May 9, 2025 • 58 mins
Every day we experience what it means to be in Adam; sweat, hardship, sin, pain, sickness, etc. But are we experiencing what it means to be in Christ? This takes some energy on our part, not works to justify our faith, but thoughtful faith in Christ as we trust Him and rely upon Him. Here's the point, we should be thinking about who Christ fully is and then trusting in Him more since we understand Him and His work even better.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And so that's the point of Matthew 1, is to
recount Joseph's genealogy, andby the time you get to the end
of it, you see Coniah and yousay well then, whoever comes in
this line cannot exercise thronerights.
But the next section is abouthow Jesus could acquire those
throne rights without being thenatural-born son of Joseph.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Life itself is a distraction.
Every day, there are things forus to do, from cleaning and
cooking and taking care ofothers going to work.
Life is just demanding.
There are many, many thingsthat we need to be accomplishing
all the time.
And yet, if you are listeningto this podcast, if you attend
(00:53):
church on a regular basis, youhave chosen to separate yourself
out from that distraction andlearn about God, to focus in on
Him for a time at least, andthis is a positive thing.
It's too easy to get distractedand forget about the glorious
works of Christ.
(01:14):
For us, today's lesson is allabout that glorious and majestic
work that Christ did, but heonly could do it because of who
he is.
In him is fully God and fullyman.
God, the Father, god, the Son,god, the Holy Spirit.
(01:36):
Their divine attributes arewrapped up in this God-man,
jesus Christ, and to delvedeeply into it, to think about
it, to consider it, is a worthy,worthy task.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So let's listen today and fully understand, if we can
what it means for Jesus to befully God and fully man, and the
majestic thing that thatimplies in our lives.
Last week we dealt with theprophetic necessity.
In other words, is it necessaryreally to believe in the virgin
(02:14):
birth?
Well, because of prophecy.
It is because if we believe inthe Bible and that God can see
the future and foretell thefuture, then we believe that the
certain prophecies that relateto the virgin birth had to be
fulfilled, and thereby webelieve in the virgin birth.
But this week we're going towork on the legal necessity, the
legal necessity for the virginbirth, and I would like to bring
(02:37):
this up so I can show you a nota creed, but something like a
creed that was developed duringthe early church history.
So the legal necessity of thevirgin birth.
Now, this statement isbasically a very carefully
worded statement that wasdeveloped early in church
(02:57):
history to describe who JesusChrist is, and so I've
underlined five words, becausethese are the five words that
are critical to the statement.
Articulating who Jesus Christis is not a simple task.
Early in church history, therewere many variations and
(03:18):
distortions of these five points, so that's why the statement is
made so specifically it's toguard and protect the orthodox
understanding of the person ofChrist.
So who is Jesus Christ?
He is undiminished deity,meaning 100% God right.
United with true humanity,meaning he's 100% man, human
(03:46):
body, human spirit.
He is a human soul united inone person, not two people, but
he's just one person, withoutconfusion, meaning no blending
between the two natures, thedivine nature and the human
nature, nor separation.
The two are not separated.
(04:06):
The two natures are notseparated, they're not mixed or
blended, but they're notseparated either.
They're simply united in oneperson.
And this is forever Meaning.
Once the incarnation took place, the virgin conception and
virgin birth, you have theincarnation and you have
Emmanuel right, you have Godwith us and he's a true human
(04:30):
and he will forever be like that.
In other words, when you, let'ssay, you were like Stephen in
the book of Acts, acts chapter 7, he's martyred and it says he
saw the Lord Jesus Christstanding at the right hand of
the Father on the Father'sthrone.
What do you mean?
He saw the Lord Jesus Christstanding at the right hand of
the Father on the Father'sthrone.
What do you mean he saw himstanding?
We mean he saw God as man inthe second person of the Trinity
(04:51):
, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what do I mean when I saythe day that we are raptured, we
will be caught up together andwe will meet the Lord in the air
.
I mean that you will see theLord Jesus Christ in a human
body, a resurrected human body.
That's what you will see, okay,because he is in this condition
, once incarnate, forever.
Okay.
(05:11):
So, but those are the fivepoints that you will see
repeatedly come out in theselessons as we deal with the
birth of the king.
Okay, now, as I mentioned lastweek, I will deal with three
aspects of each event.
We've got the four events I'lltalk about are his birth, his
life, his death and hisresurrection.
So the birth of the king, thelife of the king, the death of
(05:34):
the king and the resurrection ofthe king, and that will cover
basically everything in theGospels, right, as it relates to
him specifically.
So, as we do this and we lookat each of those events, each of
those four events, I will talkabout the event itself.
Then what we will do is we willtalk about the response to the
event.
In other words, how did menrespond to that event?
How did they respond to thevirgin birth?
How did they respond to hislife, how did they respond to
(05:56):
his death, how did they respondto his resurrection?
And lastly, we will deal withthe proper response to the event
.
What is the proper response?
How should men respond to thatevent?
The reason I'm doing this isbecause of a statement Jesus
made in Matthew 16, where he hashis disciples, his apostles,
there, and he says who do peoplesay that I am?
(06:19):
That's asking the question whatdo people think about me?
And they say well, some sayyou're Jeremiah, others one of
the prophets, so and so and soforth.
But then he turns to them andhe says but who do you say that
I am?
And Peter gives his famousanswer thou art the Christ, the
son of the living God, right.
And the Lord says blessed areyou, simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh
(06:39):
and blood did not reveal this toyou, but my Father in heaven,
right.
So there is a response of mento Christ and then there's a
proper response of men to Christ.
And everybody is faced withthis question who is Jesus
Christ?
Who do you say that he is?
And so when we go to the worldand we talk to people in the
(07:00):
world, we can always ask themthis question who do you think
Jesus Christ is?
What do you think of JesusChrist?
And that answer that they giveyou back is very telling, isn't
it?
And so this is what he asked,and this is the same type of
question we can ask, and so it'svery important to cover these
aspects as we look at each event.
(07:22):
Last week, as we talked to thevirgin birth, I started to inch
into a doctrine that iscomplicated, and that's what I
said.
When you deal with the LordJesus Christ, you're now dealing
with very complicated doctrine.
That's why we spent so muchtime in the Old Testament, so we
could build the categories,because the Old Testament is
preparing us for the Messiah andthe New Testament, and if you
(07:44):
don't have the Old Testament,you can't understand who he is
in the New Testament.
It'd be like going to firstgrade and the first thing they
put in front of you is calculus,so you do not have the building
blocks to do calculus in firstgrade.
You have to go through addingand subtracting, multiplication,
division, algebra and so forthto work your way up to this
(08:06):
advanced mathematics, and thesame thing is true with the Lord
Jesus Christ.
You have to have the basiccategories from the Old
Testament in order to be readyto understand who he is.
This doctrine that is verycomplicated is called the
hypostatic union, communion.
(08:31):
It's complicated because ofthis he's a unique person.
There's no one who has evercome into the human race who's
like him and there will never beanother person who comes into
the human race like him.
He is totally unique.
He's not on display here andnow, so we cannot go and analyze
what it is to be God and man inone person, so he's not a
subject of empirical scientificinvestigation right now.
(08:52):
What we have left behind is therecord of this in the
prophecies of the Old Testamentand in the fulfillments of those
prophecies in the New Testament, fourfold gospel.
So it's called hypostatic unionand this is the concept of the
union of God and man in oneperson.
Very difficult, okay, but we'vealready covered some of the
basic categories.
(09:13):
As we studied the event ofcreation, right, we learned who
God is.
We learned who man is, and thathelps us understand, then, who
the God-man is right.
So if you take all theattributes of God and you put a
list of them over here, Iusually just use the acronym
Sergei Louis right, sovereign,righteous, just loving,
omniscient, omnipresent,omnipotent, immutable, eternal.
There's other things, but thisis a basic list, sergei Louis.
(09:36):
And then you go to anothercolumn.
You list everything that man is.
God is sovereign.
Man has choice.
God is loving.
Man has love.
It's derivative love, but wehave love.
His is infinite, ours is finite.
God is righteous and just.
Man has conscience.
Conscience answers to therighteousness and justice.
We have a concept for what'sright and wrong, and our
(09:56):
conscience judges.
It's justice, right.
It says that's right, that'swrong, and so forth, and so on.
You can go through everyattribute of God.
You can find a finite analog tothat in man.
What I'm saying in thehypostatic union, what orthodoxy
is saying, is that Jesus Christhas all the attributes of God
and he has all the attributes ofman In one person.
(10:17):
Though, and these two natures,the divine nature and the human
nature, they're not fusedtogether in a sense of like,
mixing or blending, but neitherare they separate.
So they're connected, and I'lldraw a picture of that later in
what we call thecreator-creature distinction,
because he's both.
He's the creator, right, he'salso a creature.
(10:38):
So this is obviously, from theget-go, complicated, just trying
to think about these things,but hopefully we have a firm
base.
Every cult distorts the properarticulation of the hypostatic
union in one way or another, andlater we will look at all these
distortions.
But you could take somethingjust off the hand like Mormonism
or Jehovah's Witness, and thesegroups do not believe in the
(10:59):
Trinity, they do not believe inthe deity of Christ.
They believe he's a god, buthe's not the god, to be
technical, and so they're notorthodox in the area of Trinity
or in the area of the hypostaticunion.
These are all confused, and sothat's why I mean what I'm
saying is an example of everycult distorting how the
(11:21):
hypostatic union is to bearticulated.
There are three reasons againfor the virgin birth.
We've already discovered theprophetic reasons Genesis 3.15,
the first announcement of goodnews.
There is a hint at the virginbirth because of the woman's
seed.
But women don't have seed, menhave seed, and so there's a hint
(11:44):
here in the strange wording ofa virgin birth, isaiah 7.14,.
That's the one that's famousright, it's the prophecy Isaiah
makes in the days of Ahaz thatbehold, a virgin will be with
child and she shall bear a son,and they will call him Emmanuel,
(12:05):
which means God with us.
So a prophecy of the virginbirth.
Matthew picks that up inMatthew 1, and he quotes Isaiah
7.14, explaining the events thathappened with Joseph and Mary.
Also, jeremiah 22, 28-30,.
The curse on the line of Coniahthat comes from David.
(12:26):
That's a setup for a virginbirth, because that line, from
David and went through Solomon,eventually through Coniah, was
the kingly line.
They had throne rights, andsomeone asked a brief question
earlier to clarify somethinghere that that line carries the
throne rights even though thatline was cursed at the days of
(12:49):
Coniah.
So even descendants of Coniahwho followed still had the
throne rights, but they couldnot exercise them.
That's what the prophecy inJeremiah 22 excludes.
They could not prosper sittingon the throne, meaning they
could not sit on the throne andexercise the throne rights, but
they did have them.
So Joseph did have those thronerights, but he could not.
(13:10):
If he was the father of Jesus,the biological, natural father,
then Jesus would be disqualified.
And so that's the point ofMatthew 1, is to recount
Joseph's genealogy, and by thetime you get to the end of it
you see Coniah and you say wellthen, whoever comes in this line
cannot exercise throne rights.
(13:31):
But the next section is abouthow Jesus could acquire those
throne rights without being thenatural-born son of Joseph?
And the answer is that the HolySpirit placed the child in her
right and then Joseph went aheadand married her, and I made a
big point of the angel insistingno, joseph, marry her, you need
(13:55):
to marry Mary, because he hadthe throne rights and to give
them to him he had to adopt,which would mean he needs to
marry her, and then he couldlegally adopt Jesus and thereby
transfer the throne rights.
