Jesus, the God-Man

Editor’s note: Much of what follows relies heavily on chapter 1 of Donald Macleod’s From Glory to Golgotha: Controversial Issues in the Life of Christ (Christian Focus, 2002), entitled “The Word Made Flesh”; chapter 15 of Bruce Milne’s Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief (Inter-Varsity, 1982) entitled “The One Person”; and the section of J. I. Packer’s Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Tyndale, 1993) entitled “Two Natures: Jesus Christ Is Fully Human.” For the sake of readability, we have opted to forgo citations of indirect references to these sources at the present time. Direct quotations are still cited as normal.

Father, we pray that as we study the Bible together this morning, that you will be our helper, that the Spirit will be our teacher, that you will grant us grace to think clearly and to respond properly and to love you deeply. And we’re completely ineffective in the whole process—either in speaking or listening—except for the enabling of your Holy Spirit, for which we earnestly plead. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Please be seated.

Now, we’re going to turn to Luke’s Gospel again this morning—Luke chapter 22. We’re in a series in Luke’s Gospel. We have been for about a hundred years, and we’re all beginning to wonder whether we’re going to make it to retirement before we finish this particular portion of the Bible. It is the longest book in the New Testament; therefore, there is some justification for the time it’s taken us. But we also have found ourselves pausing, and doing so purposefully. And three weeks ago, when we came to the first word of verse 39—namely, the word Jesus—we stopped there, because we said it was important for us to make sure that when we used the name Jesus, we had at least some approximate understanding of the one to whom we were referring. And we recognize along with each other that there are all kinds of news and views on Jesus, and the scenario which Luke records for us—which you also find in Mark chapter 14—in terms of his anguish in the garden of Gethsemane, actually only makes sense when we have a solid biblical grasp of who Jesus is.

If you think about it for a moment or two, the scene—that we will not get to this morning, but someday we will—the scene that Luke gives to us is a scene of anguish, a scene in which Jesus is overwhelmed, a scene in which, despite the coldness of the evening (others were gathered around a fire), he is sweating profusely. And any sensible person will be forced at least to run their mind around this question: Why is Jesus so messed up? After all, haven’t there been other people who have died—faced death—differently? Indeed, faced death triumphantly? Aren’t we aware almost on a weekly basis of suicide bombers in various parts of the country just walking boldly to their death, apparently simply pressing the button and taking themselves out into eternity? Well, if that’s the case, what’s going on here with Jesus? And we will be at a loss to answer that question adequately until we understand who Jesus is.

Martin Luther said of this that no man ever feared death like this man. Now, that seems to be the wrong way round, doesn’t it? You would think that we could say of other people who had lived and faced death that they really were afraid of death but that Jesus of Nazareth was the one who was not afraid of death. And yet Luther quite accurately says, responding to the information in the text, that Jesus was fearful of death in a way that no one ever feared death.

Well, that demands of us, again, that we give careful consideration to who Jesus is. And in simple terms, the reason for Jesus’ experience in the garden and then in the agony of his passion is, in simple terms, because he was no ordinary man and because his was no ordinary death.

I need to warn you this morning that this will not be easy. If you are unprepared to think, then you may as well just press a button and take yourself off to some place that you love to go in your mind. It’s not even easy to take notes. Some tried in the first service, and I saw them throwing their pads down very quickly. I have in the front row here a young fellow that I just met called David. I’m using him as my touchstone. When he finally goes into oblivion, I’ll know that the rest of you are done as well, and I will finally fold up at that point. But as long as I can hold his gaze, then I will be content to proceed. I didn’t plant him there. He planted himself there. He’ll regret it for the rest of his life.

Addition, Not Subtraction

This was no ordinary man and no ordinary death. In Jesus, God became man. That’s really the essence of what we’re considering this morning. Just in case anyone is small and inept and unable to retain very much, then you just simply say to yourself, “Okay, I understand: God became man. The infinite became finite. The eternal entered time. The invisible became visible. The Creator became the created one.”

In the prologue of John’s Gospel, he puts it in a phrase—John 1:14: “The Word became flesh.” And in doing so, he became what he was not without ever ceasing to be what he was. He became what he was not (namely, man) without ever ceasing to be what he was (namely, God). And in becoming man, Jesus was not exchanging his divinity for his humanity. In becoming man, he was not suspending or surrendering his divine attributes or his divine prerogatives in order that somehow or another he might become real and active. The only way that it is possible for us to make sense of the text as we find it, for example, in the prologue of John or even in Hebrews 1 as was read for us earlier—the only satisfaction that we can get to the material is to recognize that in the incarnation, what we have in Christ is addition or conjunction, but it is not subtraction, so that for God to become man, he becomes man not by subtraction, but he becomes man by addition. And it’s vital that we understand that. Incidentally, the word incarnation simply is from the Latin incarnatio, which is the verb “to take, or become, flesh.”

