Just like there can’t be many gods. And that’s the only way actually that God can reveal himself through creatures. But in any case, what we see is, theologically, that if you have parents reproducing, the offspring is what the parent is. He loved the Lord Jesus Christ. But it’s interesting that he doesn’t say it about himself. What we really confess, and this is how we ancient Eastern Orthodox Christians understand the Holy Scripture, is that Jesus is not simply a son of God, he is the Son of God. Do you realize, as a Christian, that you have that double promise that Jesus Christ prays for you that your faith fail not? But he hung around as long as he could. And in theological jargon, that would be to say that he is a distinct Person, or a distinct or another hypostasis, which means an existential reality—that would be St. In fact, that’s one of the main teachings of the Gospel. He means they’re one and the same divinity, because the Father is the Father and the Son is the Son and they cannot be merged or conflated, and there were heretics who tried to do that. If you were writing a catechism, and you wrote down “What are the properties that belong to God?” That he’s uncreated; he’s ever-existing; he’s totally perfect; he’s even beyond perfection; he’s totally good, even beyond any category of goodness that we could hold. But this was a hard test, folks. How can He be else but God in human flesh? toutelatele_officiel. Now, many commentators have discussed why Peter did what he did. He’s completely and totally different. Everything that I know and possess, all my power, all my wisdom, all my glory, all my splendor, all my beauty, all my truth, all that I am: it is given to me by my Father, eternally.” And then, of course, it belongs to the Son when he becomes a man, so Jesus as a man has all of these qualities, but he receives them. Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord?”. The one who is literally God’s Son, not metaphorically, not like what you would say about some nice man: “Oh, that guy’s really God’s son.” Human beings can be called sons of God for various purposes, but they are not literally, we might say ontologically, God’s son. No, it’s only something that God can say. God is the source of their being, divinely. God is incomparable. That’s in the Letter to the Hebrews, that God spoke to us in these latter days through a Son, by whom also he created the ages, who is the apavgasma tēs doxis aftou, the radiance of his glory and the charaktēr tēs hypostasis aftou the exact image of his person, of his very being. That was the pinnacle. If I were to sum up this marvelous account in one simple statement, I would think the great lesson here is that with Christ we need not fear any storm. Jesus took care of them in their dilemma. There isn’t one God who, the same God, Father and who, the same God, is Son, and who, the same God, is Holy Spirit. Oh, yeah, we love Jesus’ words, and Jesus’ words even said, “They’re not my words; they’re the words of the Father.” So he gives us the words of God, and he is the Word of God in the flesh. And so, Peter was afraid. But, you see, this is the whole point. In Psalm 5, we find their confidence in verse 11, “But let all those who put their trust in Thee rejoice. Email Newsletter, Terms of Use    Privacy Policy    Permissions    Content Disclaimer. © 2021 Grace to You. But there’s more that can be said. That is identical. Because we find, in verse 33, that they that were in the boat came and worshipped Him, said, “Of a truth,” or, “Truly, You are the Son of God.” And it’ll always be that way when we minister. They still have to come to that conclusion themselves. Because the fullness of God’s divine essence is present in the Son of God, Jesus could say to Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And the Jews didn’t embalm bodies. Remember he was up there praying alone it says in verse 24 – 23? We saw the feeding of the 5,000. God proclaims that ascribing to Jesus the attribute 'son of God' or 'part of a Trinity' is indeed a great blasphemy. He’s called in Greek theology “theanthropos”: the God-man. You may give him a certain amount of impetuosity as an element of his character, but the man is not stupid. He had run them to the limit of their faith, and they were sinking. There is this radical difference between Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, and every other human being who ever lived. However, there are qualities and properties of God the Father that we attribute and know belong to the Son of God by just experience, and certainly by what is testified to him on the pages of the Holy Scripture, in the New Testament, namely, that whatever you’re going to say about God you could say about him. So the Holy Fathers would say Jesus is a real human being because Mary is his mother, but he is also a real divine being with a divine nature because God is his Father. What the Lord is saying, “Didn’t you think I’d catch you? And that makes him absolutely unique. And therefore, we would say that there’s a priority to the Father in the Holy Trinity, so called the monarchia of the Father. And the Holy Fathers of the Church, especially Athanasius the Great and Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, and all the great Fathers, especially the Fathers of the fourth century who fought against Arianism, [which] said that Jesus may be called the Son of God, but that’s a kind of metaphorical, honorific title; he’s not really the Son of God, if you mean that he is divine with exactly the same divinity as God the Father has. I come forth from him. How do you determine greater or lesser in such a way? And they wondered greatly.” They were amazed. That’s what the Christian life is all about; it’s about learning more and more to trust God. So, his faith carried him that far. And that is why in St. John’s Gospel, where the author, St. John, will say, have