Mat 2:1-12; You Will Not Survive This Journey.

Class Outline:

 

Sunday November 12, 2023

God wants us to pursue the truths of the unknowable identity of the Person of Christ. None of us are going to know the fulness of His identity, but in the pursuit of Him, there are aspects of eternal life that we will find in no other way.

Theme: The identity of Christ in hypostatic union

 

The Son of God adds humanity to Himself through virgin birth.

 

Hypostatic Union:

The Lord Jesus Chris is the Son of God and He became true humanity (material / immaterial) without diminishing His divine attributes.

 

In the person of the incarnate Christ are two natures, divine and human, inseparably united without mixture or loss of separate identity, without loss or transfer of properties or attributes, the union being personal and eternal.

 

HEB 1:3

And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

 

“nature” - hupostasis = substance in contrast to outward manifestation.

 

It would not take very long for false doctrines about this truth to emerge. It should not be hard to see why. Marcion (144 AD) Jesus was a spiritual being separate from the God of the OT. Docetism (200 AD) the Son of God only appeared to be human (from dokein - phantom, to seem).

 

He is material and immaterial human - body, soul, and spirit. This would have been beyond amazing to the minds who first heard it, even Jews.

 

In Jesus Christ is an eternal contrast of strength and weakness, infinity and finiteness, eternity and birth.

 

MAT 2:1-2

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2 "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

 

“In the east” can mean “at the rising”

MAT 2:2

For we saw his star when it rose [ESV]

[click in] Rising (anatole) suggests following.

 

MAT 2:9-11

After hearing the king, they went their way; and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the Child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

 

Oddly, the star went ahead of them and stood over where the child was.

 

Only one other thing in the Scripture behaves like this, but it was not a star.

 

NUM 9:17

Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp.

 

We are not pursuing a cloud, nor a star, but we are pursuing the glory of God - Christ the God / Man.

 

JOH 1:14

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

The language used in JOH 1:14 is colored by reminisces from the Tabernacle, where the glory of God dwelt.

 

EXO 40:34-35

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

 

This, the reality that Moses could have never hoped to see, is what you and I are after. Don’t miss it for the world!

 

Aspects of the Hypostatic Union:

 

The incarnation of the Son of God is impossible to comprehend or put into words.

 

Deity either is or is not. A created Son of God is not God. Deity cannot be diminished - if it is, it is not deity.

 

COL 1:15-20

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

 

COL 2:9

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,

 

“By His advent into the world Christ became the fulfiller of all Divine purposes and all OT expectation and the answer to the need of a lost world.” [LS Chafer, Systematic Theology]

 

He descended from heaven and was born from a virgin. He is the sole adequate interpreter of God and God’s glory.

 

The two natures of Christ can be considered separately, but they cannot be separated. This was understood immediately in the church. It was not something that over time became legend and myth.

 

1TH 1:9-10 [~50 AD]

you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus,

 

The Son of God, infinitely superior to angels came to earth (lower than angels) on a mission of mercy.

 

EPH 4:13

until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

 

One of the things we will discover along the journey to know the mystery of Christ is love.

 

EPH 4:14-16

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

 

This will be the most frightening and costly journey you could ever take. What you will find will be infinitely priceless.