And the first thing that we need to notice, and notice carefully, is simply this: that in becoming incarnate, the divine Word did not relinquish his deity but added to it. He did not relinquish it, but he added to it. In becoming flesh, he was not a phantom, he was not somebody who seemed to be human, but he was fully human. Says Bruce Milne [sic]—whose book I commended to you three weeks ago when we were here, Know the Truth—Milne says, “Humanness is not simply attached to Christ like a mask or a garment or an artificial limb. It is something which he is and through which he effectively expresses himself.”[1]

You see, in the history of the church, the two great tensions in terms of Christology—which is the doctrine of the person and work of Christ—the two great tensions have essentially been in making Jesus so human that we lose sight of his divinity or of in making him so divine that we lose sight of his humanity. And the challenge of the first four or five hundred years of the developing church was to try, in a cohesive way, first to formulate this material and then to express it, at least, in an understandable fashion.

It is vital that we understand that the Son of God had, then, ordinary human affections—that he had ordinary human affections. That, in other words, he instinctively liked people, or loved people. That when he called the disciples to be with him in Mark 3:14, it says that he called the Twelve to “be with him,” and he loved being with them. They were his friends. And he was able to discriminate, as we do in normal human affection, between the Twelve themselves, so that Peter, James, and John he took closer to himself at least on certain occasions than he did on others. And how did he determine that? Just on the basis of ordinary human affection.

He had ordinary human affection for his mother. He loved his mother. In his death, he expressed his concern for his mother in pointing her out to the disciple and in pointing the disciple out to her. “Look after my mom,” he said.[2] God says, “Look after my mother.” And in the rich young ruler’s story… You remember? The rich young ruler came to Jesus, and he fell on his knees, and he said, “Good [Master], what must I do to inherit eternal life?”[3] And the gospel writer says, “[And the Lord] looked at him and loved him.”[4] What was that? It was an expression of ordinary human affection.

Along with that, when we say that God became man, the Son of God experienced ordinary human emotions. Read the Gospels, and you’ll find that this is the case. He knew sorrow.[5] He was grieved at the tomb of Lazarus, wasn’t he? He wept in that circumstance.[6] He knew what it was to be amazed.[7] He knew what it was to face deep trial, as we will see.

In the person of Christ we have two natures in one person. He is truly human, and he is truly God.

Thirdly, to say that God became man is to recognize that he had a human faculty of choice—that Jesus was making real choices. You know, he walked up a street and he said, “Shall I go up to Martha’s house, or shall I go down here for a cup of tea? Shall I sit down now, or shall I stand?” And unless we understand the humanity of Christ, we’ve got this picture of him somehow just moving around the universe, arriving in places. Now, we see him able to move around in a different way in his postresurrection appearances, but prior to his resurrection, we see him simply walking the streets, attending events, and making ordinary choices. He became incarnate by his own choice. When tempted by the devil, he chose not to turn stones into bread. He chose not to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple.[8] And as we’re about to see in this scenario, when we get to it, in the expression of all that made him recoil from the circumstances, he chose to drink the cup of sorrow.

And without belaboring this, just one other factor: to say that God became man is to recognize not only that he had ordinary human affections, that he experienced ordinary human emotions, that he had a human faculty of choice, but also that he had a human intellect. He learned, if you like, his times tables. Mary taught him his colors. She would have said to him, “No, Jesus, that is yellow. That is not blue. And Jesus, I told you that three times four is twelve. It’s not thirteen.”

Now, to say that he had a human intellect is not to say that he only had a human intellect. It is to say that he also had a human intellect. Because remember that in this capacity, there were things that he did not know. And if this were a class, I’d ask you, “Tell me one thing he did not know.” And all the bright people in the class would have put up their hand and said, “Well, he did not know the precise time of his return.” And I would say, “Go to the top of the class. That is absolutely correct.” It’s interesting, isn’t it? Jesus says, “Nobody knows the time. No one knows. No man knows, except my Father who is in heaven.”[9] And the Father had chosen not to reveal it to his human intellect.

It’s interesting, at that, in passing, that the one thing that Jesus did not know that is, you know, highlighted in the Gospels is the one thing that, you know, evangelical Christianity thinks it does know, right?—and has got big charts and diagrams all over the place and in the back of your study Bible explaining, “We do know. Oh yes, we know! And if you don’t know, I know somebody who does know.” And here Jesus, with a human intellect, says, “I don’t know this.” And that ought to say something to us. There must have been a reason why the Father determined that he didn’t need to know it: presumably, because it had absolutely no bearing on the work of redemption. Absolutely no bearing on the work of redemption. It had nothing to do with what he was about to do. It was nothing to do ultimately with why he had come.