Jesus say, “I and the Father are one.” He doesn’t mean one and the same person. And I love that in him. And then, even St. He loved to be where he was. I am God. That’s why you have in St. John’s Gospel Jesus, not only saying, “I and the Father are one” or “Everything that I have, I have received from my Father”—sometimes people are scandalized by this sentence, especially the super-orthodox. It would have been so easy for them to turn around and go with the wind back to where they came from. Now, some people think this is presumption; the brash, bold sort of loud-mouthed Peter is sticking his neck in it again – or his foot in this case – that he’s overstepping his bounds, that he’s gone too far, that he’s overconfident and very presumptuous. And we saw that in the way He controlled not only them, but the multitude as well. He was consumed with the fact that he wanted to get to Jesus. And so, we find them in the midst of the storm, but we also find them in the midst of obedience. And I’ll just remind you of these; I mentioned them last week. And they are actions that only God can do. “But immediately Jesus spake unto them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer; it is I; stop fearing.’, “And Peter answered Him and said, ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water.’. And that sphere is obedience, and therein is God’s love poured out on His own. The Son is the son of God. He’s a real human being, but he’s not merely a human being. In John, it says that if you say you love someone, but you close up your compassion to that person, how dwells the love of God in you? But God is so perfectly God and so lovingly God and so powerfully God, that he can express himself absolutely perfectly, and he does so in the Person of his Son, God’s divine Son, whom we call now the second Person of the Holy Trinity, is the exact image of the Father’s Person. We discussed the first layer, which is Jesus as new Adam, the representative of a new humanity. This, the ultimate expression of God’s purpose for Jesus Christ – listen to it – “Wherefore” – Philippians 2:9 – “God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and in earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”. Quran Aur Sunnah Ko Mazbooti Se Pakdiye. Some people think that John did that just to make that pedagogical point to his disciples. And that’s why you have in the Scripture Jesus saying to the Apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” He doesn’t say, “Come here and I’m going to tell you: I’m the Christ.” No, he does these things and then he asks, “Who do you say I am?” because it’s got to be your decision. That the Son is obedient to the Father. And this also would be a commonplace teaching in ancient Christian orthodox doctrine, namely, that Jesus of Nazareth is divine with exactly the same divinity and therefore he can be called “God,” just like he is called “human” because of his mother Mary, so he can be called “man.” So he’s God and man. That’s the Christian, orthodox faith. More "Conversations" sermons can be found at the INDEX to Conversations with Jesus. And it is making you to be fully to the praise and the honor and the glory of God.” It’s making you into what you can be to give God glory. He loves them with an unending love. Jesus is the Son of God—because the Bible tells me so.” Well, the Bible does tell me so, and it’s very important that the Bible tells me so, but we have to come to see it for ourselves, to confess it ourselves, and then it becomes our own, and then we live by it, and then we see its implication for our own very life. This article is also available and sold as a booklet. If he were not really God’s Son, he could not say those things, and no mere mortal could say those things. Therefore, when Jesus is called “the icon of God,” which we’ll get to later, he’s not only huios tou theou, but logos tou theou and eikona tou theou, the image of God, the Word of God; so, as icon, Jesus has to be the perfect image of the Father, lacking nothing of the Father’s divine reality, because if he did, he wouldn’t be the perfect image. You have to make this confession of faith. I believe they saw here the Son of God, because also He demonstrated divine power, verse 32. So the Son of God is exactly what the Father is, coming from the Father, and the Father expresses himself perfectly, divinely in his Person as Son. Then that image has to be absolutely perfect, otherwise it is not an image of the archetype. This is part two of a series of “Conversations with Jesus, the Son of God”. If you come forth from someone else, or if you owe your existence to someone else, and even if you have a relationship to the other person, of obedience or honor or glory—because the Son glorifies the Father (of course, the Father also glorifies the Son)—you must therefore be metaphysically, ontologically inferior. No other one is the only-begotten, unique, literal, ontological Son of God. And then he adds this little P.S., “And they must have forgotten about the feeding the day before.” They should be amazed? Well, the answer comes in this passage. Peter learned that Jesus could take care of him when he couldn’t take care of himself in the ultimate extremity. We can expect that hard resistance. Well, Gregory the Theologian argued and said, “That’s boloney! We’re not animals. Or, if you were really something other than God, you couldn’t say, for example, “I’m a human being, and I’m greater than a donkey” or “I’m greater than a dog.” Well, a dog is a dog; a donkey is a donkey; and I am I. So, he learned his lesson. And she said, “Okay!” and from that moment she became an Nicene Orthodox Christian, following the Holy Fathers, because that’s basically what it is. As warm is to the sun, so love is to God. And in the midst of a storm, his presumption would not be the dominating motive. So the Son is the same as the Father, and then you can say, and