Mid-Week Advent Service,
December 11, 2019
Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
The Hymn # 92 Now Sing We
The Order of Vespers p. 41
The Psalmody Psalm 2 on page 123
The Lection - Isaiah 9 KJV
Sermon Hymn #80 Luther All Praise to Thee Eternal God
God's Wonder - The Divine Nature
The Prayers and Lord’s Prayer p. 44
The Collect for Peace p. 45
The Benediction p. 45
Hymn #656 Behold a Host Arrayed in White
In Our Prayers
- Fifth Anniversary - Corey and Abby Fagan - December 18th
- Norma Boeckler's birthday - Sunday
- Carl Roper's cancer is defeated. Lynda is getting better.
- We will send gifts a different way to the Philippines, due to international issues.
- Those looking for better employment.
- Those treating or recovering from disorders and operations.
"All Praise to Thee, Eternal God"
by Martin Luther, 1483-1546
1. All praise to Thee, eternal God,
Who, clothed in garb of flesh and blood,
Dost take a manger for Thy throne,
While worlds on worlds are Thine alone.
Hallelujah!
2. Once did the skies before Thee bow;
A virgin's arms contain Thee now,
While angels, who in Thee rejoice,
Now listen for Thine infant voice.
Hallelujah!
3. A little Child, Thou art our Guest
That weary ones in Thee may rest;
Forlorn and lowly is Thy birth
That we may rise to heaven from earth.
Hallelujah!
4. Thou comest in the darksome night
To make us children of the light,
To make us in the realms divine,
Like Thine own angels, round Thee shine.
Hallelujah!
5. All this for us Thy love hath done;
By This to Thee our love is won;
For this our joyful songs we raise
And shout our thanks in ceaseless praise.
Hallelujah!
The Lutheran Hymnal
Hymn #80
Text: John 1:14
Stanza 1 based on Latin sequence, 11th century
Author (Stanzas 2-5 ): Martin Luther, 1524, cento
Translated by: unknown, 1858
Titled: Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ
German, st. 1, 1370
Tune: Gelobet seist du, Jesu
Ancient melody, c. 1400
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
From Jacobs, p. 160
Incarnation
21. By what term is the act of the Son of God in assuming human nature known?
Incarnation.
John 1:14. “And the Word became flesh.” Heb. 2:14. “Since the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same.” Heb. 2:16; 1 Tim. 3:16; Rom. 9:5; 1:3.
22. Was this peculiar to the Second Person of the Trinity?
Only the Son of God assumed human nature. But the Father who sent the Son into the world, and the Holy Spirit who appears in the conception of Christ (Luke 1:35), just as in creation (Gen. 1:2), were also active. There was a special intervention of God in and beyond the order of nature established at the creation. God, who at creation established an order, in virtue of which men came into the world through certain means, can, at His will, dispense with such means, and provide for a virgin birth. To deny the possibility of this, is to question the existence and almighty power of God. To admit its reality is to admit the possibility of everything else mysterious and supernatural in Christianity. Consubstantiality of Humanity
23. The conception of Jesus being so unlike that of others, was the human nature that resulted also unlike that of other men?
“He was consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in all things, except sin, like unto us” (Chalcedon).
Heb. 4:15. “He hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Christ, therefore, experienced all the infirmities that are common to the race, as hunger, thirst, sleep, fatigue, tears, sorrow, pain; but no individual infirmities are ascribed to Him, as particular diseases which attack some, but do not affect all. Sinlessness of Humanity
24. How do you prove the sinlessness of Jesus?
A. From distinct passages of Scripture Heb. 4:15, quoted under 23; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 7:26; John 8:46; 1 Peter 1:19; 2:22. B. From His divinity Sin is a personal matter. It is always a person who sins. But the person of Christ is God.
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C. From the definition of sin “Sin is the want of conformity with God’s Law.” But the Law is the declaration of God’s will. God cannot will what is contrary to His will, i.e., Jesus could not sin. He was, therefore, not only sinless, but impeccable. Admit peccability, and the divinity of Christ is practically denied. 25. But if Christ were impeccable, how do you explain His temptation? Is temptation possible, where a fall is impossible?
