Untitled - October 14, 2025

00:00:00 Speaker: Tonight we continue our study of the Nicene Creed. Turning to the phrase in the Creed for us and for our salvation. Everything in the Creed so far has been true about God, independent of us, except for maybe the phrase we believe, or I believe that one requires us. But the rest of the first part of the Nicene Creed is just true about God, generally independent of his creation. That all changes tonight. I'll put the Creed so far on the screen. I believe in God, in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. God is the creator and he is the creator before he created. Did his one God. He is the father. He is Almighty, the maker of all things. That is who he is towards himself. We also believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. And again the begotten of the son is true in eternity past before creation, begotten of the father before all worlds. That's the key phrase that we've looked at so far, that what is true about Christ is true about him before the creation of the universe. He is God of God and light of light, God of very God. The third time the Creed says he's begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father that speaks of his eternal generation, and by whom all things are made. You start to see creation breaking into this by that last phrase, by Christ all things are made from the father, but through the son. But now what Fred Sanders called when he was here for the Nicene Conference, what he called the Red line of the Nicene Creed is crossed. Now we turn towards us. We move from God as He is towards himself, to God as He is towards us, and he is towards us through Christ. That's the point. God acts towards us and thinks towards us and enters our world towards us. And he does so through Christ, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. That's the part we'll look at tonight. There's more, of course, of what Christ did when he came to earth, and we'll save that for next Sunday evening. But for tonight, who? For us and for our salvation. That's the phrase for us and for our salvation. This is the turn in the Creed. And it stresses what theologians call the hypostatic union that God comes in the incarnation, that he was incarnate by the Holy Spirit. Incarnate means he takes on flesh, he becomes a human being, and he does that by the working of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man. Now, this is not the first time God has entered creation. Of course, this happens in in Bethlehem when Jesus is born. But God had entered creation prior to this. He had entered creation, of course, personally, when he walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, he entered creation vocally. As he spoke the universe into existence, he entered creation creatively. His power shaped it. His power separated light from darkness in the earth, from the the water and the dry land. His power affixed the sun in the sky and the moon and the stars. His power generated the animals. I mean, his words entered creation and he made creation. So he has been creation personally before. Vocally, creatively. He's even engaged with his creation providentially. All things that take place take place according to his will. He guides and shapes all things. There's great mystery there. How does God sustain all of the galaxies? Just by his own power. Of his will. And I guess, in a sense, it's hard, the vastness of the galaxies to understand how he can sustain all of them. But then you get to the intricate level of human beings. What you had for lunch today, whether or not you made the red light on your way to church, whether or not you stopped at the red light that you didn't make on your way to church. That's all the interactions of God, and he's sovereign over all of those details of every person who has ever lived and who ever will live. He directs them all according to his will. So certainly he's involved in the world providentially, vocally, creatively, personally, but with this phrase of the creed, with the the birth in Bethlehem, he enters the world physically. Where he takes on a human body and a human nature. When I say it takes on a human body. I don't want you to think that he just robes himself like a costume. No, he he truly takes on a human nature to himself. Now, of course, there's theophanies in the Old Testament. You have the burning bush, and you have the angel of the Lord, and you have the fire that fills the temple and all of that. But that's not an incarnation. This is an incarnation. The Theophanies were a manifestation of God in some mysterious way. What did Moses see when he saw God walk by? Or what did Elijah see when he saw God walk by in the cleft of the rock? I mean, we don't know what that is, but it was not an incarnation. It was not a human nature. It wasn't God presenting himself in the world with a human nature. It has some kind of human form. But it was just a vision. It was just a presentation. It was a theophany. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he didn't take on the nature of a bush and live a bush life. Leaves fall off in the winter and whatnot. No, he was a burning bush. He was there. But for a moment. When the fire fills the temple, God doesn't take on a fire. Nature. He is. He's light by his own nature. But it's just a presentation. And yet, in Bethlehem, God takes on a human nature. All of those other examples in the Old Testament, they're rightly called theophanies because they're all three persons of God. I've heard people argue that they should be called Aristophanes because they're, you know, pre-incarnate visions of Christ. That probably goes too far, because everything God does, God does together father, son and spirit. And so the burning bush in the angel in the cloud this morning even talked about how the cloud represents the Holy Spirit. That's true, but it's always God at work in an inseparable way. But this changes at the incarnation. At the incarnation, it's the second person of the Trinity who takes on a human nature and comes to earth. It's the son who comes the who. For us, the subject of the sentence is the son, the only begotten Son of God. That's what happens here. All three persons of the Trinity are involved. Of course, it's their will for the son to go. The son is not on a secret rescue mission. The son didn't sneak out at night after curfew. The father and the spirit the next morning, wondering where the son went. Of course not. This is planned by the father, son and spirit. The three persons of the Trinity have the same will. Because will is a property of of nature. There's one divine nature, only one divine nature. And so there's only one divine will. And it's God's will. The will of the father, the will of the son, and the will of the spirit that the son would come to earth. In terms of the planning of this. It's all three persons of the Trinity. But in terms of the actual incarnation, it is only the son. And here's the limits of what we called last week inseparable operations. They have their their limit. All that God does, he does. His father, son and spirit. Even the incarnation he does as father, son and spirit. The father sends the son and the the spirit ministers to the son. However, it is only the son who is incarnate. Now, right away, this phrase who for us in our salvation came down from heaven leads to questions. And I'll give you those some of those questions tonight. It leads to way more questions than we have time on our screen to answer, I'm sure. I don't suppose to answer all the questions about how God could become incarnate tonight, just like four or five of them. The first question, how did God come down? Because that's the statement of the creed that he came down from heaven. How? How did he come down from heaven? And the answer is what? As I mentioned earlier, theologians call the hypostatic union. Hypostasis is just a Greek word. It means substance or essence or being. It's your nature. You only have one nature. You have a human nature. But the human nature is multiplied. Each one of you has a human nature, but each one of you has a different human nature, all the same kind of natures. But they're different. Your nature and my nature, both human natures, but they're distinct. God only has one divine nature, and it's not multiplied. There's only one divine nature. It subsists in the father, son, and spirit. But it's not multiplied. The three don't each have their own God nature. There's only one divine nature. The hypostatic union means the son with the divine nature joins a second nature to his person, a human nature. That's the union part. So he now has the nature of God and the nature of son. He has two nature of God and the nature of a human. He has two natures in him join together, resident in him. And there are both true natures, their real natures. When God joins a human nature to himself in the person of the son, it's not a show that he puts on. He doesn't act like a human being for a period of time, like he acted like a bush, for example. He's not merely presenting himself as a human being, he truly has a human nature. This is why somebody asked me about this a year ago. I don't normally say the phrase fully God and fully man. I just have a hard time with that. Logically, you can't be full of two different substances, but I always say the phrase truly God and truly man, that the sun is in the person of Jesus Christ. Truly God and truly man. Both natures are true and they're not mixed. The natures don't mingle in him. They're joined in the person, the Son of God, with his true divine nature, now takes onto himself a true human nature. And they're both natures are present. Both natures are operating in the person of the son. Now, of course, those operations will look differently. He acts as God differently than he acts as man. He has a human body that's not according to his divine nature. That's according to his human nature. The human body didn't come with the God part of him. It came with the human part of him. And all that is resonant with the human body. Hunger. Thirst. Sleep. But Jesus, the person, the Son of God, his person, experiences all of those human affections and emotions. He is truly a man. He's also truly God. All the attributes of God dwell in him, but in bodily form they're incarnate. He is truly God, and only the Son of God experiences this union. The