Now, what we’re doing is essentially skirting around the issue here. We’re skirting around the issue of Christology. It’s thirty years or more since I had to study this. I thought I understood it better back then than I do now. I’m not sure. But nevertheless, what we’re tackling head-on is the fact that what we face when we look at Jesus… This is verse 39, just one word, Jesus. Our subject is essentially Jesus 101: last time, Jesus as a member of the Trinity; and this morning, Jesus, two natures in one person. Two natures in one person. That’s the second thing, really, that you would want to say that our study is about: first of all, that God became man, and secondly, that this man was two natures in one person—that in Christ we have one who is truly human, and he is also true God.

Careless Shepherds

Now, this is a daunting thought, isn’t it? I mean, let’s just be absolutely honest. It is the kind of thought that we find nowhere else in world religion. The things that people say and the claims that others have made don’t even come close to the preposterous nature of this claim: that in the person of Christ we have two natures in one person. He is truly human, and he is truly God. But the mystery of it ought not to cause us to shy away from it. Rather, the mystery, I think, should draw us to it in order that we might recognize the importance of it.

Again, Bruce Milne says, “If we neglect this task, others will attempt it in ways which lead to error and confusion. In the doctrine of Christ’s person, as surely as in all other areas of Christian doctrine, careless shepherds invite predatory wolves.”[10] “Careless shepherds invite predatory wolves.” I think that’s a very helpful insight on Milne’s part, isn’t it? What he’s saying is, “Although it may not be immediately palatable to the sheep that are under your care, pastors, make sure that you don’t fudge this issue. Make sure that your congregation understands that when we use the name Jesus, we’re talking about one who is the second person of the Trinity, coequal and coeternal with God—homoousios, ‘of the same substance,’ not homoiousios, ‘of a similar substance.’” That was last time. “And make sure that your congregation knows that when you say ‘Jesus,’ you are speaking about one in whom is found all that can be found of God and all that can be expressed in man. In other words, tax their minds. And do so in such a way that you understand and that they understand that if you don’t help them to face these things, then they may be bamboozled like the rest of the culture.”

The fact is that we’re living this morning in a culture where most people think that all the religions are really just the same, don’t they? I mean, they do. And they think that if there’s any disagreement, it presumably is on sort of marginal and peripheral things—that we’re all really believing in the same God; we’re all going in the same place; everything is absolutely wonderful. And if there’s any points of disagreement, then presumably they’re marginal things; they’re little bits and pieces. Nobody needs to get concerned about them.

And I suppose that that is quite an attractive idea. I understand why so many people are drawn to it. You certainly are able to shy away from any kind of confrontation, any notion of standing up for a position. But can you read your Bible and acquiesce to such a pluralistic perspective? And the answer, of course, is no, we can’t—not if we’re honest. Because we realize that the religions of the world disagree at profoundly central points and that truth is not a matter of pride or a matter of humility.

This is how it goes in the minds of people: “Because all religions are essentially the same, why are these dreadful conservative Christians always banging on this issue of Jesus of Nazareth, as if he was the only way to God? Surely we all know that there is not only one way to God. Therefore, why do they keep saying what they’re saying?”

Well, Islam says that Jesus wasn’t crucified. Christianity says that he was. Only one of us can be right. Judaism says that Jesus was not the Messiah. Christianity says he is the Messiah. Only one of us can be right. Hinduism says that God has been incarnate lots of times. Christianity says that the incarnation was a unique and unrepeatable event. We cannot both be right. Buddhism says that the world’s miseries will end when we do what’s right. Christianity says that because we’re sinners, we can’t do what’s right, and the world’s miseries will end when we believe what’s right.

And here in the Chagrin Valley, right now, in our local newspapers, we are heralding the arrival of a renowned Buddhist who has set up camp right in the center of conservative America. And it would be one thing if he had a hut somewhere down by the river, but no, he’s invited into the heartland of one of our local churches. And there in the context, the pastor says, “I’m delighted that we are able to use our church as a place of acceptance, goodwill, trust and understanding among different world religions.” Careless shepherds will leave their congregation vulnerable to predatory wolves.

Historical Theology

Now, let me give you just a little historical theology—a couple of dates so that you can have a little hors d’oeuvre, as it were. And if you like the taste—a tasting, as they do in restaurants: “Let me give you a little taste”—then you can go and get some more, or maybe not.

The first four hundred years, five hundred years of the fledgling church, they were preoccupied with these issues. And had they not been, then we would not have been able to enjoy the benefits of their thinking. We would not have their councils and their insights as a point of reference—councils and insights which are so essential and crucial to us that despite the fact that sixteen centuries have passed, we really haven’t bettered the information as it was conveyed.

