you know, the eternal Son takes on flesh from a virgin and appeared to mortal senses without destroying his immortality or infringing his eternity or diminishing his power or neglecting the government of the world.

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The divine nature of Jesus, the incarnate Son, did he stop holding up the universe?

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Was he no longer eternal? His divine nature? Was he mortal in his divine nature?

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These are wonderful questions. Athanasius, for he was not as might be imagined circumscribed in the body, nor, while present in the body, was he absent elsewhere?

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Nor, while he moved the body, was the universe left void of his working in providence? But thing most marvelous, word as he was, so far from being contained by anything, rather he contained all things himself.

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And just as while present in the whole creation, he is at once distinct in being from the universe and present in all things by his own power, giving order to all things, and over all and in all revealing his own providence, and giving life to each thing and all things, including the whole without being included, but being in his own

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Father alone. So, as I repeat, Athanasius, it's important for us as readers of the

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Bible to think rightly about the incarnation and not come up with some hybrid of God -man, and now we have a third thing, right?

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Not truly God, not truly man, but a weird thing. And I'm not saying the God -man's weird, I'm just saying two distinct natures in one person.

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We also need to be careful that we don't divest Jesus of any divine attribute, because then he wouldn't be

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God and God can't do that anyway. Divest himself of power or omnipresence or immutability or simplicity or aseity.

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How could that happen? Inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably.

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Maybe that's the new no -co theme. The four I's to help us with the

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I incarnation. Inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.

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So, let's not leave Jesus behind, and then we're left behind.

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Let's not let Jesus leave behind any divine attributes or perfections or whatever you want to call them. His nature, his essence, his ontological being, that can't happen.

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The God -man, the God -man, that should help us understand two natures.

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Inconfusably, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably. My name is Mike Abenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Thanks for listening.

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This was a fun one. The Extra Calvinisticum coming to a podcast near you.