father is not incarnate. The spirit is not incarnate. Only the person of the son experiences this. And like I said, those natures are not mixed. They don't swallow each other up. You could imagine, you know, you have to have that concept that they're not mixed. Otherwise, you would imagine the human nature of Christ being devoured by the God nature. If this nature is mixed, what of his humanity would be left? You don't want them tainting each other either. The humanity doesn't taint the deity. Otherwise the the human nature would work kind of back upstream, so to speak. Go up the pipes into God and the father would experience humanity, and the spirit would experience humanity. But there's a a backflow protection device in the Trinity. The human nature is joined to the son and doesn't work its way back up the pipes to the father and the spirit. Only the son experiences the human nature, but he truly experiences it. He truly acts in it. He lives a true human life. He doesn't fall back on his deity at all times and moments of temptation. He doesn't tag in his divine nature to withstand the devil and resist sin. No, he resists the devil and he obeys his man because he's truly man. But his human nature never becomes omnipotent and omniscient. That's his divine nature. He operates freely with them both. That's the hypostatic union. And this begins at the virgin birth. Luke one verse thirty five. The angel tells Mary, the Holy Spirit will come upon you or will overshadow you. And the child will be born to you will be called holy, the Son of God. That's the virgin birth. The Scripture makes clear this happens without relations between Mary and Joseph. She conceives the child a true human child, but she conceives by the agency of the Holy Spirit, which is fitting because it will be a child with two natures, the virgin birth. There are so many implications for that. It's the fulfillment of the prophecy given back to Adam and Eve, that it will be a seed of the woman who crushes the head of the serpent, not a seed of the man. And normally it would be the seed of a man that produces life, but in this instance it will be the seed of the woman. That's a prophecy of the virgin birth. Of course, the sin nature is passed down through human procreation. It's not so with Jesus. By his own nature, he is sinless. Adam's sin not given to him. Adam's nature given to him a true human nature, but not Adam's sin. He alone is exempt from the federal headship of Adam. Adam's sin plunges the whole human race into sin except for Jesus. Jesus is truly in Adam's nature. He's a true human being, but he does not have imputed to him Adam's sin because he is obedient. Where Adam failed. This begins, as I mentioned, with the the virgin birth at the Son of God is sensed by the father, enabled by the spirit, to the womb of Mary, where he enters creation as a as a fetus, a fetus with a true human nature, a true human body, true human development, but with a divine nature as well. This is the most outrageous thing Christians believe, isn't it? I always laugh when people say I can't be a Christian because there's contradictions in the Bible. How did the animals fit on the ark, you know? Was the the scarf that Jesus had on the cross or the robe that he had? Was it purple or was it scarlet? Ha ha ha. Like, that's not a contradiction. You're kidding me. Jesus. Having two natures, that's a contradiction. Like you want to stumble over some Christian truth. Like, let's choose a real one to stumble over. But that's what the Scripture says, that God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Truly human, truly God. The point is, he was made man. This is the famous Christian song. Charles Wesley. Christ by highest heaven adored Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time. Behold him come that late in time. Meaning, how many generations of human beings, from the prophecy to Adam and Eve came and went before Jesus was born? So many. But he comes to us, offspring of the Virgin's womb. Notice even the contradiction in that this is ripe for contradictions, isn't it? The one who made bread hungry, the one who made light sleeping in darkness, the author of life, experiencing death. I mean, it's all contradictions, but this is a great one. Offspring of the Virgin's womb. What a contradiction that is veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail, the incarnate deity, pleased with us in flesh to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel. It really can't be said better than that. The second question. Why the son? Why did the son become incarnate and not the father and not the Holy Spirit? Did they draw straws? Did they play rock, paper, scissors? Odd man out. And if so, is becoming incarnate winning or losing? I don't know how that would work out. No. The son becomes incarnate because. And here's my super theological reason. The son becomes incarnate because he comes as a son. It's in his nature in that sense. And you could ask yourself the question this way if one of the persons of God the Father, son, or spirit was going to be born on earth as a son, and by his birth is going to reveal to us the very nature of God. In which person is the nature of