Temptation properly is only testing or proving. When gold is brought to the touch-stone or submitted to the blowpipe or treated with various chemical reagents, there is no possibility of any other result than that it will stand the test and be proved to be gold. We inevitably associate the thought of temptation with that of the possibility of a fall, from the fact that man’s nature is corrupt, and that even the regenerate are only partially renewed, and, therefore fallible, and likely, under the test, to show its worst features. The agony of our Lord’s temptation came not from the necessity of a great struggle in order that He might prove Himself victor, but from the fact that it was a part of His passion. That He, the manifestation of the absolute holiness of God, should endure the presence and be subjected to the humiliation of the conversation and suggestions of the lowest and vilest of all creatures, the source and head of all the crime in the universe, was an indignity that called forth all His repugnance to the great enemy. 26. Was there any other particular in which the humanity of Christ was distinguished from that of others?
All the excellences and perfections of human nature He had in the highest degree. These He possessed as the sinless man, and as the one within whose body the Godhead dwelt in a peculiar way. Whatever physical attractiveness He may have had, and for which the old teachers cite Ps. 45:2, came from His holy character as it was expressed in His outward form. While the bodies of others contain the seeds of mortality (Rom. 6:23), that of Christ was by its own nature immortal, His death occurring by an act of His will (John 10:18), and not from inner weakness or external force, and His body, after death, being incorruptible (Acts 2:31). 27. What was the purpose of the Incarnation?
The Redemption of the human race.
Matt. 20:28. “The Son of man came, to give his life a ransom for many.”
Heb. 2:14. “He partook of flesh and blood, that, through death, he might bring to nought him that had the power of death.”
28. Would the Son of God not have become incarnate if Adam had not sinned?
The doctrine that He would have come only for the completion of humanity, or to furnish a model of a holy life, or for any other purpose than to rescue men from sin, is without any authority from Scripture. God’s will or decree to send His Son into the world everywhere presupposes God’s foreknowledge of sin, and His determination to provide a remedy for it. Personal Union
29. In what two senses is the expression, Personal Union, used?
On the one hand, it designates an act (unüo), and is synonymous with Incarnation.
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On the other hand, it refers to a state, resulting from the act (unio). 30. In what does the state of union consist? In that henceforth both natures have but one person — the personal communion; and, as a result, the intimate and perpetual personal presence of each nature in and with the other. Attributes of Union
31. How has the Church guarded the statement of this doctrine?:
The Chalcedon Symbol (see above, 8) has denied this union negatively as: A. Unconfused There is no mingling of natures. Although there is a communion, they remain distinct. B. Unchanged One is not changed into the other. C. Indivisible i.e., with respect to place. “Nowhere is the human nature unsustained by the Logos, or the Logos not sustaining the human nature. The human nature is not outside of the Logos, nor is the Logos without the human nature.” D. Inseparable i.e., with respect to time. The union is never dissolved, but is perpetual. Items (a) and (b) are in opposition to the Eutychians; (c) and (d) in opposition to the Nestorians. The Eutychians confused the natures; the Nestorians divided the person. 32. How has the Athanasian Creed defined it?
“Who although He be God and man: yet He is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by taking the manhood into God. One altogether; not by confusion of substance, but by Unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.”
Communion of Natures
33. What follows from this communion of the Person with both natures?
The communion of natures with each other. There is a perichoresis or pervasion or penetration of one nature by the other, or existence of one nature within the other. “The divine nature is said actually to penetrate or perfect the human, and the human to be passively penetrated or perfected by the divine; but not in such way that the divine successively occupies one part of the human after the other, and extensively diffuses itself, through it; but, since it is spiritual and indivisible, it at the same time as a whole perfects and energizes each part of the human nature and that nature as a whole, and remains entire in the entire human nature, and entire in every part” (Baier).
Col. 2:9. “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
John 1:14; Heb. 2:14. 34. What analogy is there to this communion of natures?
The impartation of the Divine nature by the Mystical Union of Christ with the believer. The Personal Union being closer, more intimate and more exalted implies a more complete communion of natures.
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2 Peter 1. “He hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye might become partakers of the divine nature.”
