Who You Are In Christ

Alright, well this morning we're going to talk about the believer being glorified. In this series, who we are in Christ. Oh, real quick, there are no handouts. The copy machine is still not happy. And because of my busy schedule and camping up until yesterday afternoon, I didn't run to Kinko's to make copies either. They still don't have the propane tanks. They have everything else for camping but no propane tank powered coffee machine. So, no handouts. But this morning we want to talk about who we are in Christ as being glorified. Now this is an interesting topic for me because a little background from my life experience.

When I was in college I worked at a Christian bookstore. And the owner of the bookstore would always remind us that we were justified, we were sanctified, and we were glorified. Never did the fact that I was glorified with God impact the way he managed. That's a little bit of an overstatement, and if you ever listen to this recording, I apologize. But sometimes it felt like, what does that mean that I was glorified? We never actually went over what does it mean to be glorified. And so this was a really fruitful study for myself and I hope that this morning as we go over the passages you'll find the same.

I did want to outline four different concepts within glorification because for my own self I found it good to be able to understand things in different contexts because when we talk about God's glory and we talk about man's glory those are two distinct sorts of things and so I just wanted to cover that The first one is God's glory. God's glory is the radiant essence of God's being. Who God is already has glory. God is in himself awesome and magnified and exalted and perfect and infinite. So when we talk about God's glory, we're not talking about the same characteristics that we would describe when we talk about glorifying man.

An example passage would be Exodus 16.10. When Israel left Egypt and they went out into the wilderness, God's glory shows up in two different ways. Does anybody remember off the top of their heads, and you can turn there if you're inclined. Shekinah Glory was warmed up. Well yeah, the Shekinah Glory, but how does he show up? When they're wandering, he shows up. A pillar of fire. A pillar of fire. Or a cloud. And the cloud. Yeah.

So, and that's the radiant essence of God on the earth. When Solomon ushers, or when he's giving the commencement, not the commencement speech, when he's talking, when he's... the commencement speech. Wow. When Solomon is speaking when the temple has first been opened up to Israel, the Shekinah glory of God shows up. The glory of God shows up in the temple. And it's pretty awesome.

In fact, they were temple singers and they all had to stop. Everybody had to stop because the awe of God's presence, His glory, was overwhelming. So when we talk about God's glory, we need to understand that God's glory exceeds that which is our own understanding of human glory. Because human glory, as we'll look at here in just a second, is significantly different.

Now we talk about glorification of man by men on earth, and here I have some superheroes. They're not really so super, they're comic junkies. But when man glorifies man, we will praise or magnify the works or earthly achievements of other men. In Genesis 45 13, Joseph wants his brothers to tell about the glory of his achievements to his father Jacob. Was it the radiant essence of the being of Joseph that he's talking about? No. It's the achievements that were there. When mankind does something then we tend to glorify that achievement, whatever it is.

The Olympics are on, and Michael Phelps yesterday, I did happen to catch a little bit of news, apparently set a new Olympic record. How they continue to set records is beyond me. I mean, at some point in time, I think we've reached the maximum of human capacity for performing, but they continue to break those records. But that's an achievement, and there's some glory that comes with that. Wow, you know, he could swim back and forth in a pool faster than I could probably run from one end to the other because they're just really, really skilled.

But that's a human definition of glory for a human context. Glorification of God by men on earth. As humans, man can declare what is already true of God, or things that are done. When we glorify God, we're glorifying him by stating who He already is, or thanking Him for something that He has already done, but we're not adding to God's glory. In His infinite nature, His glory is already infinite. It's already ongoing. We can't add to that, and so it's important that we understand that.

In Matthew 5.16, Christ tells those listening, it's a Sermon on the Mount, to go out and shine before all men so that people would see God in their lives and glorify the Lord. They're glorifying the Lord for his impact and his work in the life of these Old Testament saints, but they're not adding to God's glory, they're just identifying God's glory. Lastly, we want to talk about, and that's the topic that we have this morning, glorification of man by God in heaven. The association of man with himself and capital H, with God, in such a way that God's esteeming of that individual brings about that individual's magnification in God.

