Christology

Question 1

Virgin birth

Answer 1

Matt 1:18, 20 “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit… that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”

• Christ’s virgin birth shows (1) salvation comes from the Lord, (2) made possible the uniting of full deity and humanity in one person, and (3) enables Christ’s humanity to be without inherited sin (Gal. 4:4–5 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons”)

Question 2

Human weaknesses and limitations

Answer 2

• Jesus had a human body (Luke 2:40 “And the child grew and became strong”)
• Jesus had a human mind (“increased in wisdom” Luke 2:52)
• Jesus had a human soul and emotions (“Now is my soul troubled” John 12:27)
• People near Jesus saw him as only a man (Matt 13:58 Jesus at Nazareth: “And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief”)

Question 3

Jesus was sinless

Answer 3

• He was without sin, and he never committed sin during his lifetime (Hebrews 4:15)
• Some say that if he was sinless, he was not fully human. But God did not create us sinful (Adam and Eve were truly human before the Fall)

Question 4

Impeccability

Answer 4

The belief that Jesus was unable to sin.
• God cannot be tempted (James 1:13), and therefore the hypostatic union must have prevented him from being able to sin.
• But his temptations were real because he did not rely on the strength of his divine nature to make it easier for him to face temptations, and his refusal to turn the stones into bread at the beginning of his ministry is a clear indication of this.

Question 5

Why was Jesus’ full humanity necessary?

Answer 5

a. For representative obedience (Rom 5:19)
b. To be a substitute sacrifice (Heb 2:17 “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect… to make propitiation for the sins of the people”)
c. To be the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5 “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”)
d. To fulfill God’s original purpose for man to rule over creation (Eph 1:22 “put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church”)
e. To be our example and pattern in life (1 John 2:6 “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked”)
f. To be the pattern for our redeemed bodies (1 Cor 15:49)
g. To sympathize as high priest (Heb 4:15)

Question 6

Jesus will be man forever

Answer 6

Jesus did not give up his human nature after his death and resurrection, for he appeared to his disciples as a man after the resurrection, even with the scars of the nail prints in his hands (John 20:25–27)

Question 7

Deity of Jesus

Answer 7

Honor
Attributes
Names
Deeds
Seat
(Rob Bowman and Ed Komoszewski)

Question 8

Deity of Jesus (Honor)

Answer 8

John 5:23 “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”
(glory, worship, prayer, faith, fear, love)

Question 9

Deity of Jesus (Attributes)

Answer 9

Heb 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”’
(eternity, “Before Abraham was, I am” John 8:58)

Question 10

Deity of Jesus (Names)

Answer 10

• God (Jn 1:1)
• King of Kings, Lord of Lords (Rev 17:14)
• Lord (Phil 2:11 “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”)

Question 11

Deity of Jesus (Deeds)

Answer 11

• Creating/sustaining (Col 1:16-17)
• Revelation (Matt 11:27 “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”)
• Salvation (Matt 1:21 “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”)

Question 12

Deity of Jesus (Seat)

Answer 12

• God’s highest possible throne (Acts 2:34 “sit at my right hand”)
• Equal to God (John 5:18 “he was making himself equal with God”)

Question 13

Kenosis

Answer 13

Theory that Jesus gave up some of his divine attributes while he was on earth as a man (Phil 2:7). Began with German and English theologians in late 1800s.

(1) 1800 years of theology and no one has thought this
(2) the text does not say he emptied himself “of some divine attributes” or “some divine power”
(3) the text describes this emptying as “taking the form of a servant” and “humbling himself”
(4) Paul’s purpose of the passage is to encourage humility
(5) If it were true we would expect the rest of Scripture to support it

Question 14

Why was Jesus’ deity necessary?

Answer 14

(1) only someone who is infinite God could bear the full penalty for all the sins of all those who would believe in him—any finite creature would have been incapable of bearing that penalty
(2) salvation is from the Lord (Jonah 2:9), and the whole message of Scripture is designed to show that no human being, no creature, could ever save man—only God himself could
(3) only someone who was truly and fully God could be the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), both to bring us back to God and also to reveal God most fully to us (John 14:9).

Question 15

Person of Christ

Answer 15

Jesus Christ was fully God (Col 2:9) and fully man (Lk 2:52) in one person, and will be so forever

Question 16

Chalcedonian definition 451

Answer 16

“consubstantial [coessential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood…. two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably….the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one Person”
• Basically: two distinct natures in Christ that retain their own properties yet remain together in one person
• uses apophatic language
• against apollinarianism, nestorianism, and eutychianism

Question 17

Apollinarianism

Answer 17

• the one person of Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit, and that the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of the Son of God
• Rejected by Council of Alexandria (362) and Council of Constantinople (381)
• Heb 2:17

Question 18

Nestorianism

Answer 18

• Two separate persons in Christ: the human person and the divine person
• (Nestorius himself may not have actually taught this)
• But Jesus always says “I” and not “we”
(verse?)

Question 19

Monophysitism (eutychianism)

Answer 19

• Christ had one nature only; the human and divine merged together to create a new third nature; more than human but less than divine
• in response to nestorianism
• Col 2:9? (whole fullness of deity)

Question 20

Jesus’ will

Answer 20

• Jesus had two distinct wills, a human will and a divine will, and that the wills belong to the two distinct natures of Christ, not to the person (Luke 22:42)
• also two centers of consciousness/intelligence
• But anything either nature does, the person of Christ does

Question 21

“Communication” of attributes

Answer 21

• Jesus’ human nature gained (a) a worthiness to be worshiped and (b) an inability to sin, both of which did not belong to human beings otherwise.
• Jesus’ human nature gave him (a) an ability to experience suffering and death; (b) an ability to understand by experience what we are experiencing; and (c) an ability to be our substitute sacrifice, which Jesus as God alone could not have done.