And the great thing about it isbecause Jesus isn't his natural
son, he actually qualifies toexercise the right, he can
(14:17):
actually sit on the throne andhe can reign and rule, and so
that's a setup for the virginbirth there in Jeremiah 22.
And, of course, luke 3,.
We looked at Mary's genealogy,too, a little bit and just to
quick review the idea there isit says the son of, supposedly
the son of Joseph.
See, it uses that wordsupposedly because he wasn't the
(14:42):
son of Joseph, wasn't he Notnaturally, at least Today, we
want to go to the legal reasonsfor the virgin birth.
The background of this is thesin problem, or is it sin
problems plural?
99% of the time, when we talkabout sin, what we're talking
(15:04):
about is personal sin.
What we're talking about ispersonal sin Lying, thinking,
covetous thoughts, doingsomething sinful it's all
personal sin.
The Bible actually has threecategories of sin, however, only
one of which is personal sin.
Now we already know again aboutthe doctrine of sin because we
(15:24):
studied it in the Old Testamentevent of the fall, so it's
already been introduced.
It's not a new concept for us,but it is setting up the
problems that the Lord JesusChrist has to somehow avoid.
I mean, if he has sin personalor either of the two other
categories of sin then does hequalify to pay for our sin?
(15:46):
No, because he then falls underthe condemnation of sin and he
needs someone to die for him,okay, and pay his sin penalty.
So you've got three categoriesof sin or sin problems that he
has to overcome, and the virginbirth is linked to these as part
of the solution for how he didnot come under any of the
(16:07):
penalty of sin related to thesethree categories.
So another doctrine that'sbehind this is who God is,
particularly that God isrighteous and just right,
because if there's no standardof righteousness, then you can't
have a doctrine of sin.
You cannot define sin, becausesin is defined as being
something contrary to God'srighteousness right.
(16:29):
So without a God there, there'sno such thing as sin, it's just
mistakes, I guess.
But sin is basically entirelyrooted on the concept that God
is righteous and we already knowabout God.
So we, we've got God, we've gotsin.
And now we come to.
The problem is that's how doesthe one born of a virgin, how is
(16:51):
he avoiding these sin issues?
So the three categories areimputed sin, inherited sin and
personal sin and personal sin.
Those are the three categoriesimputed, inherited and personal.
So let's talk a little bitabout imputed sin and go to some
(17:11):
important passages.
The legal reckoning of sin.
This is what imputed sin is.
It's the legal reckoning of sinto those who participated in
the sin of Adam, though not inthe likeness of Adam.
Now, this is the, and we'll goto Romans 5.12.
So let's go to Romans 5.12.
This is the first objectionyou'll hear whenever you tell
somebody well, you're a sinnerin Adam and they'll say well, I
(17:35):
didn't eat the fruit, I didn'tdo that, it's not my fault, it's
his fault.
I've had people say to mebefore you know, get mad at him,
you know, for doing that, youknow, and stuff like that.
It's like well, the divineanswer for that is if you were
Adam you would have eaten.
(17:55):
So you know, people can sayforever why did he do that?
But the reality is, if you werehim, you would have done the
same thing.
Okay, romans 5, verse 12 iswhat's called a theological
watershed.
People have been discussingthis for centuries and centuries
.
This section, and particularlythis verse, notice our
(18:18):
participation in the sin of Adam, though not in the likeness of
Adam, in other words, meaningyou weren't physically there and
your wife wasn't there handingyou a piece of fruit, saying eat
this, but you did participatein it.
Therefore, just as through oneman, sin entered into the world,
who was the one man?
(18:38):
Adam?
Sin entered into the world anddeath through sin.
So death spread to all men.
Why?
Because all sin.
You say, but but I didn't, Ididn't sin like adam did.
Well, verse uh 14 admits thatsays nevertheless, death reigned
(18:59):
from adam until moses, evenover those who had not sinned in
the likeness of the offense ofadam.
But somehow we did participatein sin, in Adam, and that's
obviously a reference to eatingthe fruit that the Lord said not
to eat of.
Right Now I'll say a few thingsabout this one man.
(19:19):
His name is we always say Adamoriginally Ish, right, right,
ish and asha.
Man and woman, adam adamah.
His name means man, okay, um.
But when I say man, let me askyou a question am I referring to
(19:40):
one person or am I referring tomore than one person?
It could be either way, itdepends on the context, because
man can be a word that'sreferenced to mankind and that's
a biblically rooted wordmankind because God created
different kinds.
So you have mankind, okay, andam I excluding women there?
(20:01):
No, any more than if I saidalligator kind, I would be
excluding female alligators.
No, you're talking about aspecific kind that incorporates
both the male and the femaleside of these kinds.
So his name means man, but italso means mankind, adamah.
(20:22):
And he is both one man, butguess what?
At the time he was also all ofmankind, was he not?
So it's set up peculiarly, onpurpose.
So we see the solidarity of thehuman race in the one man who
(20:45):
is mankind, that is Adam.
Where did Eve come from?
Came out of the side of Adam,taken out of him.
The woman is made from the man.
Is that theologicallysignificant?
Did he make the giraffes thatway?
Did he make mice that way?
Did he make dogs that way?
That way?
(21:09):
Did he make mice?
That way?
Did he make dogs that way?
No, he didn't make one dog andthen make another dog out of
that dog to make the femalecounterpart.
But he does this with mankind,and people brush over this as if
this is somehow not significant.
But this is entirelysignificant.
She is part of and descendedfrom, essentially Adam, so that
(21:33):
the whole human race, becauseshe becomes the mother of all
living, right, when she'srenamed Eve, that name means
mother of all living she becomesthe female head, so to speak,
of the whole human race.
But she stems from Adam, sothat all humans were somehow in
Adam, including Eve, right?
That's why a statement likeRomans 5.12 is very important.
(21:56):
Just as through one man, sinentered into the world we all
know that's Adam Death throughsin also entered, and so death
spread to all men.
Why?
Because all sinned.
Well, how did we sin?
By our participation, becausewe were in him.
There is one individual fromwhom all individuals in this
(22:17):
entire world let's just say it,red and yellow, black and white,
whatever skin shades come from,there is one human race, so to
speak.
In that sense, right, there'snot different human races.
We're all descended from oneindividual, adam.
Do you know what that means?
(22:37):
That means the entirety of thegene pool of the entire human
race was in him and anyvariation, diversity that we see
amongst ourselves was in himoriginally.
The capacity for whatevervarious traits that we might
have of course in him originallyunfallen, so there wouldn't be
(22:58):
any problems.
But now fallen.
So there are, of course,genetic issues, including all
the DNA that made up Eve.
Okay, this corporate solidarityof the human race, so that when
he sinned, we all sinned.
People say that's not fair.
Okay, but God was settingsomething up that is described
in the rest of this chapter.
If we all fall in the one manAdam, then we can all be saved
(23:22):
in the one man, jesus Christ.
God was setting it uptheologically and a lot of
people say well, I'm notreligious, yeah, but the whole
situation has been set uptheologically.
It doesn't matter if you'rereligious or not, that's
irrelevant.
You are a descendant of Adam,so that you can be saved in the
(23:42):
one man Jesus Christ of Adam, sothat you can be saved in the
one man Jesus Christ.
So you can say it's not fair,but the flip side of that is no
salvation.
So God decided to set it upthis way so he could bring about
salvation.
So the problem here, of course,is that we have this concept of
(24:03):
imputed sin.
It says even verse 13, foruntil the law, sin was in the
world, but sin is not imputedwhen there's no law.
Imputed sin, that's thecategory here.
Okay, before the law, peoplestill died.
Okay, nevertheless, deathreigned from adam until moses,
even over those who had notsinned, in the likeness of the
(24:25):
offense of adam.
Who is a type of him who was tocome, that is, of course, christ
.
Right, he was a type of christ.
So, um, the adam christ issue.
And the problem is then that wehave this thing called imputed
sin, and the issue it's a legalreckoning, it's a declaring us
to be sinners without everhaving personally sinned in the
(24:51):
likeness of Adam.
And again, you're all sensing Idon't feel that's fair.
But remember, if you'd been inhis shoes, you would have, a,
done the same thing and B youknow the setup for the salvation
in the one man, christ wouldn'thave been there.
So God has arranged things thisway for a purpose.
(25:12):
Now that's a problem.
It becomes a problem in thequestion well, how does Jesus
avoid this?
How does he avoid being imputedthe sin of Adam.
Well, there's a couple ofpossible solutions.
We know that he avoids it,possibly due to the
(25:33):
overshadowing work of the Fatherat the virgin conception.
Look at Luke 1.35.
Luke 1.35.
Luke 1.35.
Luke was very interested in thebirth.
He actually we think it seemsthat he actually interviewed
Mary personally because he knowswhat was going on in her heart.
(25:55):
He writes what was going on inher heart.
How would you write what'sgoing on in someone's heart
unless A, of course, the HolySpirit could have told you?
But it says in Luke 1, 1-4 thathe's researched these things
very carefully.
So it seems that he actuallyinterviewed her and she told him
what was going on.
So this is a very importantaccount.
(26:16):
In Luke 1, 35, we read the angelanswered and said to Mary the
Holy Spirit will come upon youand the power of the Most High
will overshadow you.
For that reason, the Holy Childshall be called the Son of God.
There's two members of theTrinity here who are involved.
It's not just the Holy Spirit,it's the Holy Spirit will come
upon you.
True, and we know from Matthew1 that the Holy Spirit is the
(26:36):
one who conceived the child inMary.
But the Father is also involvedhere.
It says the power of the MostHigh will overshadow you.
This word overshadow, which allof us have read, this word,
this word means to interpose abarrier between something so as
to make a shadow.
So I mean, we've all stoodbetween the sun and you know
(26:57):
something behind us, and itcasts a shadow.
We, I mean we've all stoodbetween the sun and you know
something behind us and it castsa shadow.
We are the barrier at thatpoint that's causing less light
to fall directly behind us thanaround us, so you can see a
shadow.
Whatever this work is of theFather could have been.
This overshadowing work, thisbarrier work could have been
involved in making sure noimputation of Adam's sin was
(27:21):
imputed to Christ.
So we don't have all theanswers here.
I'm just pointing out thatsomehow he has to avoid imputed
sin.
Now let's go to another category, and there's more information
that relates to this.
Some people call this thespiritual necessity, but I just
continued it under legal, theinherited sin problem.
(27:44):
So we've got imputed sin,imputed sin.
I want to repeat somethingabout that.
The imputed sin is directlyfrom Adam to you, directly from
Adam to me, directly from Adamto Noah, directly from Adam to
David, directly from Adam to anymember of the human race.
So it's not generational, it'sjust direct.
(28:05):
It's a direct link from each ofus to Adam.
Now, this one's different.
This is called inherited sinand it's transmitted indirectly
and it goes from Adam to eachgeneration, generation from Adam
all the way down to her own day.
So from parent to offspring,parent to offspring, parent to
offspring.
So this one is passed on andit's passed on at conception,
(28:28):
psalm 51, 5, where David says insin my mother conceived me.
Remember, in sin, my motherconceived me.
He's not talking about sin thatwas imputed to him from Adam.
He's talking about coming fromhis mother to him, so direct
from parent to offspring.
So this is what results in whatwe call the sin, nature or the
(28:49):
Bible typically calls the flesh.
All human beings have the flesh.
What the flesh is is it's aninclination to sin, it's a
disposition toward sin, towardpersonal sin.
So it's not personal sin, butit's the root of personal sin,
(29:10):
it's a disposition towardsinning.
It's what Paul is describing inRomans 7 when he's talking
about the thing I don't want todo, I do, but the thing I hate I
do.
What is it in me that wants todo this or that.
If I want to do evil, there'ssomething in me that's wanting
(29:31):
to do that and that's what he'stalking about the flesh or the
sin nature.
