Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- Firbush Retreat Fall 2016 Robert T. Walker, "Jesus' Oneness with God and Man." This presentation appears to be from an evening presentation on 9 October 2016 -- not at a Firbush retreat. https://tftorrance.org/firbushF2016 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:15 9th of October 2016 the topic is Jesus' Oneness with God and Man, the homoousion. 00:15-00:31 We've read from John 14 the beginning, Colossians 1 verse 15 following and some of Colossians 00:31-00:37 2 and some of Colossians 3. 00:37-00:42 The topic tonight falls on very well from the topic last week, the humanity of Jesus 00:42-00:46 and an end hypostatic. 00:46-00:50 The official title is Jesus' Oneness with God and Man. 00:50-00:58 But behind that the central point is what has been called the homoousion of Jesus, which 00:58-01:04 means homo the same and ousia being. 01:04-01:11 It was what the early church felt compelled to say in order to be summed up and be as 01:11-01:19 faithful as possible to what they've encountered of Jesus in the gospel and in faithfulness 01:19-01:22 to the New Testament. 01:22-01:29 The homoousion was a way of saying that Jesus is sort of saying being is God. 01:29-01:32 Obviously we have no idea what the being of God is. 01:32-01:38 We have some idea about what creaturely being is but we don't even know what creaturely 01:38-01:41 being fundamentally is. 01:41-01:49 We can tell the difference between wood and stone and living things but the basis of it 01:49-01:52 we don't know. 01:52-01:59 We describe things as well as we can but in many ways we cannot understand the absolute 01:59-02:01 absolute essence of something. 02:01-02:05 That's true of created things. 02:05-02:09 Even though in science we know more and more. 02:09-02:17 When we think of God there's no way we can have any idea of the being of God, what He 02:17-02:18 is. 02:18-02:20 But we know Him as a reality. 02:20-02:26 We know that He is constant, that He is character. 02:26-02:32 So by saying that Christ is of the same being as God it's just a way of saying that He is 02:32-02:33 God. 02:33-02:37 Wherever God is Christ is. 02:37-02:41 Christ is not lesser God than God the Father. 02:41-02:50 So He is just as much God as the Father is except that He is Son and not the Father. 02:50-02:55 So it's a way of saying He shares the very essence of God. 02:55-03:01 Wherever God is that's what Christ is. 03:01-03:08 As the homoousion was coined to apply to the relation between Christ and God. 03:08-03:09 He is not like God. 03:09-03:10 He actually is God. 03:10-03:14 He is the same being. 03:14-03:20 But it also applies very much to the relation between Christ and us. 03:20-03:23 He is the very same being as us. 03:23-03:26 He is fully man. 03:26-03:28 Wherever we are He has become. 03:28-03:38 That's a fundamental of the Christian faith and a fundamental of the old doctrine of salvation. 03:38-03:45 Because we are not able to save ourselves and couldn't save ourselves He became what 03:45-03:49 we are right down alongside us. 03:49-03:54 So that's been called the double homoousion. 03:54-04:00 Christ is homoousios, same being as God and as man. 04:00-04:14 Obviously this is the view of the early church that Christ was fully God and fully man. 04:14-04:17 That was the topic of great controversy. 04:17-04:25 There are different approaches we can take and that were taken at the early church and 04:25-04:31 have been taken throughout church history. 04:31-04:37 If we don't go down the road of saying that Christ is absolutely fully God Himself and 04:37-04:44 we've looked at some of the biblical passages that point in that direction and we'll look 04:44-04:50 at those later, but if we don't go down the road of saying He is fully God and fully man 04:50-04:53 then there are two other main roads. 04:53-05:01 One is that this is God come into man. 05:01-05:12 But if you take that route then it almost always means that Christ is not fully man 05:12-05:21 or that He is, for example, with Apollinaris. 05:21-05:31 Then Apollinaris is a well known figure in the early church who believes that when God 05:31-05:43 came into man the Logos took the place of the mind of man so that God became man but 05:43-05:48 not fully man. 05:48-05:56 Any kind of belief that doesn't see the full reality of the humanity of Jesus is called 05:56-06:04 Docetism from the Greek 'dokio' to appear, that Christ appears to be human but He is 06:04-06:08 not fully human. 06:08-06:18 One basic approach is to acknowledge the uniqueness of Jesus and that somehow God is in this man 06:18-06:24 but not to see the full reality of the humanity of Jesus. 06:24-06:34 In the passages in Colossians, for example, chapter 1 verse 19, 'In Him all the fullness 06:34-06:39 of God was pleased to dwell.' 06:39-06:48 In chapter 2 verse 9, 'For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.' 06:48-06:57 These are very strong assertions that the whole God, God in all His fullness, was in 06:57-06:59 Christ. 