Alright, that's a lot of pronouns. Sorry about that. But because we're identified with Christ, we're glorified. Romans 8.30 Paul writes, and those he justified, those he also glorified. God glorified.

And we'll take a look at Romans 8.30 in just a moment.

But God's glorification of man is unlike man's glorification of God. Man can't make God more glorified than he already is. God can make man infinitely more glorified than man is ever capable of doing in his own strength. So everybody's clear on what the glory of God is and then the distinction of man glorifying himself, man glorifying God, and then God glorifying man?

I wanted to make sure all those were distinct. All right, so we're going to talk about two different categories of glorification this morning. One, positional glorification, and secondly, conditional glorification. So we are already glorified in position.

If you'll turn in your Bibles, if you've got them with you there, Romans chapter 8, verse 30. And this is actually a passage that we've been through multiple times already just in this class because Romans 8 has a list of awesome things that are the consequence, and I mean that in a good way, of our association with Christ, our identification with Christ. But we'll just start with 830. And these whom he predestined, remember predestination is to be predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

He also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Alright, so who's doing the glorifying? The Lord. The Lord is doing the glorifying. And we're not all Greek scholars here, I'm certainly not. almost every single item that we've been going through and who we are in Christ is its eris passive. God did the glorifying and it was God doing it at one point in time with ongoing results.

We have been glorified positionally when we are identified with Christ, done with ongoing consequences. The believer was at salvation glorified moving forward. So just like we were predestined in that same context once, and moving forward, we've been glorified.

When I was thinking about being glorified, I had to ask myself, how does this impact my daily life? How does this impact my daily walk? So hopefully as we look at the impact of this, you're going to see just some principles of where this can be applied, and then as you walk in the Spirit in your daily life, you'll see the impact of this. Because, like I mentioned, when you have somebody tell you you've been glorified, that sounds really nice, but how does it apply?

What does it mean? Bob Reed? Well, I was just going to raise a question about the glorification process. Maybe you're going there, but Christ said in John 17, be in my earthly flock. Now glorify me as I was before and I'm not quite sure. Well, I was going to look at the positional and the conditional aspects of glorification.

And so I'd like to say, I hope that we're going to cover it, but if by the end we haven't covered it, let's come back to that because I think the answer is yes to yes, we're going to cover that. But we'll see if we do. Stan, you had a question? So you're saying that was aorus.

So for my clarification, since that's a punctiliar point in time, does that mean all of those happen at the same time? Yeah, when we were identified with Christ, the focus of this class, who we are in Christ, is because at that time of identification with Christ on the cross, and his death, and his burial, his resurrection, and ascension, we took on these qualities that were not of ourselves, but were of Christ. So it was historically taking place that our position was established at salvation. That was the point in time we were identified with Christ and these things became true of us.

If you don't know the answer, that's fine. I'm just going to ask. Sure. Why isn't it past perfect like so many other things were that happened in the past with continuance into the future? I'm just curious. Well, it has continuous ongoing impacts because of the positional nature of it. You know, Eris has occurred at a point in past time, but it does have an effect ongoing, even though the perfect is even a stronger version of that. It says it continues on, up in the present, on in the future. But, you know, Christ dying for our sins, Eris tends, at a past point in time, has an effect for all eternity. I mean, so, you know, the perfect tense, I'm not super in this either, but the perfect tense is just an even more emphatic way of saying it's an ongoing result into the present, into the future. Whereas Aorist, it happened, it's true forever. Christ died for our sins, and he was glorified, and so on. Yeah, we're going to talk about how the position and the condition are going to work out together in a historical timeline context. By the end of this, hopefully that will be really clear. My feeling was that the cross was past perfect, whereas the individual identification and acceptance through faith is the aorist.

So, I don't know. Because I'm not a Greek scholar, I'm going to refrain lest I say something heretical or wrong. Hopefully not heretical ever, but definitely not wrong. But let's take a look at the impact, getting back to the lesson here, I'm sorry. By the way, that's not to say don't ask questions, that's just...