Okay, so this is what we callinherited sin.
You got this from your mom andyour pop.
This actually explains some ofthe more difficult passages in
the Bible, like in the law givento Israel.
It talks about the sin of thefathers passing on to the second
(29:51):
and third generation.
Remember that You're like why,why?
Well, this doesn't sound fair.
You know that the sin of thefather now three or four
generations.
They had to pay for the sin ofthe father.
The way that we are supposed tounderstand that is that parents
pass on their sin tendencies totheir offspring and those
(30:15):
children tend to fall into thesame types of sin patterns as
their parents.
Think of, I don't know, david'sfamily, king David.
He kind of had a little problemwith women, right, and what
happened with Solomon, his son?
It was exacerbated because themother Bathsheba, she also had
(30:36):
that problem.
So so do you see?
It's not saying the kids pay forthe sins of the parents.
It's saying the kids, if theycontinue in the same sin
patterns as their parents, whichis the general tendency.
They will pay for the sins inthe same ways that the fathers
paid for their sins, because youdon't pay for anybody else's
sins, it's your own.
(30:58):
But you can get sin tendencies.
This is why it's important inchild training, raising children
, to first of all recognize yourown sin patterns and your wife
or husband to recognize theirsin patterns and that way you
can look for them in yourchildren.
So when you see them crop up,you say whoa and you try to put
(31:20):
the brakes on those, becauseyou're trying to train the next
generation to not have the samesin struggles that you had.
Okay, so this is the concept ofinherited sin.
Ultimately, it does trace allthe way back to Adam, but it
goes through each generation.
Okay, and you receive this innature of flesh at conception.
(31:44):
This is why children naturallysin.
It's not hard for them to learnto say no, go clean your room.
No, or just not do it.
It's because they have a sininclination or disposition, and
this is your opportunity to showthem that they have this sin
disposition or flesh and thatthey need salvation.
(32:07):
Right, they need salvation Now.
Jesus avoids this.
Again.
This is something he has toavoid.
So he avoids this at theconception by the work of the
Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 1.20, where theangel describes to Joseph go
ahead and marry her.
The child that is in her hasbeen placed there by the Holy
Spirit.
So he avoids.
(32:28):
You can see easily in thisexample how he avoids that.
The Holy Spirit avoided that.
Spirit avoided that.
Now the last category.
Oh, I didn't cover this part,part A.
Another possibility is thatJesus avoids this because the
(32:49):
transmission is direct throughthe male only.
So there's two possibilitiesfor this, or maybe they can even
be combined.
So another possibility is Jesusavoided this because of the
transmission being directlythrough the male.
This is hinted at in Hebrews 7,1 through 10.
So let's take a look at Hebrews7.
Hebrews 7, 1 through 10.
And again, some of this is hard.
(33:13):
I know this is hard, so if youcan't follow all of it, that's
okay.
Oh, the section on Melchizedekand the priesthood, and we'll
just start in verse 4.
This is where Abraham andtithes were made to Melchizedek.
Now observe how great this manwas, to whom Abraham, the
(33:35):
patriarch, gave a tenth of thechoice of spoils.
Now Abraham gave a tenth toMelchizedek, who was a
priest-king patriarch, gave atenth of the choices spoils.
Now, abraham gave a tenth toMelchizedek, who was a priest
king back in the days of Abraham, and those, indeed, of the sons
of Levi who received thepriest's office, have
commandment in the law tocollect a tenth from the people,
that is, from the brethren, soyou know the people, the 12
tribes.
They would give a tenth to theLevites as the priests, although
(33:58):
these are descended fromAbraham.
But the one whose genealogy isnot traced from them, that's
Melchizedek, collected a tenthfrom Abraham and blessed the one
who had the promises.
But without any dispute, thelesser is blessed by the greater
.
In this case, mortal men receivetithes, but in that case one
receives them, of whom it iswitnessed that he lives on.
(34:18):
And here it is, so to speak,through Abraham.
Even Levi, who received tithes,paid tithes Because you know
the Jews, they paid tithes tothe tribe of Levi, right?
But in this case he says Levieven paid tithes, through
Abraham, to Melchizedek, wholived a long time before he
(34:42):
lived.
You say, how could Levi paytithes to someone when Levi
wasn't even born yet, he wasn'teven alive, he wasn't even, so
to speak, in the human race?
Well, verse 10 explains, for hewas still in the loins of his
father, abraham, whenMelchizedek met him.
(35:02):
This is showing that somehow weparticipate in the actions of
those who come before us.
Why?
Because we are in them.
We are in their loins in thesame way that you and I are in
Adam.
Okay, so, as difficult as itmay be to understand and we have
(35:25):
DNA to help, today we have DNA.
I mean, everybody can see thattheir DNA makeup comes from
people who came before them.
So in that sense, you were inthem, right.
So that kind of does help us.
They didn't know about that.
God just told them.
You know, you're in the loinsof someone, therefore you're in
them and you somehow participatein whatever it is that they did
(35:45):
, in this case giving tithes.
So somehow Jesus avoided thisright.
Perhaps it's because he's bornof Mary alone and these actions
are only transmitted through theFather.
Okay, possibly the text doessay he would be the seed of the
woman.
It does not say he would be theseed of the man and he's not
(36:05):
the descendant of Joseph.
Naturally is he, because theHoly Spirit resolved that part.
So maybe both A and B combinehere to resolve how Jesus
avoided inherited sin and having, you know, a sinful nature or
flesh, okay, but he certainlydid have to avoid it.
If he didn't, he's got a sinproblem.
(36:27):
This is all leading up tounderstanding salvation, by the
way, and what you're actuallybeing saved from.
Without this, you really don'tunderstand.
Well, you understand, but youjust don't have a fuller
understanding.
Lastly, we have the category ofpersonal sin, and this is easy,
right, everybody knows what thisis.
It's something contrary to thecharacter of God in thought,
(36:49):
word or deed.
It separates us from God, forall have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God.
That's a personal sin passagebecause it says for all have
sinned.
Okay, so we're in trouble.
But we're in trouble not justbecause of personal sin.
We're also in trouble becauseof our imputed sin.
We're in trouble because ofinherited sin.
Christ has to avoid all three.
(37:10):
Jesus avoids personal sin bybeing filled by the Spirit.
In the temptations Remember itsays the Spirit took him out and
he was full of the spirit.
In luke 4 says he was full ofthe spirit when the temptations
took place.
Hebrews 218.
Well, we're in hebrews, solet's look at 218.
Just flip back a couple pages218, and then we'll look at 415.
(37:32):
This sets up the possibilitythat he could actually be
tempted.
Okay, he's a true human.
Okay, but he could be tempted,as we are meaning or indicating
that he has to live theChristian life in his human
nature.
So how did he do it?
Did he borrow his divineattributes?
No 2.18 says for since hehimself was tempted in that
(37:54):
which he has suffered, he isable to come to the aid of those
who are tempted.
Have you ever been tempted?
Please don't raise your hand,we already know.
No use wasting those calories.
We've all been tempted.
Was he tempted?
Some people are very reticentto answer this in the
affirmative, but the text sayshe was tempted.
(38:17):
Yeah, let's look at 4.15, right, 4.15.
4.15.
For we do not have a high priestwho cannot sympathize with our
weaknesses, but one who has beentempted in all things as we,
yet without sin.
And some people say, well, Ibet he wasn't tempted in this
exact scenario.
It's talking about the threeavenues of sin which 1 John
(38:39):
discusses the lust of the eyes,the lust of the flesh and the
boastful pride of life.
By the way, all three of thoseare present in the garden in
Genesis 3.
The lust of the eyes Look atthis fruit.
It looks like it can makesomeone wise and it goes through
this whole scenario.
So the lust of the eyes, thelust of the flesh, the boastful
(39:00):
pride of life looks like it canmake someone wise and it goes
through this whole scenario.
So the lust of the eyes, thelust of the flesh, boastful
pride of life.
He is tempted in all theseavenues.
That's the point, so that, as2.18 said, he is able to come to
the aid of those who aretempted.
In other words, he knows whatyou're going through when you're
tempted.
Yet he did not sin, right 4.15.
(39:21):
He was without sin, no personalsin.
So that's how he avoided thepersonal sin.
He did it by being filled bythe Spirit.
We can look at Luke 4 and showhow he was filled by the Spirit
throughout the temptations.
By the way, there were not justthree, temptations were there,
it says, for 40 days in thewilderness he was tempted and
then, when he became hungry,satan came.
(39:43):
And then you read the threetemptations.
Those were the last three of aseries that went on for 40 days
and they were the most opportunemoment because he was at that
point after his 40-day fast andin his most difficult situation
in life.
So it was as the text says, itwas an opportune time.
(40:07):
And after he passes the three,it says the devil then went away
to wait for another opportunity, another opportune time.
So he knows when we're weak.
Okay, he knows it's anopportune time to come into our
lives and to tempt us, just ashe did with Christ.
But Christ avoided it.
Okay, so he avoids all three.
Now there are some implicationsfor this.
Let's just talk about some ofthese.
(40:27):
These are very interesting andthey're very important for the
hypostatic union, that doctrineof God and man in one person.
So, first of all, jesus is atrue human, born of Mary.
She actually contributed DNA toJesus, but not just DNA.
It was Davidic DNA, becauseshe's also of the house of David
, interestingly.
So what this means, then, isthat Mary was not an incubator.
(40:51):
What do I mean by that?
This is a doctrine that's beenI've seen it in publications by
ICR.
I've seen it in Roman Catholicpublications.
It's the idea that the HolySpirit provided everything and
Mary provided nothing.
Now, if that is the case, thenJesus is separated from the
(41:12):
human race that you and I are apart of.
He is not a part of the samehuman race.
He's a separate human racethat's not going to work for
simply one fact he has to be ofthe Davidic lineage.
That's this human race.
So she did have to contributeDNA to Jesus.
(41:34):
She's not just an incubator inthe sense that the Holy Spirit
just created Jesus, this baby,and put this baby in her.
No, he somehow utilized hergenetic material so that the
baby is a true human, of theseed of David that stems all the
way back to the seed of thewoman in Genesis.
It has to be this way for himto have a link to this actual
(41:57):
human race.
If not, he's a separate humanrace and that would mean that
his death is for another humanrace and not this human race.
Okay, logically, that's what itmeans.
So this is necessary so he candie for the human race, our
human race.
If Mary is an incubator, jesusis not connected to this human
race, only to Mary herself,perhaps, and he could not have
(42:19):
died for the human race.
Only to Mary herself, perhaps,and he could have not have died
for the human race, possiblyjust Mary.
This is just logically tryingto think about the implication.
But it's Mary's connection tothe human race, our human race,
that was passed on to Jesus inhis DNA, that connects him to us
and makes the situation forsalvation a setup for us.
Another implication Jesus isimpeccable.
I remember when my third gradeteacher wrote this on a spelling
(42:41):
test that I took.
I'm sure she was trying toteach me a new word in third
grade.
When I had to go look upimpeccable, I was like what does
that mean?
Well, this is a theologicalterm and let's discuss a little
bit about it.
Jesus has two natures, okay, one, divine, he's God.
Other, he's man, emmanuel.
(43:02):
It's all captured in Emmanuel,right, it's all there.
He's God and he's man, but he'sonly one person, he's not two
people.
That's hard to understand.
But did you have two people diefor you on the cross?
That's an easy way tounderstand it.
No, you didn't have two peopledie for you on the cross, you
just had one person die for yourcross.
Okay, so you can see that as atruth.
(43:23):
His divine nature was not ableto sin.
Now look at point three andlet's contrast these two points
In verse.
