Sermon25-22 Jn1 Guide

John 1:1-14 theme verse John 1:14

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this seventeenth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we looked at the meaning of the resurrection of Christ at Easter Sunday, yet this week, we would like to look at the Divinity and Humanity of Christ to learn few lessons together.

1)    In today’s text of John chapter 1, there introduced seven names and titles of Jesus Christ, I mean, the Word in verse1, the Light in verse 4, the Son of God in verse 15, the Lamb of God in verse 29, the Messiah in verse 35, the King of Israel in verse 43, and finally the Son of Man in verse 50. And these titles of Jesus Christ indicate His Divinity, that is, He as the second Person of the Trinity, is the Son of God, God the Word, and the Light of the World who became the Son of Man, came to this earth as the Messiah of God, was offered as the Lamb of God, and became the true King of Israel. To elaborate, Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, and the Word of God, who exists from the beginning, that is, before the creation of the world, from eternity. He was with God, and all things were made through Him, and in Him was life, and this life was the true light of humankind. Here, the ‘Word’ means God who reveals God’s heart, mind, and glory, as God’s self-revelation and is God’s wisdom as 1 Cor 1:30 says which can be seen as a linguistic echo of the verb “God spoke” in Genesis 1. And He is also the final Word given to mankind, the culmination of divine revelation, the eternal Word and also the Word of creation through which all things were made, as verse 3 says. And the phrase that He is the Light means that He is the Light of life as John 8:12 says and also the Sun of righteousness as Mal 4:2 says, and also the spiritual truth itself, which destroys the darkness. And then, as verse 14 says that God the Word became flesh and He dwelt among us, being incarnated, He came to this earth, bearing the frailty, suffering of human soul and body, and even the fate of death as the Humanity of Christ as it was prophesied at the Old Testament. And also this was the fulfillment of the promise in the Old Testament that God would be with us, as Immanuel, while He did the obedience ministries and the vicarious atonement ministry to impute the forgiveness and justification and to establish mankind as the children of God too. In addition, it says that He made us see the glory of God which we, the sinners, cannot see directly, in the latter part of verse 14 and was full of truth and grace.

2)    Regarding this Divinity and Humanity of Christ, many other Bible verse testify, in addition to today’s texts. a) First, regarding the fact that he is God with eternal divine essence, in the Old Testament, Psalm 2:6-12, 45:6,7, and 110:1, Isaiah 9:6, Jeremiah 23:6, Daniel 7:13, Micah 5:2, Zechariah 13:7, and Maliah 3:1 testify it and also in the New Testament, John 1:1-3,14,18; 2:24,25; 3:16-18,35&36; 4:14,15; 5:18,20,21,22,25-27; 11:41-44; 20:28, and also 1 John 1:3; 2:23; 4:14,15; 5:5,10-13,20; Rom 1:7; 9:5; 1 Cor 1:1-3; 2:8; 2 Cor 5:10; Gal 2:20; 4:4; Phil 2:6; Col 2:9; 1 Tim 3:17; Heb 1:1-3,5,8; 4:14; 5:8, etc. testify it. b) And then about the humanity of Christ, John 12:27; Acts 3:18; Heb 2:14; 9:22 and also Heb 2:17, 18, etc., testify that He took upon Him the weaknesses of human nature, yet, in Heb 4:15, it is said that He was sinless. c) And finally in some cases it is said that His two natures worked together, as Acts 2:28 says that God purchased the church with His own blood, and 1 Corinthians 2:8 says that the rulers of Israel did not know the wisdom of God and crucified the Lord of glory, and also 1 John 3:16, says that the Son of God laid down his life for us, etc. As such, the Bible teaches us clearly that Jesus Christ had the same weaknesses as mankind and grew over time, and was a true human without sin, but at the same time, a true God who is perfect and immutable at all times.

3)    And regarding the reason why He had to be true human and also true God, Heidelberg catechism Q&A 16 & 17 taught us that in Q&A 16, after asking “Why must the mediator be a true and righteous human?” it answers that “God's justice demands that human nature, which has sinned, must pay for sin; but a sinful human could never pay for others.” and also in Q&A 17, after asking “Why must the mediator also be true God?”, it answers that “So that the mediator, by the power of his divinity, might bear the weight of God's wrath in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.”

4)    And regarding this Divinity and Humanity of Christ, Belgic Confession Article 19 also confesses that “We believe that by being thus conceived the person of the Son has been inseparably united and joined together with human nature, in such a way that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures united in a single person, with each nature retaining its own distinct properties. Thus his divine nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life, filling heaven and earth. Christ's human nature has not lost its properties but continues to have those of a creature-has a beginning of days; it is of a finite nature and retains all that belongs to a real body. And even though he, by his resurrection, gave it immortality, that nonetheless did not change the reality of his human nature; for our salvation and resurrection depend also on the reality of his body. But these two natures are so united together in one person that they are not even separated by his death. So then, what he committed to his Father when he died was a real human spirit which left his body. But meanwhile his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave; and his deity never ceased to be in him, just as it was in him when he was a little child, though for a while it did not so reveal itself. These are the reasons why we confess him to be true God and truly human-true God in order to conquer death by his power, and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh.”