so therefore the Father is also the same as the Son, but, saying that, we have to remember that the Son derives from the Father, because he’s the Son and not the Father. Facebook     They’ll say, “But what about that sentence where Jesus says, ‘The Father is greater than I’?” Is he greater? And that’s why he was the leader that he was. They saw Him ruling the wind and the sea. And here we would even say that if God has a son, and God is God, then that son must be perfectly like the Father is, because God cannot produce an inferior product. Part 2. They are of God. Son Of God part 2. “And when Peter was come down out of the boat, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. Go tell him what you see.” Now, maybe that’s only pedagogical. – 1 John 4. And so, I think that that is not a good explanation. So we would say, if God is good, perfectly good, ever-existing, always the same, if God is omnipresent in creation—he’s everywhere that anything exists—if he is omnipotent—he has all the power—if God is all-wise, if God is all-merciful, if God is all-loving, if God is anything you want to say about God, you have to say the same thing about Jesus. The only metaphysically inferior products of God are creatures, but the Son is not a creature. And so, in this incident, in the morning, on the Sea of Galilee, they saw the true King in His true Kingdom. We continue our examination of Zaatari’s debate points.. As if he couldn’t get anymore confused Zaatari went on to say: "And secondly, you act like there were no Jews who converted to Jesus. And therefore, as it will say in the letters of John, anyone who claims to confess God and does not confess Jesus as the Christ or Jesus as his Son is not really confessing God, because God is essentially the Father who begets his Son. And here, by the way, it’s very important to mention, that when we speak what we call apophatically about God, in other words, we say that anything we say positively about divinity has to be negated and transcended, even the very category “being”—yes, God exists, but he is beyond any category of being that we can imagine. Yes, he is good. And the text tells us that the boat was instantly at the shore. He takes it and builds it. Copyright © 2005-2021 Ancient Faith Ministries, Inc.All Rights Reserved. “Satan has desired to have you, but I have” – what? If your mother is human, if that being from whom you are born [is], you must be exactly what that being from whom you are born is. If your boat is pointed to Capernaum, and you are following the course of obedience, He is there to rescue you. In closing, I draw your attention to the call of the apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 2. -- Gospel of Luke 23:43. How is it that later on, when the crowd leaves, and the Lord says to them, “Will you also go away,” how is it that Peter, speaking on their behalf says, “Lord, to whom shall we go; Thou and Thou alone hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christian, the Son of the living God,” John 6:69? The events of Christ’s Baptism and Temptations in the desert, and of his Transfiguration are a preparation for Easter. He doesn’t use that expression for himself. So they would say just simple things like this: If you’re a human being and you’re a father and you have a son, the son is human, too. I am his Son. There can only be one Holy Spirit; there can’t be many. Well, if you’re in the Arianizing tendency, you’ll say, “Well, if the Father is greater than the Son, then the Son can’t be divine in exactly the same way that the Father is.”, And the Holy Fathers—and here I could give you texts of Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian and those who—St. You understand that? Jesus NOT son of God. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." That’s why, in the Liturgy in our Orthodox Church, we say, “We give glory to the Father who is unoriginate,” who is agenitos, who is not generated and then “to the Son,” who is genitos, who is monogenēs, who is begotten of the Father. Photius the Great, Maximus the Confessor, Mark of Ephesus, they all taught this—Gregory Palamas. Tom? We are merely human. Basil the Great said, “If Jesus were not divine with exactly the same divinity as the Father, it would not make any sense for him to say, ‘The Father is greater than I,’ because comparisons can only take place within genuses, between things that are the same thing.”. Are you the Prophet? Play now. So when we confess Jesus as the son of God, what we are saying also is that his activities are divine, his words are divine, what he does is divine, that it has its origin in the Father and that there’s a mutual indwelling between the two hypostases or persons: the Father is in him; he is in the Father. They did it. And I have to confess, to those of you who were not here last Lord’s Day, that we began a message last week that I didn’t finish. Didn’t you think you could trust me in that extremity? Son of God « Film Chrétien en français - part 3 - 3. worship fever - Film Chrétien. You see, they knew they were in the presence of Him of whom the psalmist said, “Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path is in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not understood,” Psalm 77:19. You are divine. He knew it couldn’t withstand the storm any better than the little boat could. And they knew Job 26:14 which says, “The thunder of His power, who can understand?” They knew that God was almighty El-Shaddai. It is what the parent is, but it is not who the parent is. We’re aware because we, too, have heard the teaching of Jesus. They said, “If you are a son, by definition, you have to be inferior.” By definition, you have to be lower. 8:07. I said to her, “Allie”—that’s her name—I said: You’re Hopko and I’m Hopko, right? Help Grace to You bring important resources like this to people in your community and beyond, free of charge.