But Randy, you already said at the beginning, I mean, almost all these trees, if you look through all these trees, that they are arist, you know, they're aristence, which is a past point fact, which it doesn't go away, it doesn't evaporate, the past point fact that is true, you know, forever, but it's not the same emphasis as the up in the present or in the future. Sure.

Well, I think one of the things that's interesting about this is that many of these are given in a positional context. And when you have a positional context, it behaves, or I think of it philosophically, in a different behavior than a conditional context. Because condition has lots of outside influences. This is position. This is in stone, if you will. as if heaven has to deal with those things.

Paul, what he's saying in there is that the fact is that in all of these words, he's actually saying that we are, if you can just imagine our view of God's perspective, that we are already what we will be. Yeah, positionally it's achieved, it's in Ares. That's what he's saying, we're already what we will be. But in the perfect, which is very distinct to the Ares tense, the perfect tense, they're very distinct in the original language. And one has that, like Roger said, it has continual effects to show you the eternal effect.

But from God's perspective, we are already what we will be. In God's eyes. It's just that we're growing in a conditional sense. Yeah, the sanctification process. Yeah, the process for that. And that's our position in which we're going to align our practice and our living. Yeah. And that's what we already work in. That's exactly what I wanted. We need to look at the practical nature of our position.

So let's go over these impact statements, if you will, and see How does being told you're glorified impact how we see ourselves as believers? The flesh tells us that we're not good enough and it ignores our position. The flesh says, oh, Paul says you're glorified, but that's like this mystical something or else. That's not who you are. The flesh says that it ignores position. The flesh wants to mire our condition in the muck and ask us to ignore our state of being glorified. It wants us to focus on the state of our skin and our organs and everything else and our lustful desires and everything that's there and not set our mind on things above. And I've got there the last of the bullet points there.

Colossians 3, 1 through 3 reminds us of our heavenly position and how that should impact our perspective. I'm going to go ahead and jump over there and read Colossians 3, 1-3, if you'll follow along with me. He says, Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Well, verse 4 is the last of the verses we're going to go over in this class because it's so critical. It ties in the position and the condition exactly because it brings in glory. Bob's like, you're stopping early. Yes I am. This is an important concept I think. Absolutely.

But if we keep seeking the things above and we're setting our mind on things above and we realize our life is hidden in Christ Then of course you're going to be thinking about, I've been glorified. Of course you've been thinking about, I've been crucified with Christ. This fleshly lust and desire is a distraction. But it impacts how we view ourselves, not in a psychological self-esteem sense. We're always told, you need to feel good about yourself. You feel good about who you are in Christ.

We're going to take a look at 1 Peter 4.14 where he talks about being blessed or another translation for that is happy. And that isn't again indicating just a purely psychological state. But the impact for our own lives is that we recognize who we are and we can live, focus, set on things above, being reminded in our daily walk of our glorified state. But then outside of that, we can look at the impact on how we see others.

If you look at the other believers as anything but glorified, no matter their condition, because remember, when we look at one another as believers, there's always going to be some element of condition there. You're not looking at them with a godly perspective.

If you're setting your mind on things above and My hair was not cooperating this morning. I need a haircut. Becky, that's not anything. She usually cuts my hair, which is awesome, but that's not anything for you. My skin is sunburned. My condition looks anything but glorified. Jessica kindly ironed my shirt. My pants are clean. That's great, but my condition is anything but looking glorified.

When you see me, you don't think, oh, doesn't Randy look glorious? No. But when you look at Randy and you interact with Randy, and I'm interacting with you, if I'm bringing anything else to the table but other than remembering, even if there's a trial going on betwixt us, I need to remember that you're glorified. And you the same with me. And that doesn't mean that, oh well, that person's glorified.

We need to do something bizarre. having come from a charismatic background, I remember one pastor took a church's credit card, and you can see where that's going, and he went out and spent a whole heap of money on the church's credit card for his own personal use, and then said, well, don't touch God's in the rain. Which is a total misuse of glorification and anything else that was there. It doesn't mean we turn our brains off and the morality of doing through us as we abide in it.