06:59-07:09 Now that doesn't necessarily mean that God became man. 07:09-07:20 It simply means that the whole of God was in Christ, working in Christ. 07:20-07:27 So if we want to say that Christ is fully man we have to take the whole of the New Testament, 07:27-07:33 look at all the passages and fit them together and work out the logic. 07:33-07:46 The one main approach is docetism but the other is a Jewish heresy called Ebionism which 07:46-07:54 is that Christ was a man who was adopted by God. 07:54-08:06 If we follow that way of thinking then obviously Christ is not God, He is a man. 08:06-08:14 The interesting thing is that these two ways of thinking play into each other and in a 08:14-08:22 way they are different halves of the same coin or different sides of the same coin. 08:22-08:31 The problem with each is that they cannot give a high enough place to the absolute reality 08:31-08:35 of the humanity of Jesus. 08:35-08:44 Behind that lies some kind of dualism, some kind of preconceived thinking that God is 08:44-08:54 somehow different, not just different but torn apart, objectively different in the sense 08:54-09:02 that He is not free to enter into this world and become man. 09:02-09:16 So our presuppositions exclude them from ultimate real contact or coming into this world. 09:16-09:26 These two heresies shade into each other but basically they are coming from some kind of 09:26-09:44 dualism because we can't have any real concept of God or of man until we know Christ. 09:44-09:46 So that's key. 09:46-09:54 We can't have an idea of God and an idea of man and put them together to make Christ. 09:54-09:59 Because of our sin we can't have a proper idea of God. 09:59-10:06 Inevitably the human mind, as Calvin says, is a perpetual factor of idols. 10:06-10:11 We picture God in ways that are appropriate to us and make sense to us and we project 10:11-10:14 these onto God. 10:14-10:22 Because we are corrupted, decaying human beings who have lost what we ought to be, we don't 10:22-10:26 have a proper idea of man either. 10:26-10:37 But real theology begins when we start with Christ and somehow we begin to see that there 10:37-10:44 is something new here and we begin to form our concept of God from Christ and our concept 10:44-10:47 of man. 10:47-10:54 Basically God made himself known to the Old Testament and so there is a great knowledge 10:54-11:00 of God ready there in a sense. 11:00-11:06 And yet in another sense it is very partial and it has been twisted because even the knowledge 11:06-11:16 of God that God gave himself to Israel was twisted and it was systematized and it was 11:16-11:21 codified in human tradition. 11:21-11:34 Again God was held at arm's length and the Jews again and again turned the knowledge 11:34-11:41 of God into something they could use to their advantage and was no longer the real God. 11:41-11:49 But in Christ there is something new happening and he does things that only God in the Old 11:49-11:53 Testament can do. 11:53-11:59 He uses the words 'I am' which is the language of God in the Old Testament. 11:59-12:11 And if you look at John 14, he says 'Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God. 12:11-12:12 Believe also in me.' 12:12-12:23 Now it seems to me that that 'believe in me' is a way of saying 'believe in my humanity, 12:23-12:31 believe in my reality, believe in what I am, what I am doing and what I am going to do'. 12:31-12:39 And then he goes on in the famous passage to say that he is going to heaven and he is 12:39-12:45 going to prepare a place for his disciples and if he is going to prepare a place obviously 12:45-12:48 he will come back again and take them for himself. 12:48-12:52 And he says 'And you know the way I am going'. 12:52-12:58 Thomas says 'We don't know the way you are going, how can we know the way?' 12:58-13:04 And then Jesus says 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. 13:04-13:05 Astonishing words. 13:05-13:09 I am the ego-aimy of the burning bush. 13:09-13:11 I am the way. 13:11-13:16 So normally we have a road and we walk along the road. 13:16-13:21 There is a way and then we walk on it. 13:21-13:24 Christ himself is the way. 13:24-13:31 His whole life, what he did, is a making of the way to God. 13:31-13:32 The way is not different from him. 13:32-13:39 He in his life is the way to God and he is the truth. 13:39-13:45 Truth in the Old Testament is what happens when the word of God is done in the flesh 13:45-13:48 and done according to what the word of God has said would happen. 13:48-13:50 So he is the truth. 13:50-13:55 He is the truth of God done in human flesh. 13:55-14:04 You know the love, the fulfilment of God, the truth and he is the life. 14:04-14:12 All life is in God and all life is alive with the life that comes from God. 14:12-14:16 Christ is saying 'I am the life'. 14:16-14:24 So it is fair to say that what he says here, 'I am the way, the truth and the life' 14:24-14:32 applies both to his fully-tused deity and to his humanity, assuming that he is fully 14:32-14:35 God and man. 14:35-14:41 But then he goes on 'If you had known me you would have known my father also'. 14:41-14:44 And they say 'Show us the father and we will be satisfied'. 