Number two his divine nature,not able to sin.
Number three his human naturewas able not to sin.
What's the difference?
What's the difference betweennot able to sin and able not to
sin?
There's a word order right.
(43:44):
In the first one, I've got notable.
In the second one, I've gotable, not okay.
So, um, theologians have usedthis terminology to make a
different emphasis in the firstone, line two divine nature not
able.
Emphasize, it's impossible.
(44:04):
I mean he's god as god, is godgoing to sin?
No, it's not able, it's notpossible for god to sin, not
able to sin.
Now, human nature, we would sayhis human nature, was something
like adams when adam was firstcreated, right, and he was able
not to sin.
Right.
But placing able before notemphasizes the ability and the
(44:29):
possibility.
So these are both true in thisone person, in his divine nature
, though, not able to sin, andthat's what we mean by
impeccable.
That word impeccable means notable.
That's what we mean byimpeccable.
That word impeccable means notable, okay, but human nature,
(44:52):
able, not.
That word is described by thetheological term peccable,
impeccable, impeccable.
So in his divine nature he'simpeccable, In his human nature
he's peccable.
But remember, he's only oneperson.
So by the end of this pointfive, you see, as a person, as
one person, a total person, he'simpeccable.
This is actually kind of afantastic thing in the
temptations, because of coursehe's tempted to sin.
(45:14):
Right, we know that.
We can read it right out ofHebrews 4.15.
We just read it.
But in another sense it'sinteresting because as you watch
him get tempted, you also watchthat it was the Holy Spirit who
took him out there.
What was the Holy Spirit doing,taking him out there where he
(45:35):
knew this was all going totranspire?
It was to show hisimperviousness to sin.
It was to show that as a personbecause his human nature is,
let's just say, connected to hisdivine nature he's not going to
sin.
It'd be like in the militaryyou have a ship that's
(45:55):
impervious to all the enemy'sweapons.
You take your ship out and thenyou ride into the midst of all
your enemies and they startfiring on your ship.
But your ship?
Why did you take the ship outthere?
To show your enemies that itwas impervious.
It could be shelled but itcould never be sunk.
(46:19):
And that's what's going on inthe temptations is the Holy
Spirit literally takes him outinto the devil's playground and
says take your best shot, go forit.
After 40 days of no food, takeyour best shot, go for it.
The Holy Spirit was taking thefight to Satan.
(46:40):
It's not the other way.
It's not Satan taking the fightto Jesus.
It's the Holy Spirit taking thefight to him and saying go for
it, because he's impervious tosin as a person.
That's the last line.
So you've got the peccability,you've got the impeccability,
the peccability here.
3a, that's what makes itpossible that he be tempted.
(47:03):
If he's not really a true humanlike you and I, he couldn't be
tempted like you and I, and thatmeans that when you're tempted,
he cannot sympathize with youbecause he doesn't know what
it's like to be tempted as weare Now.
I just bordered on sayingsomething that may sound
heretical to you.
He didn't know what it's liketo be tempted.
(47:23):
You say well, he's omniscientas God Doesn't?
He know everything.
Do you see why this gets socomplicated so quickly?
I mean, if you're serious, ifyou're not, you're like yeah,
yeah, yeah, whatever, and youjust move on.
But when I define omniscienceand you've probably been around
me when I did I define it verycarefully by saying God can know
(47:45):
all things possible for him toknow.
Why do I say that?
Example does God know what it'slike to kick a soccer ball?
Well, is he a physical being?
No, you can say that he's notphysical.
Is he he's spirit.
So does he know what it's liketo kick a soccer ball?
(48:12):
I would say theoretically,abstractly, he knows.
Experientially, I would say hedoesn't know, because these
types of knowledge are different.
I can know how to build abridge, but if I've never done
it I don't know how to do itexperientially.
These are different types ofknowledge and it's okay.
That's why, in the Christianway of life, I say people, young
people, they go to seminary,they learn all this stuff.
They know it all theoretically,but they don't know how to live
(48:35):
the Christian life.
They've never had enoughopportunities to apply what
they've learned in the world toactually see if they know it
experientially.
Do you know how the Christianlife works?
Well, theoretically, I've gotit up here I need to walk by the
Spirit, right.
But if you haven't been thrownthe circumstance where you need
to use that skill, whatever theskill is, you don't know it
(48:57):
experientially.
In the same way you know it'sokay to say God does not know
what pizza tastes like becauseGod doesn't eat pizza.
God does not know what pizzatastes like Because God doesn't
eat pizza.
See, does God know what it'slike to sin?
Theoretically, but no, notexperientially, because he's
(49:18):
never sinned.
So there are different types ofknowledge, and that's what I'm
pointing out here.
With the Lord, jesus Christ andhis divine nature.
Okay, he's tempted in allthings as we, though really he
really really was, and thatmeans he knows what it's like
for you to be tempted and he cancome to our aid.
(49:38):
And that is an absolutelycritical point to understand
about our God.
He's that personal.
The other thing thatimpeccability sets up point B on
here is it explains why Jesuswas full of the Spirit during
the temptations and why he usedScripture to overcome the
temptations.
In other words, how are wesupposed to live the Christian
(50:01):
life?
We're supposed to be full ofthe Spirit and we're supposed to
use Scripture.
Isn't that what Jesus did inhis temptations?
It says he was full of theSpirit and we're supposed to use
Scripture.
Isn't that what Jesus did inhis temptations?
It says he was full of theSpirit and then he uses
Scripture.
He quotes Scripture In allthree temptations.
He quotes Scripture.
What are we supposed to belearning here?
Not some self-help guide, notsome self-esteem booster book,
(50:22):
not some psychology, secularpsychology.
We're supposed to be learningthe Word of God.
Look at, let me see if I canbring up this passage Isaiah.
Is it 50, verse 4?
Look at Isaiah 50, verse 4.
I want to show you somethingremarkable.
This is a prophecy about theMessiah that probably very few
(50:42):
Protestants know about.
This is a prophecy in Isaiah'sday about the Messiah Isaiah 50,
verse 4.
It's a messianic prophecy.
So this would be true of theone who is the Messiah, that is,
jesus.
Right 700 years in advance.
This prophecy was given aboutthe Messiah.
The Lord God has given methat's the Messiah the tongue of
(51:05):
disciples that I may know howto sustain the weary one with a
word.
So we'd all ask the questionwell, how did the Lord God give
the Messiah a tongue ofdisciples?
How did he know how to sustainweary individuals with a word?
Right here the next phrase heawakens me morning by morning.
He awakens my ear to listen asa disciple.
The Lord God has opened my ear.
(51:26):
I was not disobedient, I didnot turn back.
I gave my back to those whostrike me my cheeks, to those
who pluck out the beard, okay,and so on.
What happened every singlemorning of the Lord Jesus
Christ's life as a little boy inthe house of Joseph and Mary
Father awoke him every morningand taught him.
Taught him personally,discipled him, taught him
personally, discipled him.
(51:46):
You say but he's God.
What does the Messiah have to?
How does Jesus have to learnthe Bible?
Yes, he did it.
In the same way we have to doit.
You still have to learn theword of God.
If he had to.
How much more, of course, do weneed to If we're to be
(52:08):
successful disciples, if we'reto manage temptations as him see
, because he did not get tocheat folks.
You have only one differencewith him you have imputed sin,
you have inherited sin, you havesin.
This is your problem.
Okay, that's the onlydifference.
(52:28):
Outside of that, there's nodifference.
He had to meet the temptations,exact same way you have to.
It would be the same way thatAdam had to originally.
In a sense right, because Adamis created perfect.
There's no problem with Adam.
Right, adam's very good, no sin.
Then the temptations come rightand he falls.
(52:50):
But the Lord Jesus Christdidn't fall, and that's the
whole point.
That's the whole point.
This is why I say he's a reallyunique person, but in this
sense, he shares this with us.
He shows us how to live theChristian way of life.
Okay, so he had to learn.
Luke 2.52 confirms that too.
Here's the thing.
I'll say something crazy.
(53:10):
Let's say you never commit apersonal sin, can you go to
heaven then?
Nope, nope, because you stillgot inherited sin.
You still got imputed sin.
Those haven't been dealt with.
Just because you didn'tpersonally sin doesn't mean you
don't have these other types ofsin.
So you're still undercondemnation.
So both imputed sin andinherited sin condemn us and
(53:32):
separate us from God.
Now many people say you need torepent, you need to believe, and
this is what you have to do togo to heaven or whatever.
And usually by repent, whatthey mean is you need to turn
from your sin.
Isn't that right?
Don't you read this?
I read this in like tract aftertract, blog after blog,
facebook post after Facebookpost, blah, blah, blah blah.
You have to repent, meaningthey'll say you have to turn
(53:52):
from your sin.
You know why that's not goingto work.
You can turn from personal sin,but let me ask you a question.
Can you turn from imputed sin?
It's a legal declarationagainst you.
How can you turn from that?
It's a court decision.
Can you turn from yourinherited sin?
It's what you got from your momand dad.
(54:13):
How are you going to turn fromthat?
It's who you are in your flesh.
It's not a subject ofrepentance.
You can't turn from it.
The only thing you can repentof is personal sin.
This is why I say it'sshort-sighted to not really
understand why the Bible is soinsistent that faith, and
(54:38):
sometimes repentance, is used asa synonym of faith.
And I'm not going into bigdetail here, but if you look at
the book of Acts you'll see,like Acts 2.38, it says Peter
says repent and Acts 2.44, itsays they believe.
So in that passage they'rebeing used as synonyms.
They're not two separate acts.
Okay, like repent, and repentdoesn't mean turn anyway.
(54:59):
Repent means to change yourmind, have a change of thinking.
Does that happen when youbelieve in Christ?
Do you have a change of mind?
Well, yeah, you couldn'tbelieve in him if you didn't
have a change of mind about him.
So these two go together ifrepentance is to be involved.
But this idea of turning fromsin I'm trying to show how that
falls short of the benchmark.
It only relates to personal sin.
(55:21):
It does not relate to imputedor inherited sin.
Even if someone says well, sin,it does not relate to imputed
or inherited sin.
Even if someone says, well, Iturn from my sin.
Are they going to go to heaven?
Absolutely not.
The reason is because they'restill under the condemnation of
the imputed and inherited sin,and that's not what.
Those are not subjects ofrepentance.
What you need to do to go toheaven is just what Paul and
(55:43):
Silas told the Philippian jailer, and it always should be right
there Believe in the Lord JesusChrist, and you shall be saved
Over and out.
Why?
Why is that the over and outmessage?
That is the over and outmessage because Jesus Christ is
the one who did everything.
(56:03):
He's the one who's born of avirgin, so he's the only one
that possibly qualifies.
He's the one who was tempted inall things his way, and yet
without sin, and therefore he'sthe only one who qualifies right
.
He's the only one who avoidedthe imputed, inherited and
personal sin then, so he's theonly one who can possibly please
(56:23):
God.
Right Is promising God you'regoing to turn from your sin,
going to please God.
No, jesus Christ is the onlyone and he's the only way, and
that's why he said it.
I am the way, I am the truth, Iam the life.
No one comes to the Father, butright through me, he is the way
(56:48):
, the hadass, the path and ouronly thing to do is to believe
in him is to believe in him.
Is it becoming super clear toyou now why I am so insistent on
just believing in him?
And believe means to place yourconfidence in a reliable object
(57:11):
.
Is he reliable?
Do you believe that he's areliable object?
Do you believe that he canactually pay the sin penalty of
the entire world?
Because if you believe thatit's personally true for
yourself that he paid for allyour sin and he's a confident,
reliable object for you, becauseif you believe that is
personally true for yourself,that he paid for all your sin
and he's a confident, reliableobject for you, he says you have
(57:33):
everlasting life and if he saidit, god said it.