But we want to make sure that the glorification of the other saint is there. Let's think of some practical examples of this. Where does your service of others get impacted by their glorification? This is a tennis player serving a tennis ball. But when we serve one another, does glorification come up in our perspective? Hey, that person, I'm serving them. They're glorified. How about, let's bring this to another practical level. Let me ask it this way.

In your marriage, if you're married, or in your friendship, if you're single, or if you're married too, I guess you could have friends. I have friends and I'm married. How does glory, or being glorified, impact the relationship? When Jessica and I are having a disagreement, which I'm sure in your marriages you've never had disagreements, but in ours sometimes it happens. I need to be thinking of my wife as who she is in Christ. Partly that's involving her being glorified. Does that impact our relationship?

If I'm disagreeing with somebody about something, I have had so many disagreements with people over charismatic theology over my lifetime. It would be easy to get personal. It would be easy to take things and get frustrated and forget that they're believers too and they're glorified too.

And I need to be respectful of who they are in Christ and not let my passion for something go beyond that. Stan? To me it's kind of like treating people you don't know and treating family. But then on the other hand, there's the old adage, never go into business with family. But as we serve, if we remember the other believer's state of being glorified.

Romans 8.30 isn't just talking about you, it's talking about them too. That impacts your daily life. It impacts the way you interact with friends, with family. Is glorification part of what's on your radar, so to speak? Is glorification part of how you're evaluating the scenario?

We're going to take a look next at 1 Peter 4.14 and I mentioned this before.

1 Peter 4.14 is an interesting verse in the context of the greater passage where he's talking about sharing suffering with Christ. I'll go ahead and read this out loud for the recording.

He says, If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. This one's loaded with all kinds of things coming from a charismatic background, but in its plain and simple form, we'll look at it. What is God or the Holy Spirit inspiring Peter to write here? If you're reviled, if you're cursed or persecuted, for being a believer, he says you are blessed. The King James, does anybody have the King James? Would you mind reading out loud the King James, because I thought it says it in an interesting way. That you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On your part he is evil and spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. So he says happy are ye, or happy are you.

When you're being persecuted, does it bring a smile to your face more often than not? There's been a couple times when I actually have smiled. That usually doesn't go well. Do we consider it a blessing? Do we consider it something that would cause us to be happy to be persecuted?

Think about the Jews and persecution and the Nazi camps because they were God's people. They were reviled. Just for being Jews, yeah. Peter's writing this to people who are being persecuted in a very real way by the Jews who were saying, hey, you guys are teaching heresy and by the culture around them because they were again being pious and they were turning down idolatry and things like that.

But he says you're blessed. He says because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. God's glory and his being rests on you. The word rest there is a loaded word. There's a lot of nuances that come with that Not only is God resting on you, but it brings with it this concept that the Holy Spirit is empowering you as well through His rest on you, which is an interesting thing. If you're being persecuted, you're being blessed, or you should be happy because of that, because God's Spirit of Glory and God Himself is resting on you and empowering you through this time. That's a consequence, conditionally, of a positional truth. Positionally, you've got God's glory.

And that's impacting your condition in a practical way as the persecution comes, as the difficult times come. The positional truth spills over into our daily life, and trials of persecution remind you of your unity with Christ. When that trial comes, is your focus on Christ? If it wasn't, it probably will be pretty quickly. Because this difficulty makes you sit back and evaluate what's going on.

You go, oh, I'm being persecuted for being a believer. you're reminded of who you are in Christ. And it reminds you that you've been glorified and that God's glory is with you. Peter's reminding these people because when they're going through their tough time, when they're being persecuted, he's reminding them, hey, you're glorified.

When you go through a trial, and Hal talked through trials and suffering class, and even just this last week, I posted a link to it. Somebody was saying, man, he had his eye was swollen, his car got broken into, and his wife had some medical condition. All of it in one week. And I'm like, here's a link to the Holy Hill's website. And they'll give you three to listen to these. It'll be an encouragement to you. But part of this is that in the trials and suffering, you're reminded of your glory in Christ. And that's a powerful thing.