God most revealed by coming? It's not in a father's nature to come as a son. It's not in the Spirit's nature to come as a son. But it is in the son's nature to be a son. If the whole idea of this operation that God is coming to earth as a human nature, is to reveal the nature of God to us, then it's important that the person of God who comes actually reveals God as He is to us. This is the stumbling block in German liberal theology. They can't get over this part. German liberal theology is perpetually unable to answer the question how can we learn about God as he truly is if he's so unlike us? How can we look at things in this world and learn about God? How can we read the Bible and learn about God as He truly is? there, unable to answer that question in a real way because they're generally missing this part of the answer. Jesus, in his incarnation, truly reveals the nature of God to us. At the very least, he reveals the nature of Trinity that the son is always from the father, even in eternity past. And so it's fitting that the father would send the son to be incarnate. It's in the son's nature to be a son. It's most in keeping with the son's distinction, if you will. The father, son, and spirit all have the same nature, of course, with the personal. With the exception of personal distinctions. Only the father is father, only the son is son. Only the spirit in that sense is spirit from the father and the son together. That nature is most revealed by the father, sending the son to be a human son, and the spirit delighting in the son. We looked this morning at the Transfiguration. Don't you see the very operations of the Trinity on display in the Transfiguration? The father speaking and shining through the son, the spirit descending and affirming. The son, the spirit doing spirit things, the father doing father things, the son doing son things are all on display in the Transfiguration. They're all on display at the baptism. They're on display in God's works in the world because it's the son who comes as a son. Third question when was this planned? When did God decide to do this? Did God decide? Nine months before Christmas morning. Did God decide in the garden when Adam sinned? Scramble. The angels come up with plan B. This whole thing is going downhill fast. Leave them alone for five minutes. Fruit juice all over their face. What in the world? The answer. When was this decided? It was decided before time. Scripture makes it clear time and time again. This was God's plan before creation. There's one hundred and one passages in the Bible we could turn to for this, but here's just a few. Revelation thirteen verse eight describes the elect as chosen by God and written in the book of life of the lamb who was slain before time. It doesn't matter if the before time is describing the when the elector chosen, or when the lamb was slain, when the book was written, or when the lamb was slain. Either way, the book is called the Book of Life of the lamb who was slain. Whether the names are written there or it was titled Before time is irrelevant to this point. The point is, in God's mind, the lamb would be slain, and that was determined before time. Jude, verse twenty five says it this way Jesus is our only Savior before all time, and now and forevermore. Think of that expression. Jude says he is our only Savior. And then he says, before time, that's true. Ephesians one verse four says, we are elect in Christ before time, before the foundation of the world. First Peter one verse twenty says, the cost of the elect is the precious blood of Christ. And this was determined before the foundation of the world. In the mind of God, the blood of Christ was shed before the earth was created. That's when this was decided. How about the why? Why? Why did God plan it this way? Why did God make this plan? That he would come to earth as a man? To die on the cross for sin? And again, there's one hundred and one verses we can look at. But I want to draw your attention to Luke nineteen, Luke nineteen, page eight seventy eight. In the pew Bibles. Jesus entered Jericho. And was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was a wee little fellow. So he ran on ahead and climbed into a sycamore tree to see him, for Jesus was about to pass that way. When Jesus came to that place, and this reference to that place, this is in Jericho. Jesus is going from the Mount of Transfiguration, through Galilee and Capernaum, through Jericho to Jerusalem to be crucified. This is the end of the road for Jesus, the end of the road. So this is not some minor encounter here. This is kind of his last March. This is his last set of miracles before he enters Jerusalem. So it says he came to the place it's talking about under the sycamore tree, of course, but it's talking about Jericho, and it's even bigger than that. And it's talking. It's talking about everything. At this point in Luke's gospel, there's such emotion and such affection for what the Lord is doing and his healing and his miracles and all that. Luke describes Jesus doing that the phrase that place there has so much hanging in it. But I mean, obviously it means under the sycamore tree, but there's so much more wrapped