14:44-14:49 And he says 'Have I been with you for three years? 14:49-14:55 Have you lived with me, slept with me, travelled with me, listened to me and you still don't 14:55-14:57 understand me? 14:57-15:03 If you have seen me you have seen the father'. 15:03-15:09 That is the closest possible identification between Christ and the father. 15:09-15:13 If we have seen Christ we have seen the father. 15:13-15:22 So in this man the father makes himself known to us. 15:22-15:28 We could look at the rest of that chapter. 15:28-15:36 Of course at the beginning of John the word was with God and the word was God. 15:36-15:48 If we look at Colossians, the great 'Hymn to Christ' verses 15 to 20, he is the image 15:48-15:50 of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 15:50-15:53 I have always wondered why the firstborn of all creation? 15:53-16:01 Because that could easily be interpreted in an Arian fashion, like Arius taught that Christ 16:01-16:03 wasn't fully God. 16:03-16:10 He was the firstborn, the first creature that God brought into being, the firstborn of all 16:10-16:17 creation. 16:17-16:22 And then it goes on 'For in him all things were created in heaven and on earth. 16:22-16:26 Seventeen years before all things, in him all things hold together'. 16:26-16:33 So this is a tremendous hymn about the cosmic significance of Christ. 16:33-16:36 And of course we get the same in the beginning of John, 'All things were made by him'. 16:36-16:40 We get the same at the beginning of Hebrews. 16:40-16:45 The whole of the universe hangs together in Christ. 16:45-16:51 That's not just a so-called spiritual statement or a spiritual truth, that's a physical fact. 16:51-16:56 The physical universe hangs together in Christ. 16:56-17:03 The world was brought into being through him and in him all things hold together. 17:03-17:04 And then it goes on. 17:04-17:09 Now it seems to me that these first verses, with the exception of the firstborn of all 17:09-17:18 creation, are all about his deity. 17:18-17:25 And then it goes on that he is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the firstborn 17:25-17:28 from the dead. 17:28-17:33 That in everything he might be pre-eminent. 17:33-17:36 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. 17:36-17:43 It seems to me that the first part is dealing with his divinity, the second with his humanity. 17:43-17:47 But why in verse 15 the firstborn of all creation? 17:47-17:54 It seems to me that verse 1 is a kind of summary of both. 17:54-18:02 He is the image of the invisible God, because he wasn't that until he became man, the firstborn 18:02-18:07 of all creation. 18:07-18:18 And then it goes back to saying why is he this? 18:18-18:24 Picking up the argument of Athanasius that all things were brought into being through 18:24-18:29 him and it's because he is the one in whom the whole universe hangs together. 18:29-18:36 He is the only one who could become man and stand in for man and for other men. 18:36-18:44 Only the one in whom the whole universe hung together could represent other people. 18:44-18:46 So that seems to me is the logic. 18:46-18:55 If we look at chapter 2, Paul used the word mystery a number of times. 18:55-19:02 Essentially the mystery is the mystery of Christ, of who he is. 19:02-19:08 Ultimately that would be God and man in one person as the early church thought. 19:08-19:14 For example chapter 2, the knowledge of God's mystery of Christ in whom are hid all the 19:14-19:17 treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 19:17-19:25 And then chapter 2, in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. 19:25-19:32 And you have come to fullness of life in him. 19:32-19:45 The fullness of deity in Christ bodily, but Christ has become full man. 19:45-19:49 So in and through this full man we come to fullness of humanity. 19:49-19:56 But we can only come to fullness of humanity if Christ is fully human. 19:56-20:05 And again we will come back to this, but a key part of a proper doctrine of the incarnation 20:05-20:11 is the full reality of the humanity of Christ. 20:11-20:20 And it is only that that means that we, when we become Christians, when we come to know 20:20-20:27 God through Christ, we become fully human, we use all our energies. 20:27-20:35 If we look at chapter 1 verse 29, Paul says "For this I toil, striving with all the energy 20:35-20:39 which he mightily inspires in me." 20:39-20:50 If we have any kind of dualism, a deistetic view of God, or a kind of distant view, then 20:50-20:57 we cannot do full justice to the reality and the goodness of humanity. 20:57-21:06 We think God is somewhat different, or he comes into man but doesn't become full man. 21:06-21:13 The Logos takes the place of the human mind. 21:13-21:18 Or we argue that God has adopted man. 21:18-21:21 Again there is a distance there. 21:21-21:29 But if we believe, and we have to have no presuppositions, no concept of a spatial distance 21:29-21:37 between God and us, so that means an Einsteinian view of time and space, not a Newtonian one, 21:37-21:44 if our concept of God is free, or come to our concept of God is free, then we can see 21:44-21:48 that God has come into Christ. 