5)    But, regarding this mystery of Divinity and Humanity of Christ in One Person, there arose many heretics in the early days of Christianity. Nestorius, by strictly separating humanity and divinity, denied that Christ is true God and true human at the same time, and insisted on dualism, I mean, Jesus is the union of two persons – a human person and a divine person. Eutyches insisted on monophysitism, claiming that the divine and human natures were mixed together to become a third something. However, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD excommunicated both heretics, confessing that “our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead & also perfect in manhood; truly God & truly man, of soul and body; consubstantial [or coessential] with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; … Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ”

6)    In addition, this hypostatic union between two natures is not the “deification” of the human Jesus obtaining divinity, but the testimony to the incarnation. Yet, since the subject of His ministry is the second Person of the Son of God, this incarnation is better said to be the Word becoming flesh rather than God becoming man, and rather than saying the divinity assumed humanity, we have to understand it that the Person of God the Son assumed humanity. Therefore, our Reformed doctrine rejects the Lutheran Church’s doctrine of communion of attributes, which states that the two natures communicate directly within the Person, rather completes the Reformed doctrine of communion of attributes, which states that the two natures communicate through the Person of Christ. And regarding the communion of ministry, we believes that both natures cooperated together to accomplish the redemption and achieve the ministries of the mediator. And for the communion of gifts, we believe that not only is the humanity of Christ infinitely elevated through the hypostatic union, but the humanity is also adorned with all the outstanding gifts of the Holy Spirit.

7)    Therefore, this hypostatical union of the Attributes makes Christ not to sin. We call this as the doctrine of impeccability of Christ. Yet, this impeccability of Christ is not simply the doctrine that Christ did not sin, but that He is not able to sin. Because Christ’s divinity and humanity exist in one inseparable Person, and this impeccability of Christ not only shows that His holiness is unchangeable, but it is also consistent with His role as the author and perfector of our faith. So, we can know that the temptation of Christ was not to see whether He could sin, but to show that He could not sin. However, there is other opinion on this impeccability of Christ, I mean, not able to sin, Charles Hodge, in his systematic theology book argued that, even though he agrees that our Mediator between God and human must be sinless, yet the sinlessness of Christ’s humanity does not mean absolute perfection so he was not a being who had no possibility of sinning at all, but he set an example for us by not sinning even under the greatest provocations, and also if Christ could not sin, his temptations would have been unrealistic and ineffective, and He could not have sympathized with His people. But, William Shedd responded that  the claim that if Christ could not sin, His temptations were meaningless is not true, saying, “Temptation and sin can be inversely proportional, which proves that the two are completely distinct and diverse, that is, stronger temptations are needed to attack a virtuous man that a profligate one, and the higher the nobility, the stronger the power of temptation” and continued that “Although Christ was without sin and could not possibly sin, yet the temptations he overcame and the sufferings that followed were infinite.” And also as Augustine says in his Enchiridion, CHAP. 118; On Correction and Grace XXXIII that (1) human beings was able to sin (posse peccare), that is, in the state of Adam and Eve before they sinned, (2) and human beings became not able not to sin (non posse non peccare), that is, in the state of fallen man after the first sin, (3) yet, human beings become able not to sin (posse non peccare), that is, in the state of those who have been reborn and saved. (4) And finally humans cannot commit sin, In other words, humans who are not able to sin (non posse peccare), that is, the human status, in the new heaven and new earth, if humans can become humans who cannot commit sin in the new heaven and new earth, since it comes from the merits of Jesus Christ, so we can conclude that Jesus Christ also is not able to sin.

8)    From this impeccability of Christ, we can learn that; First, this impeccability of Christ shows that Christ is unique and trustful as our mediator and Savior. And secondly, we can know that we too can have the assurance that through His merits, when our regenerated soul will finally be reunited with our resurrected body, then we will become a new humanity that can no longer sin in the new heaven and new earth.

9)    In that sense, following the example of our Lord, who received the fullness of the Holy Spirit and obeyed to the leading of the Holy Spirit, overcame the devil’s temptation with the Word even after fasting for 40 days, and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that Father’s will would be done not his own, sweating like drops of blood, I hope that this year, we all, being filled with the Holy Spirit and following the leading of the holy Spirit, may fight against sin even to the point of shedding blood and achieve the victory that the Lord has already gotten.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, we became to know that Christ’s humanity did not sin and was not able to sin, due to His divinity and also the Holy Spirit who filled Him, yet He had to take all the temptation with infinite sufferings to impute His righteousness to us. So, meditating on His great grace and reviewing where this grace works in us, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And also we can know that we also have to fight against sin to the point of shedding, through the Holy Spirit, following His example to get the victory which He already earned for us. So after reviewing our life, how and where we fight against sin, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.