If God said it, that's the endof it.
It's true.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(58:02):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And so that's the point of Matthew 1, is to
recount Joseph's genealogy, andby the time you get to the end
of it, you see Coniah and yousay well then, whoever comes in
this line cannot exercise thronerights.
But the next section is abouthow Jesus could acquire those
throne rights without being thenatural-born son of Joseph.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Life itself is a distraction.
Every day, there are things forus to do, from cleaning and
cooking and taking care ofothers going to work.
Life is just demanding.
There are many, many thingsthat we need to be accomplishing
all the time.
And yet, if you are listeningto this podcast, if you attend
(00:53):
church on a regular basis, youhave chosen to separate yourself
out from that distraction andlearn about God, to focus in on
Him for a time at least, andthis is a positive thing.
It's too easy to get distractedand forget about the glorious
works of Christ.
(01:14):
For us, today's lesson is allabout that glorious and majestic
work that Christ did, but heonly could do it because of who
he is.
In him is fully God and fullyman.
God, the Father, god, the Son,god, the Holy Spirit.
(01:36):
Their divine attributes arewrapped up in this God-man,
jesus Christ, and to delvedeeply into it, to think about
it, to consider it, is a worthy,worthy task.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So let's listen today and fully understand, if we can
what it means for Jesus to befully God and fully man, and the
majestic thing that thatimplies in our lives.
Last week we dealt with theprophetic necessity.
In other words, is it necessaryreally to believe in the virgin
(02:14):
birth?
Well, because of prophecy.
It is because if we believe inthe Bible and that God can see
the future and foretell thefuture, then we believe that the
certain prophecies that relateto the virgin birth had to be
fulfilled, and thereby webelieve in the virgin birth.
But this week we're going towork on the legal necessity, the
legal necessity for the virginbirth, and I would like to bring
(02:37):
this up so I can show you a nota creed, but something like a
creed that was developed duringthe early church history.
So the legal necessity of thevirgin birth.
Now, this statement isbasically a very carefully
worded statement that wasdeveloped early in church
(02:57):
history to describe who JesusChrist is, and so I've
underlined five words, becausethese are the five words that
are critical to the statement.
Articulating who Jesus Christis is not a simple task.
Early in church history, therewere many variations and
(03:18):
distortions of these five points, so that's why the statement is
made so specifically it's toguard and protect the orthodox
understanding of the person ofChrist.
So who is Jesus Christ?
He is undiminished deity,meaning 100% God right.
United with true humanity,meaning he's 100% man, human
(03:46):
body, human spirit.
He is a human soul united inone person, not two people, but
he's just one person, withoutconfusion, meaning no blending
between the two natures, thedivine nature and the human
nature, nor separation.
The two are not separated.
(04:06):
The two natures are notseparated, they're not mixed or
blended, but they're notseparated either.
They're simply united in oneperson.
And this is forever Meaning.
Once the incarnation took place, the virgin conception and
virgin birth, you have theincarnation and you have
Emmanuel right, you have Godwith us and he's a true human
(04:30):
and he will forever be like that.
In other words, when you, let'ssay, you were like Stephen in
the book of Acts, acts chapter 7, he's martyred and it says he
saw the Lord Jesus Christstanding at the right hand of
the Father on the Father'sthrone.
What do you mean?
He saw the Lord Jesus Christstanding at the right hand of
the Father on the Father'sthrone.
What do you mean he saw himstanding?
We mean he saw God as man inthe second person of the Trinity
(04:51):
, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what do I mean when I saythe day that we are raptured, we
will be caught up together andwe will meet the Lord in the air
.
I mean that you will see theLord Jesus Christ in a human
body, a resurrected human body.
That's what you will see, okay,because he is in this condition
, once incarnate, forever.
Okay.
(05:11):
So, but those are the fivepoints that you will see
repeatedly come out in theselessons as we deal with the
birth of the king.
Okay, now, as I mentioned lastweek, I will deal with three
aspects of each event.
We've got the four events I'lltalk about are his birth, his
life, his death and hisresurrection.
So the birth of the king, thelife of the king, the death of
(05:34):
the king and the resurrection ofthe king, and that will cover
basically everything in theGospels, right, as it relates to
him specifically.
So, as we do this and we lookat each of those events, each of
those four events, I will talkabout the event itself.
Then what we will do is we willtalk about the response to the
event.
In other words, how did menrespond to that event?
How did they respond to thevirgin birth?
How did they respond to hislife, how did they respond to
(05:56):
his death, how did they respondto his resurrection?
And lastly, we will deal withthe proper response to the event
.
What is the proper response?
How should men respond to thatevent?
The reason I'm doing this isbecause of a statement Jesus
made in Matthew 16, where he hashis disciples, his apostles,
there, and he says who do peoplesay that I am?
(06:19):
That's asking the question whatdo people think about me?
And they say well, some sayyou're Jeremiah, others one of
the prophets, so and so and soforth.
But then he turns to them andhe says but who do you say that
I am?
And Peter gives his famousanswer thou art the Christ, the
son of the living God, right.
And the Lord says blessed areyou, simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh
(06:39):
and blood did not reveal this toyou, but my Father in heaven,
right.
So there is a response of mento Christ and then there's a
proper response of men to Christ.
And everybody is faced withthis question who is Jesus
Christ?
Who do you say that he is?
And so when we go to the worldand we talk to people in the
(07:00):
world, we can always ask themthis question who do you think
Jesus Christ is?
What do you think of JesusChrist?
And that answer that they giveyou back is very telling, isn't
it?
And so this is what he asked,and this is the same type of
question we can ask, and so it'svery important to cover these
aspects as we look at each event.
(07:22):
Last week, as we talked to thevirgin birth, I started to inch
into a doctrine that iscomplicated, and that's what I
said.
When you deal with the LordJesus Christ, you're now dealing
with very complicated doctrine.
That's why we spent so muchtime in the Old Testament, so we
could build the categories,because the Old Testament is
preparing us for the Messiah andthe New Testament, and if you
(07:44):
don't have the Old Testament,you can't understand who he is
in the New Testament.
It'd be like going to firstgrade and the first thing they
put in front of you is calculus,so you do not have the building
blocks to do calculus in firstgrade.
You have to go through addingand subtracting, multiplication,
division, algebra and so forthto work your way up to this
(08:06):
advanced mathematics, and thesame thing is true with the Lord
Jesus Christ.
You have to have the basiccategories from the Old
Testament in order to be readyto understand who he is.
This doctrine that is verycomplicated is called the
hypostatic union, communion.
(08:31):
It's complicated because ofthis he's a unique person.
There's no one who has evercome into the human race who's
like him and there will never beanother person who comes into
the human race like him.
He is totally unique.
He's not on display here andnow, so we cannot go and analyze
what it is to be God and man inone person, so he's not a
subject of empirical scientificinvestigation right now.
(08:52):
What we have left behind is therecord of this in the
prophecies of the Old Testamentand in the fulfillments of those
prophecies in the New Testament, fourfold gospel.
So it's called hypostatic unionand this is the concept of the
union of God and man in oneperson.
Very difficult, okay, but we'vealready covered some of the
basic categories.
(09:13):
As we studied the event ofcreation, right, we learned who
God is.
We learned who man is, and thathelps us understand, then, who
the God-man is right.
So if you take all theattributes of God and you put a
list of them over here, Iusually just use the acronym
Sergei Louis right, sovereign,righteous, just loving,
omniscient, omnipresent,omnipotent, immutable, eternal.
There's other things, but thisis a basic list, sergei Louis.
(09:36):
And then you go to anothercolumn.
You list everything that man is.
God is sovereign.
Man has choice.
God is loving.
Man has love.
It's derivative love, but wehave love.
His is infinite, ours is finite.
God is righteous and just.
Man has conscience.
Conscience answers to therighteousness and justice.
We have a concept for what'sright and wrong, and our
(09:56):
conscience judges.
It's justice, right.
It says that's right, that'swrong, and so forth, and so on.
You can go through everyattribute of God.
You can find a finite analog tothat in man.
What I'm saying in thehypostatic union, what orthodoxy
is saying, is that Jesus Christhas all the attributes of God
and he has all the attributes ofman In one person.
(10:17):
Though, and these two natures,the divine nature and the human
nature, they're not fusedtogether in a sense of like,
mixing or blending, but neitherare they separate.
So they're connected, and I'lldraw a picture of that later in
what we call thecreator-creature distinction,
because he's both.
He's the creator, right, he'salso a creature.
(10:38):
So this is obviously, from theget-go, complicated, just trying
to think about these things,but hopefully we have a firm
base.
Every cult distorts the properarticulation of the hypostatic
union in one way or another, andlater we will look at all these
distortions.
But you could take somethingjust off the hand like Mormonism
or Jehovah's Witness, and thesegroups do not believe in the
(10:59):
Trinity, they do not believe inthe deity of Christ.
They believe he's a god, buthe's not the god, to be
technical, and so they're notorthodox in the area of Trinity
or in the area of the hypostaticunion.
These are all confused, and sothat's why I mean what I'm
saying is an example of everycult distorting how the
(11:21):
hypostatic union is to bearticulated.
There are three reasons againfor the virgin birth.
We've already discovered theprophetic reasons Genesis 3.15,
the first announcement of goodnews.
There is a hint at the virginbirth because of the woman's
seed.
But women don't have seed, menhave seed, and so there's a hint
(11:44):
here in the strange wording ofa virgin birth, isaiah 7.14,.
That's the one that's famousright, it's the prophecy Isaiah
makes in the days of Ahaz thatbehold, a virgin will be with
child and she shall bear a son,and they will call him Emmanuel,
(12:05):
which means God with us.
So a prophecy of the virginbirth.
Matthew picks that up inMatthew 1, and he quotes Isaiah
7.14, explaining the events thathappened with Joseph and Mary.
Also, jeremiah 22, 28-30,.
The curse on the line of Coniahthat comes from David.
(12:26):
That's a setup for a virginbirth, because that line, from
David and went through Solomon,eventually through Coniah, was
the kingly line.
They had throne rights, andsomeone asked a brief question
earlier to clarify somethinghere that that line carries the
throne rights even though thatline was cursed at the days of
(12:49):
Coniah.
So even descendants of Coniahwho followed still had the
throne rights, but they couldnot exercise them.
That's what the prophecy inJeremiah 22 excludes.
They could not prosper sittingon the throne, meaning they
could not sit on the throne andexercise the throne rights, but
they did have them.
So Joseph did have those thronerights, but he could not.
(13:10):
If he was the father of Jesus,the biological, natural father,
then Jesus would be disqualified.
And so that's the point ofMatthew 1, is to recount
Joseph's genealogy, and by thetime you get to the end of it
you see Coniah and you say wellthen, whoever comes in this line
cannot exercise throne rights.
(13:31):
But the next section is abouthow Jesus could acquire those
throne rights without being thenatural-born son of Joseph?
And the answer is that the HolySpirit placed the child in her
right and then Joseph went aheadand married her, and I made a
big point of the angel insistingno, joseph, marry her, you need
(13:55):
to marry Mary, because he hadthe throne rights and to give
them to him he had to adopt,which would mean he needs to
marry her, and then he couldlegally adopt Jesus and thereby
transfer the throne rights.
And the great thing about it isbecause Jesus isn't his natural
son, he actually qualifies toexercise the right, he can
(14:17):
actually sit on the throne andhe can reign and rule, and so
that's a setup for the virginbirth there in Jeremiah 22.
And, of course, luke 3,.