in there, especially where you know where this is going. He's going to go die. But at that place he looked up. There's a moment of joy. Zacchaeus, hurry and come down. Get out of the tree, man! It's so funny, isn't it? Like a short little dude up in a sycamore tree to see Jesus, and he just stops everything. He's like, you better run out of that tree, man. Jesus didn't need to say it like this. He didn't just say, hurry and come down. The whole thing is a humorous sight for sure. And Jesus says, I must stay at your house today. So Zacchaeus hurried, came down, and received him, joyfully speaking probably of a hug and an embrace and a walk to his house. The whole parade diverts. Jesus has healed blind men outside of the city. He has an entourage going with him. This is the crowd that's going to become the triumphal entry march. There's a massive crowd and he diverts the whole thing to go to Zacchaeus house for lunch. The crowd grumbles. He's gone in to be the guest of a man who's a sinner. And again, you misread this story. If you keep such a narrow focus on it, you're only seeing it about Zacchaeus. If you only see the place as a sycamore tree, and you only see the sinner that he's with as Zacchaeus, you're really missing what Luke's doing here. He's less concerned about the sycamore tree, and he's less concerned about Zacchaeus than he is. This is the whole operation. Do you get that? Why did Jesus come here? To the sycamore tree, to Jericho, to earth? And the crowd is grumbling that he came to spend time with sinners. And they're upset about Jericho. I mean, this is you. This is lunch with you in this story. They grumble. Man is a sinner. Zacchaeus says, behold, Lord, I am a sinner. You're right, I confess. And all the stuff I stole, I give back there. Do you see the crowd rejoice, by the way? I think they actually cared about Zacchaeus. Repentance. Of course not. But Zacchaeus repents of his sin, gives half of his stuff to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. The if is doing a lot of work there, isn't it? If I defrauded anyone of anything. Okay, there goes the other half of his stuff is often said half to the poor. The rest? Everyone else. And Jesus said to him, today, salvation has come to this house, since he also is the son of Abraham. I mean, this is salvation. Today it's come. He's going to look for figs on the fig tree next week, and he's not going to find any. He's going to curse the fig tree, because the house of Abraham, the house of Israel, is not producing fruit. But now Zacchaeus is a bit of an early fig. He's received salvation. And then Jesus says this, The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. This isn't the only place in Scripture where he says this. Of course, this goes back to, as I mentioned earlier, the very first prophecy for Jesus coming is given to Eve. The Savior will come as a seed of the woman to crush the serpent. It's a promise given to Abraham, but by Abraham's seed, the nations of the world will be blessed. This is the promise given to Israel through Moses that a prophet like Moses will come. Listen to him. We'll look at that prophecy next Sunday morning. He'll be a priest like Melchizedek. He'll come from Judah through David, in Bethlehem, from Nazareth. Those are all prophecies in the Old Testament. They're all describing that he's coming to gather the lost sheep. He's coming to be a blessing to those that have gone their own way. The nations have gone their own way. Yet they'll be blessed. They're lost, but they'll be blessed. But Luke nineteen verse ten just says it so succinctly, doesn't it? The Son of Man came to seek and to save that word that's used seek there. It's the word in Matthew thirteen for the merchant looking for fine pearls. It's the word in two Timothy one for Onissimus, searching for Serenissimus. Searching for Paul when he was in prison. This is what God does for us. He searches for us. He's seeking. That's why it's so funny how Jesus calls Zacchaeus out of the tree. I mean, that's who he was looking for. And he finds him treed and everything. He comes from heaven to earth to seek his elect. God has never been content to let his people go his own way. He calls for Adam and Eve in the garden and he does not leave them hiding. He covers them with fig leaves. And he still searches. People are alienated from their creator. They're lost. They're going their own way, and God seeks for them. That's the point. God is the initiator. God doesn't wait for people to start looking for him. He goes looking for them. And if God didn't go looking, there would be no salvation. Listen, if Jesus didn't call Zacchaeus out of the tree, Zacchaeus wouldn't have got saved. That's the idea. And big picture if Jesus didn't come to earth, nobody would be saved. There would be no salvation. And he doesn't just seek, he also saves. He's not just looking for the lost, he's effectually saving them. He seeks those whom he chooses. And then he legitimately, really and truly saves them. He dies for their sins, sends his spirit, who changes their hearts and draws them to faith. God is the initiator. John says it this way we love him because he first loved us. He sent his son to