We already talked about that. How can you not be impacted by the resting glory of God? That's a bad sentence. If you keep the resting glory of God in mind, how can you not be impacted? How can that not impact the way you're evaluating your situation? It should impact your daily life. The position, again, comes into play with your condition. So let's take a look at being glorified in condition.

2 Corinthians 3.18, we've been to this passage on multiple occasions as well in this class. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the Spirit. So here we see that which is positionally true is reflected as in a mirror to be part of our condition. And hopefully this will start to tie in with what Bob was asking about Christ's glory in the heavenly and earthly sense. We're beholding in the mirror the glory of the Lord.

I was looking up the mirror context, and that ends up being an area where there's all kinds of scholarly dispute about various strange things. Because the Corinthians would make mirrors, but some people have overemphasized the quality of the mirrors being lower quality than modern mirrors. But Paul didn't have modern mirrors to compare that with. So we need to not completely drag that into the discussion.

But we're beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. What does a mirror do? It reflects what's there. What's it reflecting as you look in the mirror? You're reflecting Christ. But God is showing you the glory of Christ in your life, point by point. And this is where sanctification comes in. This is where it's progressive, where the Lord is working on this element today, right now, in your life.

It's not all at once, which is what I always wished it would be when I was younger. get this over with. Bob? I think you have to catch yourself on this verse a little bit, and I mistakenly look at this verse in the wrong way. Okay. We're not perceiving the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, I don't know about you, but sometimes I fall in the trap of looking at the image of what he's portrayed to look like as a physical man. Oh, okay.

It's the Lord. Yes, yes, absolutely. It's not the person Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. So, I don't know, you look in a mirror, you kind of look at yourself, but then you're trying to say, what did Jesus look like, you know? Sure, sure. I mean, and to some extent, there's no victory there trying to visualize the man. Absolutely, yeah. We're focused on the glory here. It's just that the mirror reflects his glory.

Boy, that's a truth that's so expansive. I mean, it's a whole different problem. I mean, maybe nobody else has a problem with that. No, no, I thank you for bringing that up, because on more than once has that been something where I'm like, well, what does that look like? No. We're talking about the glory.

Not a physical image, more of a spiritual one. Yeah, because for a gal to look in the mirror and think, what does Jesus look like? She's going to be really confused. Physically. Yeah. It's not about the physical nature of it. In a sense, that's the error of 2,000 years, is that not trying to portray the physical nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sure. Maybe it didn't exist in mainline churches, but very evangelical churches.

Yeah. know the word glory actually in its fullest meaning is really the essence of God in its very essence so when you take it from the fullest meaning you're saying when you look at Scripture you're seeing the very essence of Christ as we see him described in just a multitude of passages a multitude of you know the significance of Scripture over and over again glorifies the Lord in his essence for who he is he's righteous he's holy he's just yeah so that's that word glory don't I don't think just shine, you know. Oh yeah, just a light or something. It's more than that.

It's his entire essence of who he is. Yeah. Stan? And since Paul was a master of the Old Testament, obviously, I think this thought of Moses and the veil and the shining of his face, I think that all fits into this concept that he brought out. Yeah, absolutely. 3 is entirely that comparison. Yeah, and he brings that out in the verses ahead of that.

The very nature of this passage is, again as Bob said, we're not talking about the physical image of Christ, but the glory of the Lord. But we're being transformed where our position is being worked out in our condition from glory to glory. Until someone taught me about grace, and trust me I was a good legalist, on more than one occasion I could tell you stories of how my legalism was just a millstone around other people's necks as well as my own. The Lord worked out the glory of His grace in my mind, renewing my mind and saying here is what grace is. Here's a bulldozer, let's scrape out this junk that you've previously been defining as grace. And this is my glory and grace.