We looked at Mary's genealogy,too, a little bit and just to
quick review the idea there isit says the son of, supposedly
the son of Joseph.
See, it uses that wordsupposedly because he wasn't the
(14:42):
son of Joseph, wasn't he Notnaturally, at least Today, we
want to go to the legal reasonsfor the virgin birth.
The background of this is thesin problem, or is it sin
problems plural?
99% of the time, when we talkabout sin, what we're talking
(15:04):
about is personal sin.
What we're talking about ispersonal sin Lying, thinking,
covetous thoughts, doingsomething sinful it's all
personal sin.
The Bible actually has threecategories of sin, however, only
one of which is personal sin.
Now we already know again aboutthe doctrine of sin because we
(15:24):
studied it in the Old Testamentevent of the fall, so it's
already been introduced.
It's not a new concept for us,but it is setting up the
problems that the Lord JesusChrist has to somehow avoid.
I mean, if he has sin personalor either of the two other
categories of sin then does hequalify to pay for our sin?
(15:46):
No, because he then falls underthe condemnation of sin and he
needs someone to die for him,okay, and pay his sin penalty.
So you've got three categoriesof sin or sin problems that he
has to overcome, and the virginbirth is linked to these as part
of the solution for how he didnot come under any of the
(16:07):
penalty of sin related to thesethree categories.
So another doctrine that'sbehind this is who God is,
particularly that God isrighteous and just right,
because if there's no standardof righteousness, then you can't
have a doctrine of sin.
You cannot define sin, becausesin is defined as being
something contrary to God'srighteousness right.
(16:29):
So without a God there, there'sno such thing as sin, it's just
mistakes, I guess.
But sin is basically entirelyrooted on the concept that God
is righteous and we already knowabout God.
So we, we've got God, we've gotsin.
And now we come to.
The problem is that's how doesthe one born of a virgin, how is
(16:51):
he avoiding these sin issues?
So the three categories areimputed sin, inherited sin and
personal sin and personal sin.
Those are the three categoriesimputed, inherited and personal.
So let's talk a little bitabout imputed sin and go to some
(17:11):
important passages.
The legal reckoning of sin.
This is what imputed sin is.
It's the legal reckoning of sinto those who participated in
the sin of Adam, though not inthe likeness of Adam.
Now, this is the, and we'll goto Romans 5.12.
So let's go to Romans 5.12.
This is the first objectionyou'll hear whenever you tell
somebody well, you're a sinnerin Adam and they'll say well, I
(17:35):
didn't eat the fruit, I didn'tdo that, it's not my fault, it's
his fault.
I've had people say to mebefore you know, get mad at him,
you know, for doing that, youknow, and stuff like that.
It's like well, the divineanswer for that is if you were
Adam you would have eaten.
(17:55):
So you know, people can sayforever why did he do that?
But the reality is, if you werehim, you would have done the
same thing.
Okay, romans 5, verse 12 iswhat's called a theological
watershed.
People have been discussingthis for centuries and centuries
.
This section, and particularlythis verse, notice our
(18:18):
participation in the sin of Adam, though not in the likeness of
Adam, in other words, meaningyou weren't physically there and
your wife wasn't there handingyou a piece of fruit, saying eat
this, but you did participatein it.
Therefore, just as through oneman, sin entered into the world,
who was the one man?
(18:38):
Adam?
Sin entered into the world anddeath through sin.
So death spread to all men.
Why?
Because all sin.
You say, but but I didn't, Ididn't sin like adam did.
Well, verse uh 14 admits thatsays nevertheless, death reigned
(18:59):
from adam until moses, evenover those who had not sinned in
the likeness of the offense ofadam.
But somehow we did participatein sin, in Adam, and that's
obviously a reference to eatingthe fruit that the Lord said not
to eat of.
Right Now I'll say a few thingsabout this one man.
(19:19):
His name is we always say Adamoriginally Ish, right, right,
ish and asha.
Man and woman, adam adamah.
His name means man, okay, um.
But when I say man, let me askyou a question am I referring to
(19:40):
one person or am I referring tomore than one person?
It could be either way, itdepends on the context, because
man can be a word that'sreferenced to mankind and that's
a biblically rooted wordmankind because God created
different kinds.
So you have mankind, okay, andam I excluding women there?
(20:01):
No, any more than if I saidalligator kind, I would be
excluding female alligators.
No, you're talking about aspecific kind that incorporates
both the male and the femaleside of these kinds.
So his name means man, but italso means mankind, adamah.
(20:22):
And he is both one man, butguess what?
At the time he was also all ofmankind, was he not?
So it's set up peculiarly, onpurpose.
So we see the solidarity of thehuman race in the one man who
(20:45):
is mankind, that is Adam.
Where did Eve come from?
Came out of the side of Adam,taken out of him.
The woman is made from the man.
Is that theologicallysignificant?
Did he make the giraffes thatway?
Did he make mice that way?
Did he make dogs that way?
That way?
(21:09):
Did he make mice?
That way?
Did he make dogs that way?
No, he didn't make one dog andthen make another dog out of
that dog to make the femalecounterpart.
But he does this with mankind,and people brush over this as if
this is somehow not significant.
But this is entirelysignificant.
She is part of and descendedfrom, essentially Adam, so that
(21:33):
the whole human race, becauseshe becomes the mother of all
living, right, when she'srenamed Eve, that name means
mother of all living she becomesthe female head, so to speak,
of the whole human race.
But she stems from Adam, sothat all humans were somehow in
Adam, including Eve, right?
That's why a statement likeRomans 5.12 is very important.
(21:56):
Just as through one man, sinentered into the world we all
know that's Adam Death throughsin also entered, and so death
spread to all men.
Why?
Because all sinned.
Well, how did we sin?
By our participation, becausewe were in him.
There is one individual fromwhom all individuals in this
(22:17):
entire world let's just say it,red and yellow, black and white,
whatever skin shades come from,there is one human race, so to
speak.
In that sense, right, there'snot different human races.
We're all descended from oneindividual, adam.
Do you know what that means?
(22:37):
That means the entirety of thegene pool of the entire human
race was in him and anyvariation, diversity that we see
amongst ourselves was in himoriginally.
The capacity for whatevervarious traits that we might
have of course in him originallyunfallen, so there wouldn't be
(22:58):
any problems.
But now fallen.
So there are, of course,genetic issues, including all
the DNA that made up Eve.
Okay, this corporate solidarityof the human race, so that when
he sinned, we all sinned.
People say that's not fair.
Okay, but God was settingsomething up that is described
in the rest of this chapter.
If we all fall in the one manAdam, then we can all be saved
(23:22):
in the one man, jesus Christ.
God was setting it uptheologically and a lot of
people say well, I'm notreligious, yeah, but the whole
situation has been set uptheologically.
It doesn't matter if you'rereligious or not, that's
irrelevant.
You are a descendant of Adam,so that you can be saved in the
(23:42):
one man Jesus Christ of Adam, sothat you can be saved in the
one man Jesus Christ.
So you can say it's not fair,but the flip side of that is no
salvation.
So God decided to set it upthis way so he could bring about
salvation.
So the problem here, of course,is that we have this concept of
(24:03):
imputed sin.
It says even verse 13, foruntil the law, sin was in the
world, but sin is not imputedwhen there's no law.
Imputed sin, that's thecategory here.
Okay, before the law, peoplestill died.
Okay, nevertheless, deathreigned from adam until moses,
even over those who had notsinned, in the likeness of the
(24:25):
offense of adam.
Who is a type of him who was tocome, that is, of course, christ
.
Right, he was a type of christ.
So, um, the adam christ issue.
And the problem is then that wehave this thing called imputed
sin, and the issue it's a legalreckoning, it's a declaring us
to be sinners without everhaving personally sinned in the
(24:51):
likeness of Adam.
And again, you're all sensing Idon't feel that's fair.
But remember, if you'd been inhis shoes, you would have, a,
done the same thing and B youknow the setup for the salvation
in the one man, christ wouldn'thave been there.
So God has arranged things thisway for a purpose.
(25:12):
Now that's a problem.
It becomes a problem in thequestion well, how does Jesus
avoid this?
How does he avoid being imputedthe sin of Adam.
Well, there's a couple ofpossible solutions.
We know that he avoids it,possibly due to the
(25:33):
overshadowing work of the Fatherat the virgin conception.
Look at Luke 1.35.
Luke 1.35.
Luke 1.35.
Luke was very interested in thebirth.
He actually we think it seemsthat he actually interviewed
Mary personally because he knowswhat was going on in her heart.
(25:55):
He writes what was going on inher heart.
How would you write what'sgoing on in someone's heart
unless A, of course, the HolySpirit could have told you?
But it says in Luke 1, 1-4 thathe's researched these things
very carefully.
So it seems that he actuallyinterviewed her and she told him
what was going on.
So this is a very importantaccount.
(26:16):
In Luke 1, 35, we read the angelanswered and said to Mary the
Holy Spirit will come upon youand the power of the Most High
will overshadow you.
For that reason, the Holy Childshall be called the Son of God.
There's two members of theTrinity here who are involved.
It's not just the Holy Spirit,it's the Holy Spirit will come
upon you.
True, and we know from Matthew1 that the Holy Spirit is the
(26:36):
one who conceived the child inMary.
But the Father is also involvedhere.
It says the power of the MostHigh will overshadow you.
This word overshadow, which allof us have read, this word,
this word means to interpose abarrier between something so as
to make a shadow.
So I mean, we've all stoodbetween the sun and you know
(26:57):
something behind us, and itcasts a shadow.
We, I mean we've all stoodbetween the sun and you know
something behind us and it castsa shadow.
We are the barrier at thatpoint that's causing less light
to fall directly behind us thanaround us, so you can see a
shadow.
Whatever this work is of theFather could have been.
This overshadowing work, thisbarrier work could have been
involved in making sure noimputation of Adam's sin was
(27:21):
imputed to Christ.
So we don't have all theanswers here.
I'm just pointing out thatsomehow he has to avoid imputed
sin.
Now let's go to another category, and there's more information
that relates to this.
Some people call this thespiritual necessity, but I just
continued it under legal, theinherited sin problem.
(27:44):
So we've got imputed sin,imputed sin.
I want to repeat somethingabout that.
The imputed sin is directlyfrom Adam to you, directly from
Adam to me, directly from Adamto Noah, directly from Adam to
David, directly from Adam to anymember of the human race.
So it's not generational, it'sjust direct.
(28:05):
It's a direct link from each ofus to Adam.
Now, this one's different.
This is called inherited sinand it's transmitted indirectly
and it goes from Adam to eachgeneration, generation from Adam
all the way down to her own day.
So from parent to offspring,parent to offspring, parent to
offspring.
So this one is passed on andit's passed on at conception,
(28:28):
psalm 51, 5, where David says insin my mother conceived me.
Remember, in sin, my motherconceived me.
He's not talking about sin thatwas imputed to him from Adam.
He's talking about coming fromhis mother to him, so direct
from parent to offspring.
So this is what results in whatwe call the sin, nature or the
(28:49):
Bible typically calls the flesh.
All human beings have the flesh.
What the flesh is is it's aninclination to sin, it's a
disposition toward sin, towardpersonal sin.
So it's not personal sin, butit's the root of personal sin,
(29:10):
it's a disposition towardsinning.
It's what Paul is describing inRomans 7 when he's talking
about the thing I don't want todo, I do, but the thing I hate I
do.
What is it in me that wants todo this or that.
If I want to do evil, there'ssomething in me that's wanting
(29:31):
to do that and that's what he'stalking about the flesh or the
sin nature.
Okay, so this is what we callinherited sin.
You got this from your mom andyour pop.
This actually explains some ofthe more difficult passages in
the Bible, like in the law givento Israel.
