Reformation Seminary Lecture Tonight at 7 PM Central - The Two Natures of Christ

 

Reformation Seminary Lecture Tonight at 7 PM Central - 

The Two Natures of Christ

Zoom link - https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86825663862?pwd=M3q6HvvwIJyN9atUEd5IuRl1cExFma.1

YouTube Saved Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yn2itYso1M

1. The Son of God exists from eternity. 
2. He is there at the Creation, not only in Genesis 1 (Let there be...assumes the Second Person) but more openly in John 1 - all things were created through Him, and nothing was created apart from Him).
3. The Holy Spirit teaches these matters to us through the Scriptures, preaching, and teaching.
4. "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards [house managers] of the mysteries of God." 1 Corinthians 4:1 KJV.
5. The mysteries are those doctrines taught by the Holy Spirit, which are not based on human wisdom and logic, but based on the Spirit's teaching through the Scriptures. A house steward does not own anything but is charge of managing the owner's house perfectly, not slovenly, selfishly, lazily, or drunkenly. That is why pastors and teachers are not allowed to make up their own version of the Christian Faith. We have endured 150 years of "great theologians" like Barth, Tillich, Bultmann, etc invent their heavily edited version of the Savior.
6. The Son and the Father are together in the Creation, with the Spirit hovering over Creation and teaching us in the Scriptures.
7. The Son is also part of the expulsion of the orchard thieves in Genesis 3:15 and also Eve's hope in KJV Genesis 4:1. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. (Hebrew - literally, gotten a man-child__the Lord). The Hebrew makes it an apposition - as if saying, I have given birth to a boy__the Lord. They were promised the Savior and she thought her firstborn was the Savior. 
8. The Son is portrayed throughout the Old Testament, which shocks some people, no doubt because some "professors" deny the Messianic Promises in Psalms (CPH NIV OT) and elsewhere.
9. Jesus is unique because the Son took on our flesh and frailties, born of the Virgin Mary. He is also unique because the Two Natures, once together, have never been apart and will never be apart. Incarnation means God in the flesh.
10. However, the divine nature of Christ is never limited by His human nature, so He is where He wills, such as in the locked upper room and the elements of Holy Communion.
11. Everything about His human nature is beneficial to us because He is just like us, only divine and without fault.
    
    
    
12. Examples of His anguish include trembling at the tomb of Lazarus, KJV John 11:34 And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 37 And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? 38 Jesus therefore again groaning [trembling or moved with anger, difficult to translate] in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
13. The humanity of Christ teaches us with great clarity that the Son of God allowed Himself to be captured, insulted, slugged, whipped, and forced to carry His cross, nailed on it the most cruel way possible, and raised up to suffer slowly and die. Those who deny the Two Natures of Christ simply reject the Gospel and Jesus as their Savior. 
14. That error has repeated ever since the so-called scholars chose to embrace the false codices (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) and produce the polluted paraphrase Bibles - like the RSV, NIV, ESV, NRS, Beck, etc. The mainline seminaries, including the Lutheran ones, reject Justification by Faith in Christ and bray that every single person in the world is born forgiven, without faith in Him.

So bad, ELCA denied it but also used it in their crumbling seminaries.

 The ALPB Online Ovaltines promote the work of these clowns.

Two Points About the Baltimore Bridge Collapse

 

1. The same ship crashed into a pier, damaging the ship and the pier.
2. Many container ships today, like this one, are larger and heavier than the battleship New Jersey.

Tampa Bay

3. A similar accident happened with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, Florida, 42 years ago. The repair include protection against a drifting ship crashing into the bridge, plus additional safety measures.

The driver survived in Florida. Many did not.

We Have (Not) Gone Multi-Site. The Perils of Growth Fads

 

One recent fad - at least newer than cell groups - involves having multi-site congregations. WELS jumped on this late, as they always do with fads, and they adopted the lingo. A big old church kept trying to invent a new campus - The Core - even when they started one next to another WELS church. They call it The Core 922 now. A Jeske clone inhabits Core 922,  so we know it has to be vapid.

Facebook offered me a discount too good to be true - a RESI encoder. Nota bene - a warning to anyone who attended Fuller Seminary, Trinity Divinity, Willow Creek, WELS or LCMS seminary -

"Church purchased for multi-site use and used for about 6 months. We are no longer doing Multi-site, and these have sat on a shelf since they were removed. I cleaned it off and booted it up today and updated the firmware. This is the dual power supply version. 

It is in great condition and ready for your Resi use."

The latest fad is NOT going to church, and they are closing all over. A local friend said, "Our family church just closed. The members who were left did not want to pay the expenses anymore." The Covid scare encouraged what we did long ago, setting up an online church. We actually used telephones a bit, but then a Logitech web camera showed up in the mail, ending my resistance to video, and we began with Ustream. 

