#50 Of Christ The Mediator (Part 1) LBC 8.1,2,7

We are back into the 1689 and start discussing Christ the Mediator
Check out the Story of Munster mentioned in the Podcast HERE!
Transcript (Slightly Imperfect):

Coalt Robinson  
You're listening to the renewal podcast, a weekly podcast that features interviews and discussions and in teaching on various biblical and theological subjects. My name is Coalt Robinson and I'm the lead pastor at Bethel Church in rural South Dakota. And we do this because we believe that our minds are to be shaped and and renewed by the life giving and transforming Word of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. So we pray for the next few minutes that as you listen, that you'll just see Jesus work fire away. All right. Welcome to our new cast. We are back in the London Baptist confession of faith. We're in chapter eight. And we're going to, we're going to hit paragraphs one, two and seven today. So talking about of Christ the mediator is the title of the chapter LBC.

Kind of our designated reader Jay, would you?

Let's jump right into this. You want to read paragraph one? 

Jay Wipf  
Sure, it please God and His eternal purpose to choose and our day in the Lord Jesus His only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them both to be the mediator between God and man, the prophet, priest and King, head and savor the church, the heir of all things and judge of the world unto unto whom he did from all eternity give a people to be his seed and to be by him in time redeemed, called justified, sanctified, and glorified. 

Coalt Robinson  
Okay, so this is kind of a summary paragraph here, but it's drawing from the covenant according to the covenant made between them both there. So referring to covenant of redemption. Why is it so important to to establish that this is part of God's eternal purpose that Godchose Jesus Christ for this purpose. 

John Goodell  
Well, God is a God who plans God's purposes. And he's revealed that in his word, it helps us trust him enough. If God did not reveal himself as having a plan or purposes, it would be it would make it more difficult to trust him. So I think then in the end, it's just helping our faith. 

Coalt Robinson  
So it talks about how this is part of God's eternal purpose. It was part of this accomplish this covenant established between the members of the Trinity, that Christ would be the mediator between God and man. There's a inference there that that the fall was going to happen. 

Jay Wipf  
Yes. The Fall was part of the plan. 

Coalt Robinson  
So how do you how do you respond to somebody to say, Well, wait a minute, you're saying that that God ordained or to create the fall? 

John Goodell  
Yes. We would find them back to back to that chapter, chapter four, right? But yeah, God is sovereign, and he ordained to whatever it comes to pass. And although he has a hand in the order ordaining of sin, He doesn't have a hand in the action of the sin. And so we see a distinction there. He brings all things to pass and yet their secondary causes are established. And so, so yes, he the the plan for the world included a fall and therefore, a need of a Savior.

Coalt Robinson  
Right? Because you don't, you don't have God's planning to save his people without the fall. One of the things I read said that you take all these considerations, it makes the fall and necessity within God's decree. If there is no fall, then it means that there is no sin and therefore no need for a savior but if Christ Is that to be ordained as Savior even before the creation of the world. And this means that there will be sinners who will be saved by him, which makes the fall and important part of God's plan. I think that's I think that's important for us to, you know, to recognize here that God isn't taken by surprise. 

John Goodell  
I think the plan is in view of the fall it's in view the fall I don't think it'smaybe we could get into some technical arguments that people have made in church history. I don't think that's necessary but I just think that the plan of a Savior isn't view of the fall. What he says his only begotten Son, how we gonna explain that? 

Jay Wipf  
The only son that God had born john 316, right forgot solo the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

John Goodell  
Yeah, 

Jay Wipf  
that whoever believes should not perish but have eternal life. 

John Goodell  
Yeah, that's kind of a hard concept isn't because people will say, well,you gotta say Born to him. So he was an eternal then and so that that's where I think we, we say, well he's eternally be God. Right. And so we don't understand that but he's eternally Begotten Son, eternal act. Never was a star to it just eternally be up.

Jay Wipf  
He's a unique one of a kind. 

Coalt Robinson  
Yeah, he always witness right, they would use that word, be gotten there to say that the Christ was created, that he there was a time when he was not. But that kind of language you put together with all the other places in Scripture that talk about the fact that crisis, like you said, co eternal the Father. 

John Goodell  
Yeah, it's, it's, it's an eternal act. And then paragraph two there talks about he's truly eternally God. So Christians believe that he's forgotten, but he's eternally forgotten. And I think to go beyond that, as justJust beyond our capability 

Coalt Robinson  
and right I think we're going to get into this more as time goes on but it please God did to choose and are dangerous Christ to be the mediator between God and man. What do we what does it mean what do we mean by mediator there? Why does man need a mediator? 

