07_work_0117_top_of_the_v

The speaker discusses the symbolism of a V-shaped diagram representing the incarnation, resurrection, and cross of Jesus. They explain that Jesus, as both God and a perfect man, cannot die or suffer corruption, but through union with Christ, humans can share in his divine nature. The speaker emphasizes the importance of the incarnation in allowing for this union and the attainment of incorruptibility. They also mention the role of Jesus as a substitute Adam and lamb. The speaker suggests that there is often a focus on the cross and salvation, but less attention given to the significance of the incarnation. What you're going to think of there as being a V, the top left is the incarnation, top right is the resurrection, at the bottom you've got the cross, you came from heaven to earth, you show the way from the earth to the cross, from death to pay, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky, right? There's also an arrow in the top left to the top right with the name Jesus written on it. This is because for Jesus, his resurrection is a result of his incarnation. As God, he cannot die. As a perfect man, he cannot suffer corruption, the penalty for sin. But you might be asking, how do we get to share in all of this, right? Jesus is God, so he can't die, but we are not God. Jesus is perfectly righteous, so he can't die, but we are obviously not perfectly righteous. This is where union with Christ comes in. In coming to earth, Jesus was ultimately not just uniting the divine and human as natures, right, but uniting the divine person with human persons. If it's a radical thing for the incorruptible nature to unite with corruptible nature, in the union of the natures, how much more radical is it for the holy God to unite himself to sinners, right? And this is the reason for the cross, the nadir of our review. When Christ unites himself to sinners, our sin becomes his sin, and he must now suffer the penalty for that sin, which is death, which is exactly what he does. And his passive obedience is where he suffers the penalty for us, right? Hebrews 2.14 says, Since then the children, sharing flesh and blood, he himself likewise, also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who has the power of death, that is, the devil. So, the incarnation enabled this payment to happen, it enabled the union, right? Our union with Christ is both the reason for the manger and the cross. Our salvation is achieved in the incarnation, where he takes on our flesh, but ultimately in his death. Romans 4.25 then says, He was delivered over on account of our sins, and he was raised on account of our justifications. So this is the upward tilt of the V. If his payment on the cross were not sufficient, he would have just stayed there at the bottom, he would have stayed dead. But the logic of 4.25 is, because he justified us, we are therefore raised. Now, we are united with Christ, so we share in all three parts of the V. The Bible says that we are united both in his death and his resurrection, but what about his incarnation? Why are we united in his resurrection? Is it just because he paid for our sins, or is there something related to the incarnation? And that's what I want you to see here. More importantly, the paying of our sins is what allows us to be united to him, yes, but when we are united to him, we take on his image. This is where the incarnation is important. We are therefore able to share in the arrow there on the top, specifically in corruption. 1 Corinthians 15.49 says, Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Since Jesus is incorruptible, and we share in his image, we are therefore incorruptible as well. He received an imperishable body, so we now share in his image, and we receive an imperishable body. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Resurrection itself might be predicated on his act of obedience, but incorruptibility, that's predicated on the incarnation, that's predicated on his deity, right? So if Jesus were, just imagine that Jesus were just a mere man and we share in his image, we could be restored to the state of Adam in the garden, where it's possible not to sin, but we would never be able to get to the place where it's impossible to sin, right? And therefore possible to perish. But Jesus is also fully God, and therefore incorruptible. That is why we will share in incorruptibility. We will share in that state as well. That doesn't mean that we are God, the creator-creature distinction remains intact, okay? So we're not becoming God in the full ontological sense. But we will be as fully in his image as we are with Adam, right? We're accustomed to having a mere man as our federal head. Just imagine what it's going to be like to share in the image of a divine man, right? We're not fully there yet, but we will change, right? So when 2 Peter 1 verse says that we will share in the divine nature, this is what it's talking about. The only way for us to partake in the divine life is for us to have a divine man as our federal head. He is our substitute Adam. We share both in his righteousness and in his deity, right? The only way for us to have a substitute Adam, right, I'm just going back to this chart, is for us to have a substitute lamb. But I want you to see that the substitute lamb achieved the substitute Adam. Now, the reason we went through this whole thing is the church fathers acknowledged the bottom of the V. They spent a lot more time talking about union with Christ and how that achieves this federal headship with Adam. That's why we're talking about this, because I think sometimes we only focus on the bottom part here, and we know that part of the story very, very well. We don't think as much about this other one.