21:48-21:51 Sorry, not into Christ. 21:51-21:55 He has become man. 21:55-22:02 But he has become man in such a way that he hasn't forced man to be what he wants him 22:02-22:08 to be. 22:08-22:12 He's fully respected the integrity of man. 22:12-22:15 Human nature has not been changed. 22:15-22:18 It's fully human nature. 22:18-22:20 So God has become man. 22:20-22:24 There's no change in the deity of God. 22:24-22:25 He remains God. 22:25-22:30 There's no mingling or mixing of deity and humanity or confusion. 22:30-22:32 God is fully God. 22:32-22:38 He has become man. 22:38-22:49 Somehow this embryo has started, but this man is fully man. 22:49-22:58 Now it's only when we can have that kind of concept of God that we can do absolute, full 22:58-23:04 justice to the reality of man and to the reality of human effort. 23:04-23:15 That is fundamental, because the incarnation is not that, for example, the Spirit comes 23:15-23:23 into us and the Spirit came into Jesus and enabled him to do certain things. 23:23-23:39 It's that God became man in order to have to do as man what we cannot do for ourselves. 23:39-23:41 It's only God who can do this. 23:41-23:46 And yet God has not come to do it by being God. 23:46-23:51 He's come to do it by being man. 23:51-24:00 That is what gives the Christian doctrine of man its explosive reality. 24:00-24:01 This is real man. 24:01-24:08 This is God as man. 24:08-24:11 That's the connection between what we were doing last week about the end and the end 24:11-24:17 hypothesis and how he can possibly be both. 24:17-24:20 Obviously there are all sorts of questions raised here. 24:20-24:23 There's the deity of Christ. 24:23-24:25 Was he fully God? 24:25-24:30 There's also the deity of the Spirit, because whatever we say about the Spirit we have to 24:30-24:32 say about Christ. 24:32-24:35 If Christ is not fully God, the Spirit is not fully God. 24:35-25:05 For example, if we look at 1 Corinthians 2, Paul speaks about the Spirit searches his 25:05-25:09 preaching in the power of the Spirit. 25:09-25:14 How do we know that what we're saying is true? 25:14-25:19 It's because the Spirit reveals things to us. 25:19-25:24 Paul's argument is that the Spirit searches everything. 25:24-25:31 Because the Spirit is in God, the Spirit of God, the Spirit knows what God thinks. 25:31-25:32 Only the Spirit knows what God thinks. 25:32-25:39 No one else can know what someone thinks except the Spirit or the person in them. 25:39-25:50 1 Corinthians 2.11, "No one can comprehend the thoughts of God except the Spirit." 25:50-25:58 Because we received the Spirit of God, who is in God, we can understand the gifts of 25:58-25:59 God. 25:59-26:07 We can understand God. 26:07-26:13 Then he goes on, verse 16, "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" 26:13-26:14 To instruct him. 26:14-26:16 I think that's a quote from Job. 26:16-26:18 No one can know the mind of God. 26:18-26:22 But then he says, "But we have the mind of Christ." 26:22-26:35 What he's saying there is that only the Spirit of God, who is in God, can know the thoughts 26:35-26:37 of God. 26:37-26:39 But we do. 26:39-26:40 We know the thoughts of God. 26:40-26:42 How do we know the thoughts of God? 26:42-26:46 Because we have the mind of Christ. 26:46-26:54 In sharing Christ's human mind, and the same argument with John, because the Son was in 26:54-27:01 the bosom of the Father in God, he alone was able to make God known. 27:01-27:07 So I think whatever we say about the Son, we have to say about the Spirit. 27:07-27:13 Somehow the Spirit is in God, the Son is in God. 27:13-27:20 It's only the Son who becomes man that becomes real man. 27:20-27:27 To me it's only a full doctrine of incarnation, as understood in the early Church, that we 27:27-27:37 can have a real, full concept of humanity, and of our action, and of our worth, and of 27:37-27:41 our dignity. 27:41-27:46 Because all of God means all of man. 27:46-27:52 If we have any kind of dualism, then it's either some of God means some of man. 27:52-28:01 God does a step toward us, and then we do something to save ourselves. 28:01-28:10 Or the Spirit comes in, and we do by the Spirit what is asked of us. 28:10-28:17 But to me it's only on a full doctrine of incarnation that we can have genuine, full 28:17-28:23 act of God, and genuine, full act of man. 28:23-28:28 Christ is fully one with God, fully one with us. 28:28-28:34 And yet we can't possibly say how, but he is both in one person. 28:34-28:36 And there's no dualism. 28:36-28:42 Christ, the same being who is God, is now man, but real man. 28:42-28:50 And it's the fact that God has come all the way to us, become real man, and as real man 28:50-28:54 has undone sin and death, that is our salvation. 28:54-28:56 The double-homic museum. 28:56-29:01 I've spoken for far too long, but let us pray. 29:01-29:09 Grant, O Lord, the wisdom of your Spirit in all our hearing and now in all our discussing 29:09-29:10 together. 29:10-29:12 In Jesus' name, amen.