rescue us. I'm telling you, this is more specific than just general speaking. It's not like God is a seeker by nature, but he is, in a sense, a Savior by nature. He is a giver by nature. He gives himself and reveals himself. If God didn't sovereignly change a person's heart, they would never turn to him. Jesus doesn't simply come to search and to seek and to find. He actually comes to save. If he just searched and sought and found us, that would do us no good. He has to save us. Not all who have an encounter with Christ are saved by him. Of course, there's streets are lined with people here that don't come to saving faith. Not all who celebrate the story of Christmas have a saving relationship with Christ. But he does effectually save his children. He saves them by living a sinless life, by dying a perfect death, bearing their sin on the cross, then by rising from the grave. That's why this passage is so critical. Jericho was wealthy in Jesus's lifetime. The streets are lined with people. But only Zacchaeus comes to faith that we know of. And the beggar outside the city. People are lost. Notice the phrase he comes to seek and save the lost. Have you ever been really lost? It's hard concept to explain now with maps on your phone. Do you remember the Pre-google map days? It was like a year before Google Maps and phones that I lived here. Twenty twelve we moved here. This is people didn't have Google Maps on their phones back then. Can you imagine? And I knew what it was like to be lost the first time we encountered the mixing bowl. It's like the road goes in three ways and all three say north. That's not cool. We even had a Garmin in our car and it hadn't updated with the mixing bowl on it. The new mixing bowl. And I remember driving with Deidre, maybe your second or third time through it, and there's a picture of our car going through a field on the map. We're like, we're on like a twelve lane freeway and the car going through a field, and it says, like across the top. Do you remember the Garmin? I used to have directions across the top. It said find the nearest road. And we're like, okay, we're on a twelve lane freeway. Find nearest road. This is just going to be our life. I'm reading a biography of Captain Cook right now. He lands on Christmas Island and he gives everybody Christmas Day off. And they go around hunting sea turtles all over the place. Two of his sailors get lost on Christmas. It's a tiny island. They get lost for a couple days. They're lost. There's no there's no water on Christmas Island. There's no water. So they're dying of thirst on this tiny island. These two dudes get lost. He sends out a search party. He finds them, they're passed out. They end up living, and they nurse him back to health. Give him brandy and sea turtle to eat. And Captain Cook marvels at them. He writes in his journal, I cannot. They're seventeen years old. Like they have enough skill to navigate around the world under somebody else's direction. They don't have enough directional capacity. Captain cook writes that had they walked thirty yards in any direction up a rock, they would be able to see the mast of the ship from anywhere on the island. But they didn't think of doing that. They kept walking in circles on the beach, and later, a few days later, he looks back on it and he says in retrospect, thinking of seventeen year olds, it's actually a wonder that more of them don't get lost all the time. I have a sympathy for that coaching high school soccer right now. That's what it means to be lost. These guys were obviously lost. They're dying, but they don't have the capacity to even know what to do. It doesn't occur to them. That's how we are, apart from Christ. We don't have the capacity to be found. We wander around. But that's the message of this. That the Lord comes to seek to save the lost. Or as the Nicene Creed says, that the Lord comes to us, for us, and for our salvation. Lord, we're thankful that you seek and save your own children. You find the lost and you rescue us through the cross of Christ. The cross is lifted up. Like a mast on the ship. It's lifted up. It can be seen from all over the world. And yet lost. People don't know where to look. You knew where to look, though. You came to the earth to seek and to save people who have wandered away. Lord, I pray if there's anyone here tonight that has never turned to you in faith that has never been found by you, I pray tonight they would be found. They would know you came to earth for them and for their salvation. Or for those of us who are walking in faith. I pray we would receive joy from this kind of text. Joy to know that our salvation is not a mere decision we made in time. It's not merely something that happened to us, but it's something you planned before all of creation. It reveals your very nature to us. You are a true father. You are a father to us through your true son, and you bring us in love by making our spirit alive through your true spirit. It's in the triune name of God, we pray. Amen. And now for parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ.com. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Immanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.