Question 22

The atonement

Answer 22

The work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation

Question 23

cause of the atonement

Answer 23

• God’s love and justice (Jn 3:16)

* which is why God put forth Jesus as a propitiation (Rom 3:25)

Question 24

propitiation

Answer 24

a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath so that God becomes “propitious” or favorably disposed toward us (Rom 3:25)

Question 25

Necessity of the atonement

Answer 25

• God did not have to save us (like demons, 2 Pet 2:4)
• The atonement was not absolutely necessary, but, as a “consequence” of God’s decision to save some human beings, the atonement was absolutely necessary (“consequent absolute necessary” view) (Lk 24:26 “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory”)

Question 26

Christ’s active obedience

Answer 26

• That Christ had to obey the law for his whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of his perfect obedience would be counted for us (Phil 3:9) (If we just needed his sinfulness, he wouldn’t have waited to die until 33)

Question 27

Christ’s passive obedience

Answer 27

• In a broad sense, the penalty Christ paid was suffering his whole life (Heb 5:8 “learned obedience through what he suffered”)
• Pain on the cross:
(1) physical pain and death
(2) pain of bearing sin (2 Cor 5:21)
(3) abandonment (Matt 27:46)
(4) bearing the wrath of God (Rom 3:25)

Question 28

Other aspects of the atonement

Answer 28

• The penalty was inflicted by the Father (1 Cor 5:21 “he made him sin”)
• Not eternal suffering but complete payment (John 19:30 “it is finished”)
• The meaning of the blood of Christ (often equated with redemption in scripture, 1 Pet 1:19)
• Death as penal substitution (in that he bore a penalty when he died, vicarious atonement)

Question 29

NT terms of the atonement

Answer 29

1. We deserve to die as the penalty for sin (sacrifice)
2. We deserve to bear God’s wrath against sin (propitiation)
3. We are separated from God by our sins (reconciliation)
4. We are in bondage to sin and to the kingdom of Satan (redemption)

Question 30

Random theory

Answer 30

• Origen
• the ransom Christ paid was to Satan
• falsely thinks of Satan instead of God as the one who requires payment for sin (Rom 3:25-26?)

Question 31

Moral Influence theory

Answer 31

• Peter Abelard (around 1100 AD)
• God did not require the payment of a penalty for sin, but that Christ’s death was simply a way in which God showed how much he loved human beings by identifying with their sufferings, even to the point of death
• Luke 24:25-26

Question 32

Nature of the resurrection

Answer 32

• Jesus was the “first fruits” (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) of a new kind of human life, a life in which his body was made perfect, no longer subject to weakness, aging, or death, but able to live eternally (affirms that what God made was good)
• Both the Father and the Son participated in the resurrection (Acts 2:24 “God raised him up”)

Question 33

Resurrection body

Answer 33

“imperishable … in glory … in power … a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44)

Question 34

doctrinal significance of the resurrection

Answer 34

• insures our regeneration (1 Pet 1:3 “we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”)
• insures our justification (Rom 4:25 Jesus “was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification”)
• insures that we will receive perfect bodies (1 Cor 15:20 “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”)

Question 35

Ethic significance of the resurrection

Answer 35

• because of it we should continue steadfastly in the Lord’s work
• encourages us to focus on heavenly reward as our goal
• obligation to stop yielding to sin

Question 36

Ascension into heaven

Answer 36

• Jesus had a physical body, so he went somewhere in heaven
• he received glory and honor that had not been his before as the God-man
• he sat down at the right hand of God (Heb 1:3 “When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high”)

Question 37

doctrinal significance for us from Christ’s ascension

Answer 37

(1) foreshadows our future ascension to heaven with him
(2) gives us assurance that our final home will be heaven
(3) we are partially able to share with him now his authority over the universe (Eph 2:6)

Question 38

states of Christ

Answer 38

humiliation and exaltation (“twofold state of Christ”)
• humiliation: incarnation, suffering, death, burial
• exaltation: resurrection, ascension, right hand, return in glory/power

Question 39

Christ as prophet

Answer 39

Peter identifies Christ as the prophet predicted by Moses in Acts 3:22–24

Question 40

Christ as priest

Answer 40

(1) offered a perfect sacrifice (Heb 10:4 “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins”)
(2) continually brings us near to God (Heb 4:16)
(3) Jesus continually prays for us (Rom 8:34 Jesus is interceding for us)

Question 41

Christ as king

Answer 41

Rev 17:14

kings ruled over people as God’s representative

Question 42

descent into hell

Answer 42

the phrase doesn’t appear in the apostles’ creed until 650
• Acts 2:27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades (but could mean grave or death)
• Romans 10:6–7 these questions are just rhetorical to show that Christ is near
• Ephesians 4:8–9 refers to Christ’s incarnation, coming to earth
• 1 Peter 3:18–20 (Augustine) the passage refers not to something Christ did between his death and resurrection, but to what he did “in the spiritual realm of existence” (or “through the Spirit”) at the time of Noah. When Noah was building the ark, Christ “in spirit” was preaching through Noah to the hostile unbelievers around him
• 1 Peter 4:6 (“this is why the gospel was preached to the dead”) because of the final judgment, the gospel was preached to the dead (those who were once alive and now dead)

Question 43

Example theory

Answer 43

Whereas the moral influence theory says that Christ’s death teaches us how much God loves us, the example theory says that Christ’s death teaches us how we should live. (ends up teaching that man can save himself and by obeying God like Jesus did)

Question 44

Governmental theory

Answer 44

Christ did not exactly pay the penalty for the actual sins of any people, but simply suffered to show that when God’s laws are broken there must be some penalty paid.