Jay Wipf  
Yes the mediator is the go between okay so man Adamson in the garden so now we are not in a right relationship with God. God is holy man is not so we need someoneto mediate for us. Christ being the Prophet he teaches us he speaks to us he's the the priests so he offers the sacrifices he we are communicating to God through through the priest right as his role was able to stay in right relationship that it continually offer sacrifices to the priest and then King being the head and Savior new rules over us and protects us says King. 

John Goodell  
Yeah. And you know we need someone who would lay, lay a hand on the, on the divine and the human. And in Jesus we find one who is divine, one for one eternal person, second person, the Trinity, having a divine nature and adding to himself the human nature. So in a sense, he can put his hand on on human humanity as well. And bridge the gap and in one person, divinity in humanity or are united. And he is not commingled or blended. Yeah, that's a, that's some paragraph two, 

Jay Wipf  
but then there's also the heir of all things. Father made him the air, and he's the judge of the world. And then the ending, unto whom he from all eternity, gave a people to be his seed. To be by him in time. And then we have a little order of salvation. They're redeemed called justified, sanctified, glorified. Again, you see the covenant redemption there. from all eternity. There's this plan the seed that's going in time and space to be accomplished. 

Coalt Robinson  
Yeah, going, going back to your, your state, Christ is the air there. You know, I just remind me of Hebrews one to, you know, in these in these last days, he spoken to us by His son whom he appointed heir of all things through whom he created the world.  And then, john, one, three, all things were made through him. Without him nothing was made. You know, that points to the fact that we were just talking about this earlier, this idea of begotten that he's eternal. But what is it when it says the heir of all things? What's the significance of that word air, he's inheriting all things is that the Isn't that how he would usually think of that? 

John Goodell  
Yeah, you know, Jesus, Hebrews 12. Two, he, he for the reward is set before him and he endured the cross for the joy for the joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame. So the reward in front of him was a people a bride, a church, a redeemed world in which he would be king of kings and Lord of lords of, he would have a bride, he would be the groom, and he's the heir of all that. gets all that. 

Coalt Robinson  
Right. And then Romans, Romans 816 and 17. There talks about how we are fellow heirs with Christ. relations for seven you are no longer a slave but a son. And if a son that an heir through God, a part of that goes back to the covenant of works that Christ was obedient in our behalf was that he Obtain the blessing that that Adam Didn't he inherited the right to eat from the tree of life. He inherited those blessings and then we also inherit them because of what he has done for us. Through Him we inherit that 

John Goodell  
All he has is as ours, the our union with him. Yes. 

Jay Wipf  
When repair graph to the Son of God, a second person in the Holy Trinity being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory of one substance and equal with him who made the world who upholds and governs all things he has made, did when the fullness of time was complete take upon him man's nature with all the central properties and common infirmities of it yet without sin, being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her, and the power of the Most High or shadowing her, and so was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah or the seed of Abraham and David according to the Scriptures. So that two whole perfect and distinct natures were in Separately joined together in one person without conversion, composition or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man. 

John Goodell  
Yeah, in this paragraph I see I see them handling, maybe absorbing the two important ecumenical creates the nice seeing creed and and Kelsey Don as well. And I think they're absorbed in that order even start it begins really with you know arguing forth for the deity of Jesus Christ which nicea was tackling that heresy there in heresy, that price was a created being. So that's taking care of that right away. He's the Creator, he is truly and eternally God, same and substance equal with him that language is very clear and And not the exact wording of the nice inquiry but it's close 

Jay Wipf  
earlier in the confession to and talking about the doctrine of God wants substance and equal with him 

John Goodell  
we we face the areas today Don't wait the Jehovah Witnesses there the modern day Aaron's it's interesting I every time I run into one I asked them if they if they ever heard of the Aryans that you're just modern day Aryans. They have no idea what that is. Right or heard of that. It's just interesting. But it's just a recycled heresy is all it is. So this was already defeated in the early church guys, you can go home.

Jay Wipf  
Here keeps coming back around doesn't. Yeah. church history is helpful.

