Understanding the Identity and Nature of Jesus

Well Jesus asked this question himself of his disciples who who do you say that I am who do other people say that I am he was making claims and doing things that nobody else has ever done he says in John chapter 14 I am the way the truth and the life no man can come to the Father except through me. [00:02:52]

When somebody is making the kind of claims Jesus is making and doing the kind of things he's doing when you claim to be God incarnate then it's very important for people to decide is he who he says he is or is he a liar is the a blasphemer this question was presented to those he encountered in the first century. [00:03:17]

The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of the Messiah christology doctrine of the Messiah where do we go to learn about the Messiah we go to the Old Testament and this goes back all the way to Genesis and traces all the way through through the history of Israel the rise of the Davidic the prophets Jesus himself said in the Gospel of Luke on the road to Emmaus. [00:06:05]

The need for these councils arose because people reading the scriptures noticed in the Gospels in particular that at certain times Jesus is doing and saying things appropriate for human being he's eating hes wery at other times as i mentioned earlier he's doing and saying things appropriate to god he's forgiving sins he is accepting worship and so forth. [00:10:00]

The church needed to proclaim the gospel of Christ with the unified message if we're going to preach Christ and him crucified the church needed to explain who Jesus is and so they would gather together and set boundaries and it wasn't the intention for these councils to replace or usurp Scripture they all councils all theologians are fallible. [00:11:12]

The doctrine of the hypostatic union means involves understanding a little bit more vocabulary because it includes this word high hypostatic coming from hypostasis at the time of the christological and Trinitarian controversies you had several terms that were being used to formulate these doctrines and there was a lot of confusion at the time. [00:33:43]

The hypostatic Union we're talking about the second hypostasis the second person of the Trinity assuming a human nature in union with the divine the divine nature and the human nature are in union in one hypostasis there's one hypostasis and two natures as kelsey diamond's pointing out he's co essential with the father according to his deity. [00:34:59]

The attributes of either nature can be predicated of the one person because the one person of the Sun the hypostasis of the Sun he had a divine nature from all eternity in an appointed time he assumes a human nature which now belongs to him and that's the point that Cyril's making in that passage is the human nature that the Sun assumed is his very own nature. [00:45:19]

The works of both the divine networks that are proper to the divine nature and the works that are proper to the human nature are understood by us as the works of the whole person because of the communication of attributes and all of this goes back to that phrase in the definition of Cassadine that he God became man for us and for our salvation. [00:47:19]

Jesus claimed to be the Son of God he claimed to be the only mid way to salvation those are huge claims is he who he said he is is what he said about himself true we need to know the answer to that everybody here needs to know the answer to that the people who heard and saw him in the first century came to different conclusions. [00:55:49]

If he is who he said he is we need to repent we need to believe we need to place our faith in him and follow him and that you're not going to be able to answer that question unless you read the Gospels unless you look at the claims Christ made for himself so I would say take up and read. [00:56:26]

Thank you that's a good exultation not just to the non-christian but to the Christian as well we should always be going to Scripture and studying and learning and to make sure she said that we are both theologians and not falling into error well dr. Matheson thank you so much for your time today and we do thank you for your service. [00:56:44]