What really made me laugh was the pile of very expensive hardware to be used at the multi-sites mentioned in the sales opportunity. These poor Church Growth pastors and staff had to find a site and load it with electronics to dazzle everyone. 

Nota bene - avoid using a congregation's name with any connection to the Christian Faith, you know, like The Core 922.

WELS started a "new" congregation based on couches - not chairs - and "gourmet coffee." Even with five genius synod staffers propping it up, the experiment became a flop.

Grace in Milwaukee promoted one of its pastors as the "barista." When I posted that, the title was removed. 

 

The graphic was edited (by me), turning around the "casual, serious meme". This is  not just dumb - it is WELS dumb.

This is perhaps worse than the cross in a cup of coffee. WELS, of course.

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Easter Sunday Second Sermon - "To this I reply: I have often said before that feeling and faith are two different things. It is the nature of faith not to feel, to lay aside reason and close the eyes, to submit absolutely to the Word, and follow it in life and death."

Complete Sermon - 

Luther's Sermons - Mark 16:1-8.
Easter Sunday. Second Sermon

10. Here we also refer to the passage in Hosea 13:14, which Paul quotes in reference to the victory that Christ has won by his resurrection and by which he has conquered sin, death, hell and all our enemies. Paul says that death is swallowed up in this victory, and he defies death with these words: “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”

Just as if Paul would say: O death, where are thy teeth? Come, bite off one of my fingers. Thou formerly hadst a spear, what has become of it now?

Christ has taken it from thee. Death, where is now thy spear, etc.? Sin, where is now the edge of thy sword and thy power? Paul says that the power of sin is the law. The more clearly we understand the law, the more sin oppresses and stings us. For this reason Paul says that Christ has completely destroyed and annihilated the spear and whetstone of death.

Now, this Gospel he has not taken with him into heaven, but he caused it to be preached throughout the world, so that for him who believes in Christ, spear and whetstone, nay, sin and death, should be destroyed. This is the true Gospel, which bestows life, strength, power and marrow, and of which all the passages of Scripture speak.

11. Therefore seek and learn to know Christ aright, for the whole Scriptures confer upon us the righteousness of the true knowledge of Christ. But this must be brought about by the Holy Spirit. Let us therefore pray God that his Gospel may prosper, that we all may truly learn to know Christ and thus rise with him and be honored by God as he was honored.

12. The question now arises: If Christ has taken away death and our sins by his resurrection and has justified us, why do we then still feel death and sin within us? For our sins torment us still, we are stung by our conscience, and this evil conscience creates the fear of hell.

13. To this I reply: I have often said before that feeling and faith are two different things. It is the nature of faith not to feel, to lay aside reason and close the eyes, to submit absolutely to the Word, and follow it in life and death. Feeling however does not extend beyond that which may be apprehended by reason and the senses, which may be heard, seen, felt and known by the outward senses. For this cause feeling is opposed to faith and faith is opposed to feeling. Therefore the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes of faith: “Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.” For if we would see Christ visibly in heaven, like the visible sun, we would not need to believe it. But since Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification, we cannot see it nor feel it, neither can we comprehend it with our reason. Therefore we must disregard our feeling and accept only the Word, write it into our heart and cling to it, even though it seems as if my sins were not taken from me, and even though I still feel them within me. Our feelings must not be considered, but we must constantly insist that death, sin and hell have been conquered, although I feel that I am still under the power of death, sin and hell. For although we feel that sin is still in us, it is only permitted that our faith may be developed and strengthened, that in spite of all our feelings we accept the Word, and that we unite our hearts and consciences more and more to Christ. Thus faith leads us quietly, contrary to all feeling and comprehension of reason, through sin, through death and through hell.

Then we shall see salvation before our eyes, and then we shall know perfectly what we have believed, namely, that death and all sorrow have been conquered.

14. Take as an illustration the fish in the water. When they are caught in the net, you lead it quietly along, so that they imagine they are still in the water; but when you draw them to the shore, they are exposed and begin to struggle, and then they first feel they are caught. Thus it also happens with souls that are caught with the Gospel, which Christ compares with a net, Matthew 13:47. When the heart has been conquered, the Word unites this poor heart to Christ and leads it gently and quietly from hell and from sin, although the soul still feels sin and imagines to be still under its power. Then a conflict begins, the feelings struggling against the Spirit and faith, and the Spirit and faith against our feelings; and the more faith increases, the more our feelings diminish, and vice versa. We have still sins within us, as for instance pride, avarice, anger and so forth, but only in order to lead us to faith, so that faith may increase from day to day, and the man become finally a thorough Christian and keep the true sabbath, consecrating himself to Christ entirely. Then the conscience must become calm and satisfied and all the surging waves of sin subside. For as upon the sea one billow follows and buffets the other, as though they would destroy the shore, yet they must disappear and destroy themselves, so also our sins strive against us and would fain bring us to despair, but finally they must desist, grow weary and disappear.