John Goodell  
 Yeah, that's it. That's a good point. James. How important history is if, if we're if we won't listen to it, we're bound to make the same mistakes. people today are so ahistorical It's like, I got my relationship with Jesus and it's me and Jesus really doesn't matter, you know, the these things that we're discussing now, right? As long as I have the feelings and sentiments that I, that I want to have, I guess,

Jay Wipf  
 I think a song old peanuts cartoon, the loose, you're supposed to write a church history report, she starts my pastor was born 19 whatever. So Jesus is fully God and fully man, he's not some sort of Superman.He has all these central properties of a man. So is this innot any central property of being human? 

Coalt Robinson  
And I was kind of thinking of the to ask that kind of same question. 

John Goodell  
That's the modern a philosophy isn't it to write arrows to human or to be human is to air or sin. But it isn't the way Adam was made. Christ definitely shows as well.

Coalt Robinson  
Yeah, we might we might be tempted to think that because Jesus was sinless that he didn't understand what it was like to be tempted by sin. But mean the Bible's pretty clear on that and Hebrews chapter four, right the the fact that Jesus does sympathize with our weakness, he knows what it is to be tempted. And I think that's the issue. It's, it's a bigger feat to withstand temptation than to give into it. We look at that from a human perspective and say, Well, wait a minute, you know, To err is human, because all humans error, but the biggest defeat is for somebody to not air to withstand the temptation to go through all of that and have all of that around them and still not and still be obedient. He knows what is he knows what it's like, but he was he was still perfect.

John Goodell  
Yeah sin is a citizen intrusion into the creation of man even God didn't make Adam sinful or Eve so almost dehumanizing man. You know, really because he wasn't made that way. It's an intrusion until the created the creation.

Coalt Robinson  
So, this kind of brings up the point then when we say that that Christ is Christ was human then in in every way, what do we mean when we say that Christ is human? 

Jay Wipf  
He got tired, he got hungry, in US water was baby yeah, needed sleep. He grew physically, 

John Goodell  
any everything that is involved as being him and Jesus took on himself fully human nature. So he had a human Yeah, the human will. You know, we see him praying in the garden, not my will be done. But yours. We see that in the Trinity this year. The Same well so, yeah, that's just human will work there. He had a human mind. He had a human knowledge, he knew what it was to have limited knowledge. one point he talked about not knowing when the father would culminate you know so many things so he everything everything that goes into being a human Jesus knew it.

Jay Wipf  
Learn how to walk learn how to be a carpenter with his dad, maybe what? 

Coalt Robinson  
Daddy felt emotion, right when he looks at Jerusalem me He wept right in the shortest verse. When his friend Lazarus died. He was he was moved by that certainly felt pain and agony on the cross. Yeah, Jesus is is perfectly human hundred percent human, hundred percent divine. So talk about that part of it for a moment. I mean, how do we have We see the and of course the two natures aren't aren't mixed in with one another I think, I think a lot of times we we have a we have trouble with that, don't we? We make we make Jesus like Jay said earlier into a kind of a superhuman. Or at least we want him want him to be like that, but he is human and defined but how do we, how do we speak of Jesus Jesus is divine. 

John Goodell  
Then the last two sentences of paragraph two, I think get into that. And that's really a summary of Coulson on Caledonian creative for 451 which was a battle of really two heresies mano the site's right now you say that Jay Manuel fit site sounds good to me and the historian, organism. So the monolith is is where the folks who said that his two natures blended together souls. Next oneYes was like one nature Yeah, yeah yeah it was one nature of a blend between a divine and a human. And so they they in separately the nature's were blended and mixed together which in the creed here it says to hold perfect distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without converting one into the other or mixing them together to produce a different or blended nature and that's that's getting right at that that manifest site heresy Are you taking ism the another word for that and then the last sentence there this person is truly God and truly man yet one Christ that is a statement against historian ism which was the other heresy that that they're really dealing with and 451 at the Casa Don and that was no story ism did was took the twoNature seriously but they said that there's two really distinct nature's there has to be two different personalities as well so they divided the person and so the confession says no there's only one Christ two natures one Christ. 

Coalt Robinson  
upholland area and isms thatfor for Christ to be human and divine, he had a divine mind and spirit but a human body. You know, so it was only the Yeah, that I mean, there's a lot of ways that the people tried to explain. 