I think that's the same thing when the rapture happens. We shall all be changed because we shall see him as he is. Oh yeah, when the rapture happens we'll get our new bodies and we will fulfill the completeness of our being and the typos. of Christ, because He is the new creation and we will follow Him. But we will see Him as we never have before.

Oh absolutely, absolutely. And that will change everything. Oh, undoubtedly. We're going to get to that in the next verse. So yeah, everybody's on top of it. All I can say is this is a great Sunday school class because you guys, you already know many of these truths. And you're just on it. Everybody's like, what about this?

We're getting there. But from glory to glory, the sanctification process is progressive. The Lord in our condition is working out his character in our lives as we're conformed to the image of Christ. And so the process moves forward and goes forward as we are being conformed into his image. One of the things I wanted to just look at there, he says we're being transformed. We're being changed into the image that is in the reflection. Again, it's not the image of the physical characteristics of Christ, it's the glory, as Bob pointed out. And our condition is reflecting that which is part of our position.

So Colossians 3.4, this is where Bob's like, you stopped early, and I did. And then this brings up right what Carol was saying with the with the rapture and being completed who we are in Christ. So if you'll turn to Colossians 3 again, we were already there, but we'll go back and we'll take a look at Colossians 3, 4. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. And this was one of those things that it's like here is what we want to come down to.

Our position and our condition are going to be unified. Our position, our condition, are going to stop being what in our mind sometimes comes across as a battle. They're going to be, if the rapture, have our new bodies. We'll stop wrestling with the flesh. We'll stop wrestling with that. But it doesn't just stop, okay, I'm going to stop wrestling. But instead, it keeps going.

We're going to be revealed with Him in glory. You know, but as positionally ingrained as we are in the Risen Lord, in a sense that identification even extends into this truth. Because in John 17, 5, he says, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. you will maybe a poor term lack of glory sure in a sense and then he says down in verse 10 and all mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them I mean that's partly positional but partly conditional now even though Christ himself was all God and all man there's something quote again poor term perhaps lacking that he was wanting the Father to do through him through the crucifixion and resurrection. Yeah, the result of that was going to have ongoing consequences.

God's glory would not increase in his being, but the glorification of the angels, every time God works, the angels glorify him. They're not adding to his glory, they can't make that which is infinite more infinite, but they are They rejoice. Every time a believer, or someone becomes a believer, a lost person becomes a believer, what happens? God is glorified.

There wasn't an incompleteness, but there was more to be done. And Christ recognized that. I think that's important. Christ recognized that, and he's like, okay, this glorification, there's more. It's going to keep coming, even though in God's character, he's complete. In the earthly work that he had left to do, there was an increase and abundance that was to come.

I mean, in essence, our sinful nature doesn't preclude the same type of relationship with the Heavenly Father. We are totally identified with Christ in this reality. Positionally accepted in Him, our sin is no longer seen by the Lord. I mean, we're totally righteous. and then there's more glory to follow right but it's same with Christ you know Christ's glory was failed in our glory is fatal I see a total parallel thing and and but the rapture will be revealed just like I think at the cross his Lord was revealed so I was alluding to there in John 17 that his story would be revealed in its fullest and the greatest glory of God is across I It's the ultimate expression of the glory of God.

Stan? The reason, obviously, that Christ asked for that, there's two things. One, it says in Hebrews that he was made lower than the angels at the time. Yeah. And then you have Philippians 2.5, which says, have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not require with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men.

I think that's the answer you were looking for, Bob. Yeah, it's great. Didn't that really lift you up? Sure. And as I was going over this lesson, it was just so awesome that we get to, that God works that out in our lives. Positionally it's there, it's true of us, but conditionally these things are being worked out in our lives. That's God in you. If you've ever felt separated from God, if you've ever felt in a conditional sense like you aren't worth it, or you're not worthy, or you're not good enough, or any of the things that the flesh wants you to feel, this is the opposite of that. And that's how God looks at us. And that's a tremendous thing.

You're both pointing out, just for grins in Philippians 2.6, he says, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.