It talks about the sin of thefathers passing on to the second
(29:51):
and third generation.
Remember that You're like why,why?
Well, this doesn't sound fair.
You know that the sin of thefather now three or four
generations.
They had to pay for the sin ofthe father.
The way that we are supposed tounderstand that is that parents
pass on their sin tendencies totheir offspring and those
(30:15):
children tend to fall into thesame types of sin patterns as
their parents.
Think of, I don't know, david'sfamily, king David.
He kind of had a little problemwith women, right, and what
happened with Solomon, his son?
It was exacerbated because themother Bathsheba, she also had
(30:36):
that problem.
So so do you see?
It's not saying the kids pay forthe sins of the parents.
It's saying the kids, if theycontinue in the same sin
patterns as their parents, whichis the general tendency.
They will pay for the sins inthe same ways that the fathers
paid for their sins, because youdon't pay for anybody else's
sins, it's your own.
(30:58):
But you can get sin tendencies.
This is why it's important inchild training, raising children
, to first of all recognize yourown sin patterns and your wife
or husband to recognize theirsin patterns and that way you
can look for them in yourchildren.
So when you see them crop up,you say whoa and you try to put
(31:20):
the brakes on those, becauseyou're trying to train the next
generation to not have the samesin struggles that you had.
Okay, so this is the concept ofinherited sin.
Ultimately, it does trace allthe way back to Adam, but it
goes through each generation.
Okay, and you receive this innature of flesh at conception.
(31:44):
This is why children naturallysin.
It's not hard for them to learnto say no, go clean your room.
No, or just not do it.
It's because they have a sininclination or disposition, and
this is your opportunity to showthem that they have this sin
disposition or flesh and thatthey need salvation.
(32:07):
Right, they need salvation Now.
Jesus avoids this.
Again.
This is something he has toavoid.
So he avoids this at theconception by the work of the
Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 1.20, where theangel describes to Joseph go
ahead and marry her.
The child that is in her hasbeen placed there by the Holy
Spirit.
So he avoids.
(32:28):
You can see easily in thisexample how he avoids that.
The Holy Spirit avoided that.
Spirit avoided that.
Now the last category.
Oh, I didn't cover this part,part A.
Another possibility is thatJesus avoids this because the
(32:49):
transmission is direct throughthe male only.
So there's two possibilitiesfor this, or maybe they can even
be combined.
So another possibility is Jesusavoided this because of the
transmission being directlythrough the male.
This is hinted at in Hebrews 7,1 through 10.
So let's take a look at Hebrews7.
Hebrews 7, 1 through 10.
And again, some of this is hard.
(33:13):
I know this is hard, so if youcan't follow all of it, that's
okay.
Oh, the section on Melchizedekand the priesthood, and we'll
just start in verse 4.
This is where Abraham andtithes were made to Melchizedek.
Now observe how great this manwas, to whom Abraham, the
(33:35):
patriarch, gave a tenth of thechoice of spoils.
Now Abraham gave a tenth toMelchizedek, who was a
priest-king patriarch, gave atenth of the choices spoils.
Now, abraham gave a tenth toMelchizedek, who was a priest
king back in the days of Abraham, and those, indeed, of the sons
of Levi who received thepriest's office, have
commandment in the law tocollect a tenth from the people,
that is, from the brethren, soyou know the people, the 12
tribes.
They would give a tenth to theLevites as the priests, although
(33:58):
these are descended fromAbraham.
But the one whose genealogy isnot traced from them, that's
Melchizedek, collected a tenthfrom Abraham and blessed the one
who had the promises.
But without any dispute, thelesser is blessed by the greater
.
In this case, mortal men receivetithes, but in that case one
receives them, of whom it iswitnessed that he lives on.
(34:18):
And here it is, so to speak,through Abraham.
Even Levi, who received tithes,paid tithes Because you know
the Jews, they paid tithes tothe tribe of Levi, right?
But in this case he says Levieven paid tithes, through
Abraham, to Melchizedek, wholived a long time before he
(34:42):
lived.
You say, how could Levi paytithes to someone when Levi
wasn't even born yet, he wasn'teven alive, he wasn't even, so
to speak, in the human race?
Well, verse 10 explains, for hewas still in the loins of his
father, abraham, whenMelchizedek met him.
(35:02):
This is showing that somehow weparticipate in the actions of
those who come before us.
Why?
Because we are in them.
We are in their loins in thesame way that you and I are in
Adam.
Okay, so, as difficult as itmay be to understand and we have
(35:25):
DNA to help, today we have DNA.
I mean, everybody can see thattheir DNA makeup comes from
people who came before them.
So in that sense, you were inthem, right.
So that kind of does help us.
They didn't know about that.
God just told them.
You know, you're in the loinsof someone, therefore you're in
them and you somehow participatein whatever it is that they did
(35:45):
, in this case giving tithes.
So somehow Jesus avoided thisright.
Perhaps it's because he's bornof Mary alone and these actions
are only transmitted through theFather.
Okay, possibly the text doessay he would be the seed of the
woman.
It does not say he would be theseed of the man and he's not
(36:05):
the descendant of Joseph.
Naturally is he, because theHoly Spirit resolved that part.
So maybe both A and B combinehere to resolve how Jesus
avoided inherited sin and having, you know, a sinful nature or
flesh, okay, but he certainlydid have to avoid it.
If he didn't, he's got a sinproblem.
(36:27):
This is all leading up tounderstanding salvation, by the
way, and what you're actuallybeing saved from.
Without this, you really don'tunderstand.
Well, you understand, but youjust don't have a fuller
understanding.
Lastly, we have the category ofpersonal sin, and this is easy,
right, everybody knows what thisis.
It's something contrary to thecharacter of God in thought,
(36:49):
word or deed.
It separates us from God, forall have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God.
That's a personal sin passagebecause it says for all have
sinned.
Okay, so we're in trouble.
But we're in trouble not justbecause of personal sin.
We're also in trouble becauseof our imputed sin.
We're in trouble because ofinherited sin.
Christ has to avoid all three.
(37:10):
Jesus avoids personal sin bybeing filled by the Spirit.
In the temptations Remember itsays the Spirit took him out and
he was full of the spirit.
In luke 4 says he was full ofthe spirit when the temptations
took place.
Hebrews 218.
Well, we're in hebrews, solet's look at 218.
Just flip back a couple pages218, and then we'll look at 415.
(37:32):
This sets up the possibilitythat he could actually be
tempted.
Okay, he's a true human.
Okay, but he could be tempted,as we are meaning or indicating
that he has to live theChristian life in his human
nature.
So how did he do it?
Did he borrow his divineattributes?
No 2.18 says for since hehimself was tempted in that
(37:54):
which he has suffered, he isable to come to the aid of those
who are tempted.
Have you ever been tempted?
Please don't raise your hand,we already know.
No use wasting those calories.
We've all been tempted.
Was he tempted?
Some people are very reticentto answer this in the
affirmative, but the text sayshe was tempted.
(38:17):
Yeah, let's look at 4.15, right, 4.15.
4.15.
For we do not have a high priestwho cannot sympathize with our
weaknesses, but one who has beentempted in all things as we,
yet without sin.
And some people say, well, Ibet he wasn't tempted in this
exact scenario.
It's talking about the threeavenues of sin which 1 John
(38:39):
discusses the lust of the eyes,the lust of the flesh and the
boastful pride of life.
By the way, all three of thoseare present in the garden in
Genesis 3.
The lust of the eyes Look atthis fruit.
It looks like it can makesomeone wise and it goes through
this whole scenario.
So the lust of the eyes, thelust of the flesh, the boastful
(39:00):
pride of life looks like it canmake someone wise and it goes
through this whole scenario.
So the lust of the eyes, thelust of the flesh, boastful
pride of life.
He is tempted in all theseavenues.
That's the point, so that, as2.18 said, he is able to come to
the aid of those who aretempted.
In other words, he knows whatyou're going through when you're
tempted.
Yet he did not sin, right 4.15.
(39:21):
He was without sin, no personalsin.
So that's how he avoided thepersonal sin.
He did it by being filled bythe Spirit.
We can look at Luke 4 and showhow he was filled by the Spirit
throughout the temptations.
By the way, there were not justthree, temptations were there,
it says, for 40 days in thewilderness he was tempted and
then, when he became hungry,satan came.
(39:43):
And then you read the threetemptations.
Those were the last three of aseries that went on for 40 days
and they were the most opportunemoment because he was at that
point after his 40-day fast andin his most difficult situation
in life.
So it was as the text says, itwas an opportune time.
(40:07):
And after he passes the three,it says the devil then went away
to wait for another opportunity, another opportune time.
So he knows when we're weak.
Okay, he knows it's anopportune time to come into our
lives and to tempt us, just ashe did with Christ.
But Christ avoided it.
Okay, so he avoids all three.
Now there are some implicationsfor this.
Let's just talk about some ofthese.
(40:27):
These are very interesting andthey're very important for the
hypostatic union, that doctrineof God and man in one person.
So, first of all, jesus is atrue human, born of Mary.
She actually contributed DNA toJesus, but not just DNA.
It was Davidic DNA, becauseshe's also of the house of David
, interestingly.
So what this means, then, isthat Mary was not an incubator.
(40:51):
What do I mean by that?
This is a doctrine that's beenI've seen it in publications by
ICR.
I've seen it in Roman Catholicpublications.
It's the idea that the HolySpirit provided everything and
Mary provided nothing.
Now, if that is the case, thenJesus is separated from the
(41:12):
human race that you and I are apart of.
He is not a part of the samehuman race.
He's a separate human racethat's not going to work for
simply one fact he has to be ofthe Davidic lineage.
That's this human race.
So she did have to contributeDNA to Jesus.
(41:34):
She's not just an incubator inthe sense that the Holy Spirit
just created Jesus, this baby,and put this baby in her.
No, he somehow utilized hergenetic material so that the
baby is a true human, of theseed of David that stems all the
way back to the seed of thewoman in Genesis.
It has to be this way for himto have a link to this actual
(41:57):
human race.
If not, he's a separate humanrace and that would mean that
his death is for another humanrace and not this human race.
Okay, logically, that's what itmeans.
So this is necessary so he candie for the human race, our
human race.
If Mary is an incubator, jesusis not connected to this human
race, only to Mary herself,perhaps, and he could not have
(42:19):
died for the human race.
Only to Mary herself, perhaps,and he could have not have died
for the human race, possiblyjust Mary.
This is just logically tryingto think about the implication.
But it's Mary's connection tothe human race, our human race,
that was passed on to Jesus inhis DNA, that connects him to us
and makes the situation forsalvation a setup for us.
Another implication Jesus isimpeccable.
I remember when my third gradeteacher wrote this on a spelling
(42:41):
test that I took.
I'm sure she was trying toteach me a new word in third
grade.
When I had to go look upimpeccable, I was like what does
that mean?
Well, this is a theologicalterm and let's discuss a little
bit about it.
Jesus has two natures, okay, one, divine, he's God.
Other, he's man, emmanuel.
(43:02):
It's all captured in Emmanuel,right, it's all there.
He's God and he's man, but he'sonly one person, he's not two
people.
That's hard to understand.
But did you have two people diefor you on the cross?
That's an easy way tounderstand it.
No, you didn't have two peopledie for you on the cross, you
just had one person die for yourcross.
Okay, so you can see that as atruth.
(43:23):
His divine nature was not ableto sin.
Now look at point three andlet's contrast these two points
In verse.
Number two his divine nature,not able to sin.
Number three his human naturewas able not to sin.
What's the difference?
What's the difference betweennot able to sin and able not to
sin?
There's a word order right.