John Goodell  
Yeah, a lot of air right. So a lot of heresy. Yeah. And we learned a lot. I mean, why are you throwing those names around? Well, they're, they're errors that real sinners came up with that were trying they were religious, you know, and their mistakes people can make today 

Coalt Robinson  
and we get in these conversations that round of the Bible study or whatever talking about well, what does it mean you know, human is, you know, Jesus 100% human hundred percent, you know, is a 5050 5058 How do we explain this and you start letting everybody have all these opinions around the table, you're going to come up with some of the same categories that are, have already been discussed in church history. I think that's, that's good to talk about. But you need to go back to, to what the Scriptures to do teach and how the church on this, 

John Goodell  
it uses the language very God and very man are truly God and truly man, two natures.One person, second person, the Trinity, a divine person, the divine nature, left heaven came to the earth and added to himself, a fully, truly human nature to him. So now he existed and still exist. One divine person with two distinct natures divine and human. 

Coalt Robinson  
Yeah, I think Charleston says, I'm confused, unchanged, indivisible, inseparable. The distinction of the nature, distinction of the nature's being by No means taken away by the union but the property of each nation nature preserved. That's hard to it's hard to comprehend. 

John Goodell  
Yeah, if we, if you can comprehend your God, maybe there's maybe that's where the problem

Jay Wipf  
your God is too small, jumped for seven since it really continues this thought Christ and the work of mediation acts according to both natures by each nature doing that which is proper to itself, yet by reason of the unity of the person that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature. 

John Goodell  
And we see that in Scripture, acts 2028 where we read, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit is made you overseers to care for the Church of God which he obtained with his own blood. And so we see that right there. It's the church of god talking about God there which he Talking about God obtained with his own blood. Now we know God doesn't have blood, the divine nature doesn't have blood, the divine nature can die. That's in respect to his human nature, the blood, and yet us referring to him as God there. And so scripture does that. And I thinkthere's another place to john 313, right? Yeah.You got that.

Jay Wipf  
 No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, says this man, that human nature doing what the divine Did you know, but 

John Goodell  
that's fine to use that language course because the Bible does. But it's consistent with what we're saying here because Jesus was God. And so Jesus did die. You know, you we got understand what we mean by that, but but it's okay to talk that way. 

Jay Wipf  
Yeah. The the one nature doesn't doesn't do what the other nature does, but the person is yes. Right. The person is truly God, and the person is truly man. So you can refer to the man nature. But you're still talking about the same person that has the divine nature. And so

John Goodell  
yes.

And I think that paragraph is there. And I think you made reference, Jay, that maybe, maybe it'd be better if it was up past chip chapter. We're up to there that I think it just is helpful. I think it's helpful because keeps you from getting into air into heresy. I think that's probably why that's there. Just a protective thing there. 

Jay Wipf  
I wouldn't, I wouldn't naturally even think of asking that question was reading it in a confession, you know, unless you're reading acts 2028. And you see that and you kind of go high, God bleeds. How do you deal with that? Well, confession helps.

John Goodell  
Because otherwise it would be really easy to get off into a heresy very fast rate that they have that 

Jay Wipf  
want to go back there P2 and talking about how Jesus was born. 

John Goodell  
Yeah, that's dealing with the virgin birth. Let me ask you a question. Is that essential to Christianity, then the virgin birth? 

Jay Wipf  
Absolutely.

John Goodell  
Yes.

Coalt Robinson  
So then then why? 

Jay Wipf  
for fully human and fully divine. So the western expression said, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary over substance going Baptists took that or substance out and added No, no 30 words whatever it is, made it more clear. It has to be fully divine and fully human. 

Coalt Robinson  
Yeah, so that so that the two whole perfect and distinct natures were in separately joined together in one person without you know 

Jay Wipf  
there was an error on on this to that Christ and take on the humanity is humanity from Mary but rather yet a celestial flesh. Mary was just the conduit so they wanted to be clear on that.

John Goodell  
 Where did that heresy come from?

Jay Wipf  
 one of the crazy monsterites I think we mentioned them in the we're introducing the confession because often

John Goodell  
Are those the crate the Annabeth some of the ANA Baptists yes okay they had that city or yeah 

Coalt Robinson  
you should use it look up James White his he has a deal on Anna Baptist he did in church history in a Sunday school class or something he spends like three sessions talking about monster i mean it's it's crazy. He just he what he thinks it should be made into a movie but he's like, people want but people think it's made up

John Goodell  
whoa

Jay Wipf  
did not want to be associated with the Munsterites. 

Coalt Robinson  
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