It was not part of his mindset that he thought, I'm going to try to take, the grasp there is actually kind of as a snatch context. We're not, we're not, as man, mankind wants to take things. That's Satan's role. Yeah, the flesh, Satan, they want us to take something and achieve it of our own.

Christ was doing it as God worked through him as an agent, which is tremendous. It is a tremendous thing. Any thoughts or questions on glorification, being glorified, position, condition? I add to that that if he would have maintained his equality with God and his coming and fulfilling the law, that whole process would have not made any sense because there wouldn't have been the fulfillment so that the covenant could be made, the next covenant could be made. You know, he had to forego some of that so that he could follow through with the plan that God had given him to do.

There's two types of sin that he overcomes there. There's the sin in Adam. Since the Holy Spirit was his father, he didn't have that original sin. And since he was fully man, too, he overcame all the temptations of sin and that's why he was the perfect offering. That's why he was the lamb without spot or blemish. the coming as God would not have allowed him to do that. Yeah, that's why it was so important for him to be fully man and fully God. That's the hypostatic union. Is everybody familiar with the term hypostatic union? Hopefully, maybe? It's the first time I've heard it. Really?

Okay, hypostatic union is Christ being fully God and fully man. And actually, the doctrine of a hypostatic union is probably one of the most critical doctrines when it comes to dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses. because they don't believe that Christ was God. And so you have the doctrine of hypostatic union. If he wasn't fully God and fully man, he couldn't, as Stan was saying, or as you were saying, he couldn't have fulfilled the requirements for paying for sin, for being in perpetuation.

Alright, any other thoughts or questions? That's the first bell, so we can technically chat on record. What does hypostatic mean? Hypostatic. Maybe it's for another time. It is for another time. I'll look it up again. But basically it's called that hypo is... We'll look it up later on. We can go over that. The lesson status quo. We could get into Latin jokes now. But Yeah, the hypostatic union is where a lot of heresy comes into play. If God is less than God, or Christ is less than God, or He's not fully man.

Lastly, on the life of Christ, just because I thought this doctrinal point is critical for us as believers, is who was directing Christ when He walked on the earth? His Father. His Father through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Who was directing our lives as we walk as believers. God through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Christ walked out for his disciples the life that they were to live.

And that's a powerful thing. Stan? But just like us, it wasn't every moment of every second of every day that he was being led. Because when the lady touched him, And his comment was, who touched me? Because I felt the power leave me. He did not know, prior to her touching him, that this was going to happen.

So what I'm saying is, it's just like all God and all man again, he had his own human identity in the process of walking this earth. But his connection, his relationship, and the Holy Spirit, I was reading this weekend, as the relationship in this particular passage where God is love and Christ is grace. I can find it again, but it was there. His relationship through the Holy Spirit and through the love of his Father was so close that it was a one. Yeah, oh yeah. But he still had this human identity. Yeah, well his humanity was his own question. It probably has something to do with hypostatic union. Yeah, it is.

We are so ready to be off on a rabbit trail. We should probably... I actually, to go away from the hypothetic unit and back towards what you're talking about, earlier your focus was on impact and it was on our impact on how we view and find beneficial is how we view and speak of people who aren't believers because they aren't glorified. When they do things that aren't glorious to God, how could they?

Yeah, it's not a surprise. That's true. The new PJ used to always say that you can't get mad at them because they're just being who they are. Yeah, they're fulfilling their job description. Yeah, Romans 1 makes it clear what their job description is, and they're creating new kinds of evil. Always. The impact is not only on how you view and speak with your fellow believers, but how you view and speak with those who aren't.

Yeah. Because they can't be in a position of glory. No, they're not. It's impossible. That's true. Alright, we should pray because our time is out. But then we can keep talking afterwards, but technically I'm supposed to close now. Heavenly Father, we ask that you just continue to bring to our hearts and minds ways in which being glorified by you and in you impacts our daily lives, as well as reminding us of our position in you as various trials and persecutions may come up. Lord, thank you for your work on the cross. Thank you for your life that you lived here on the earth. Pray that we may also manifest your life as we walk daily. In Jesus name, Amen.