(43:44):
In the first one, I've got notable.
In the second one, I've gotable, not okay.
So, um, theologians have usedthis terminology to make a
different emphasis in the firstone, line two divine nature not
able.
Emphasize, it's impossible.
(44:04):
I mean he's god as god, is godgoing to sin?
No, it's not able, it's notpossible for god to sin, not
able to sin.
Now, human nature, we would sayhis human nature, was something
like adams when adam was firstcreated, right, and he was able
not to sin.
Right.
But placing able before notemphasizes the ability and the
(44:29):
possibility.
So these are both true in thisone person, in his divine nature
, though, not able to sin, andthat's what we mean by
impeccable.
That word impeccable means notable.
That's what we mean byimpeccable.
That word impeccable means notable, okay, but human nature,
(44:52):
able, not.
That word is described by thetheological term peccable,
impeccable, impeccable.
So in his divine nature he'simpeccable, In his human nature
he's peccable.
But remember, he's only oneperson.
So by the end of this pointfive, you see, as a person, as
one person, a total person, he'simpeccable.
This is actually kind of afantastic thing in the
temptations, because of coursehe's tempted to sin.
(45:14):
Right, we know that.
We can read it right out ofHebrews 4.15.
We just read it.
But in another sense it'sinteresting because as you watch
him get tempted, you also watchthat it was the Holy Spirit who
took him out there.
What was the Holy Spirit doing,taking him out there where he
(45:35):
knew this was all going totranspire?
It was to show hisimperviousness to sin.
It was to show that as a personbecause his human nature is,
let's just say, connected to hisdivine nature he's not going to
sin.
It'd be like in the militaryyou have a ship that's
(45:55):
impervious to all the enemy'sweapons.
You take your ship out and thenyou ride into the midst of all
your enemies and they startfiring on your ship.
But your ship?
Why did you take the ship outthere?
To show your enemies that itwas impervious.
It could be shelled but itcould never be sunk.
(46:19):
And that's what's going on inthe temptations is the Holy
Spirit literally takes him outinto the devil's playground and
says take your best shot, go forit.
After 40 days of no food, takeyour best shot, go for it.
The Holy Spirit was taking thefight to Satan.
(46:40):
It's not the other way.
It's not Satan taking the fightto Jesus.
It's the Holy Spirit taking thefight to him and saying go for
it, because he's impervious tosin as a person.
That's the last line.
So you've got the peccability,you've got the impeccability,
the peccability here.
3a, that's what makes itpossible that he be tempted.
(47:03):
If he's not really a true humanlike you and I, he couldn't be
tempted like you and I, and thatmeans that when you're tempted,
he cannot sympathize with youbecause he doesn't know what
it's like to be tempted as weare Now.
I just bordered on sayingsomething that may sound
heretical to you.
He didn't know what it's liketo be tempted.
(47:23):
You say well, he's omniscientas God Doesn't?
He know everything.
Do you see why this gets socomplicated so quickly?
I mean, if you're serious, ifyou're not, you're like yeah,
yeah, yeah, whatever, and youjust move on.
But when I define omniscienceand you've probably been around
me when I did I define it verycarefully by saying God can know
(47:45):
all things possible for him toknow.
Why do I say that?
Example does God know what it'slike to kick a soccer ball?
Well, is he a physical being?
No, you can say that he's notphysical.
Is he he's spirit.
So does he know what it's liketo kick a soccer ball?
(48:12):
I would say theoretically,abstractly, he knows.
Experientially, I would say hedoesn't know, because these
types of knowledge are different.
I can know how to build abridge, but if I've never done
it I don't know how to do itexperientially.
These are different types ofknowledge and it's okay.
That's why, in the Christianway of life, I say people, young
people, they go to seminary,they learn all this stuff.
They know it all theoretically,but they don't know how to live
(48:35):
the Christian life.
They've never had enoughopportunities to apply what
they've learned in the world toactually see if they know it
experientially.
Do you know how the Christianlife works?
Well, theoretically, I've gotit up here I need to walk by the
Spirit, right.
But if you haven't been thrownthe circumstance where you need
to use that skill, whatever theskill is, you don't know it
(48:57):
experientially.
In the same way you know it'sokay to say God does not know
what pizza tastes like becauseGod doesn't eat pizza.
God does not know what pizzatastes like Because God doesn't
eat pizza.
See, does God know what it'slike to sin?
Theoretically, but no, notexperientially, because he's
(49:18):
never sinned.
So there are different types ofknowledge, and that's what I'm
pointing out here.
With the Lord, jesus Christ andhis divine nature.
Okay, he's tempted in allthings as we, though really he
really really was, and thatmeans he knows what it's like
for you to be tempted and he cancome to our aid.
(49:38):
And that is an absolutelycritical point to understand
about our God.
He's that personal.
The other thing thatimpeccability sets up point B on
here is it explains why Jesuswas full of the Spirit during
the temptations and why he usedScripture to overcome the
temptations.
In other words, how are wesupposed to live the Christian
(50:01):
life?
We're supposed to be full ofthe Spirit and we're supposed to
use Scripture.
Isn't that what Jesus did inhis temptations?
It says he was full of theSpirit and we're supposed to use
Scripture.
Isn't that what Jesus did inhis temptations?
It says he was full of theSpirit and then he uses
Scripture.
He quotes Scripture In allthree temptations.
He quotes Scripture.
What are we supposed to belearning here?
Not some self-help guide, notsome self-esteem booster book,
(50:22):
not some psychology, secularpsychology.
We're supposed to be learningthe Word of God.
Look at, let me see if I canbring up this passage Isaiah.
Is it 50, verse 4?
Look at Isaiah 50, verse 4.
I want to show you somethingremarkable.
This is a prophecy about theMessiah that probably very few
(50:42):
Protestants know about.
This is a prophecy in Isaiah'sday about the Messiah Isaiah 50,
verse 4.
It's a messianic prophecy.
So this would be true of theone who is the Messiah, that is,
jesus.
Right 700 years in advance.
This prophecy was given aboutthe Messiah.
The Lord God has given methat's the Messiah the tongue of
(51:05):
disciples that I may know howto sustain the weary one with a
word.
So we'd all ask the questionwell, how did the Lord God give
the Messiah a tongue ofdisciples?
How did he know how to sustainweary individuals with a word?
Right here the next phrase heawakens me morning by morning.
He awakens my ear to listen asa disciple.
The Lord God has opened my ear.
(51:26):
I was not disobedient, I didnot turn back.
I gave my back to those whostrike me my cheeks, to those
who pluck out the beard, okay,and so on.
What happened every singlemorning of the Lord Jesus
Christ's life as a little boy inthe house of Joseph and Mary
Father awoke him every morningand taught him.
Taught him personally,discipled him, taught him
personally, discipled him.
(51:46):
You say but he's God.
What does the Messiah have to?
How does Jesus have to learnthe Bible?
Yes, he did it.
In the same way we have to doit.
You still have to learn theword of God.
If he had to.
How much more, of course, do weneed to If we're to be
(52:08):
successful disciples, if we'reto manage temptations as him see
, because he did not get tocheat folks.
You have only one differencewith him you have imputed sin,
you have inherited sin, you havesin.
This is your problem.
Okay, that's the onlydifference.
(52:28):
Outside of that, there's nodifference.
He had to meet the temptations,exact same way you have to.
It would be the same way thatAdam had to originally.
In a sense right, because Adamis created perfect.
There's no problem with Adam.
Right, adam's very good, no sin.
Then the temptations come rightand he falls.
(52:50):
But the Lord Jesus Christdidn't fall, and that's the
whole point.
That's the whole point.
This is why I say he's a reallyunique person, but in this
sense, he shares this with us.
He shows us how to live theChristian way of life.
Okay, so he had to learn.
Luke 2.52 confirms that too.
Here's the thing.
I'll say something crazy.
(53:10):
Let's say you never commit apersonal sin, can you go to
heaven then?
Nope, nope, because you stillgot inherited sin.
You still got imputed sin.
Those haven't been dealt with.
Just because you didn'tpersonally sin doesn't mean you
don't have these other types ofsin.
So you're still undercondemnation.
So both imputed sin andinherited sin condemn us and
(53:32):
separate us from God.
Now many people say you need torepent, you need to believe, and
this is what you have to do togo to heaven or whatever.
And usually by repent, whatthey mean is you need to turn
from your sin.
Isn't that right?
Don't you read this?
I read this in like tract aftertract, blog after blog,
facebook post after Facebookpost, blah, blah, blah blah.
You have to repent, meaningthey'll say you have to turn
(53:52):
from your sin.
You know why that's not goingto work.
You can turn from personal sin,but let me ask you a question.
Can you turn from imputed sin?
It's a legal declarationagainst you.
How can you turn from that?
It's a court decision.
Can you turn from yourinherited sin?
It's what you got from your momand dad.
(54:13):
How are you going to turn fromthat?
It's who you are in your flesh.
It's not a subject ofrepentance.
You can't turn from it.
The only thing you can repentof is personal sin.
This is why I say it'sshort-sighted to not really
understand why the Bible is soinsistent that faith, and
(54:38):
sometimes repentance, is used asa synonym of faith.
And I'm not going into bigdetail here, but if you look at
the book of Acts you'll see,like Acts 2.38, it says Peter
says repent and Acts 2.44, itsays they believe.
So in that passage they'rebeing used as synonyms.
They're not two separate acts.
Okay, like repent, and repentdoesn't mean turn anyway.
(54:59):
Repent means to change yourmind, have a change of thinking.
Does that happen when youbelieve in Christ?
Do you have a change of mind?
Well, yeah, you couldn'tbelieve in him if you didn't
have a change of mind about him.
So these two go together ifrepentance is to be involved.
But this idea of turning fromsin I'm trying to show how that
falls short of the benchmark.
It only relates to personal sin.
(55:21):
It does not relate to imputedor inherited sin.
Even if someone says well, sin,it does not relate to imputed
or inherited sin.
Even if someone says, well, Iturn from my sin.
Are they going to go to heaven?
Absolutely not.
The reason is because they'restill under the condemnation of
the imputed and inherited sin,and that's not what.
Those are not subjects ofrepentance.
What you need to do to go toheaven is just what Paul and
(55:43):
Silas told the Philippian jailer, and it always should be right
there Believe in the Lord JesusChrist, and you shall be saved
Over and out.
Why?
Why is that the over and outmessage?
That is the over and outmessage because Jesus Christ is
the one who did everything.
(56:03):
He's the one who's born of avirgin, so he's the only one
that possibly qualifies.
He's the one who was tempted inall things his way, and yet
without sin, and therefore he'sthe only one who qualifies right
.
He's the only one who avoidedthe imputed, inherited and
personal sin then, so he's theonly one who can possibly please
(56:23):
God.
Right Is promising God you'regoing to turn from your sin,
going to please God.
No, jesus Christ is the onlyone and he's the only way, and
that's why he said it.
I am the way, I am the truth, Iam the life.
No one comes to the Father, butright through me, he is the way
(56:48):
, the hadass, the path and ouronly thing to do is to believe
in him is to believe in him.
Is it becoming super clear toyou now why I am so insistent on
just believing in him?
And believe means to place yourconfidence in a reliable object
(57:11):
.
Is he reliable?
Do you believe that he's areliable object?
Do you believe that he canactually pay the sin penalty of
the entire world?
Because if you believe thatit's personally true for
yourself that he paid for allyour sin and he's a confident,
reliable object for you, becauseif you believe that is
personally true for yourself,that he paid for all your sin
and he's a confident, reliableobject for you, he says you have
(57:33):
everlasting life and if he saidit, god said it.
If God said it, that's the endof it.
It's true.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(58:02):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.