Those of you who have done church history at all will know that for the first three hundred years, the church was battered all over the place: thrown to the lions, turned upside-down like fireworks and set alight, and so on. And then, eventually, a man, one of the Roman emperors, Constantine, became a Christian—became a Christian in the fourth century, in AD 312. Interestingly, having become a Christian, he took very seriously the teachings of Jesus, and he began to examine them for himself, and so much so that he was a prime mover in trying to put together a council that met in Nicaea in AD 325, thirteen years after he became a Christian, in order that they could wrestle with this issue of who Jesus was in relationship to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. They made a good stab at it, but it wasn’t until AD 381 that, in the Council of Constantinople, that they finally put the matter to bed.

And a prime mover in that was a man by the name of Athanasius. Athanasius was taking on another character by the name of Arius. And Arius was suggesting that there was a time when Jesus didn’t exist. And Athanasius was saying, “No, no, no. Jesus has always existed. He is eternally God. His incarnation was not the beginning of his existence. His incarnation was the manifestation in humanity of his eternal being.” The people said to him, “Athanasius, the whole world’s against you.” And Athanasius said, “Then I am against the whole world.” Eight years after his death—because he died in 373—at the Council of Constantinople, they finally determined together that Christ was not a created being.

Well, you would think that they would just put that to bed and move on. But no, they decided that there was more to tackle. And so they continued to pay particular attention to the question “How, then, can the divine and human coexist in this person, Jesus of Nazareth?” And they wrestled with the question “How can you have one person with two natures?” And the way that they came to their conclusions was by ruling out false options—in the same way that some of you who are medics reach your diagnosis. Somebody comes in and says, “I have a pain in the back of my neck.” You say, “Well, your wife told me that earlier, but that’s by the way. Actually, she said you are a pain in the back of the neck. But…” And then what they do is they rule out all the false options, don’t they? So it is by exclusion that they finally come to a conclusion of what is the verifiable data.

Well, they operated in the same way. And so they ruled out the idea that Jesus was two personalities under one skin—if you like, that it was a multiple personality disorder: that in one person there were two personalities coexisting. They also ruled out the idea that divinity swallowed humanity—that his humanity was a kind of unreal notion and that he was truly divine and he was a bit of a phantom. They also ruled out the idea that instead of there being two distinct natures within one person, that these two natures were actually fused and interwoven into some kind of mongrel existence.

So, having ruled that out, they then had to say, “Well, what are we saying about two natures in one person?” And this is how they put it in the Council of Chalcedon: Jesus Christ “acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.” Good words, huh? You feel yourself going for the Oxford English Dictionary already? We think we’ve come of age? “Twenty-first century: we’re so bright!” Nobody has bettered the Chalcedonian Definition in 451. “The distinction of [the] natures [not being] taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and in 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.”[11]

Now, by the time the Westminster divines tackled this some centuries later and put it down in the Westminster Confession, this is what they said. And this is a little more absorbable, but it’s still quite daunting: “Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined … in one person, [but] without conversion, composition, or confusion.”[12] You say, “Well, what do they mean, ‘without’ these three things?” Well, let me just tell you in a sentence. I’ll give you a sentence on each. What they’re saying is that the divine is not changed into the human, nor is the human transmuted into the divine; there is no conversion. The divine and the human do not coalesce so as to form a third entity; there’s no composition. And neither are these two distinct natures mixed; there’s no confusion.

So, then, what is the concept? Are we to think of the two natures of Christ like AC/DC, like alternating electrical currents—that one minute Jesus is operating in his humanity, and then the next minute he’s operating in his divinity? That’s actually what I hear mostly coming from the lips of people. They say, “Well, of course, that was his humanity,” or “That was his divinity,” as if somehow or another he was able to switch—like going across the Atlantic Ocean, you move from 240 to 120, or vice versa. So one minute he’s on 120 on this side of the pond; then he goes over there, he’s on 240. Is that it? Well, no, it’s not, actually. And that’s what makes it so daunting. Let me give you Jim Packer in his Concise Theology—another wonderful book to have on your shelves: Jesus “lived his divine-human life in and through his human mind and body at every point.” Let me say that to you again: Jesus “lived his divine-human life in and through his human mind and body at every point …. He did and endured everything, including his sufferings on the cross, in the unity of his divine-human person.”[13] So the natures are not separated. The natures are not comingled. The natures coexist in the one person, and all of his divinity and humanity of life is lived through his human mind and body.

“Great Is the Mystery”

Now, I’m going to stop there. I’m going to make a couple of points of application, but that’s more than enough to get you started, as it were. That’s what the teacher would say: “Well, there you are. That gets you started. Go home and figure this out.”

Paul, when he addresses Timothy, he says to him in 1 Timothy 3, “Great is the mystery.”[14] “Great is the mystery.” Or, “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great.”[15] “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great.” Colon. And then he quotes: “He appeared in a body.” “The mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body.” And I suggest to you, so it is. Ultimately, at the end of the day, unless we become as little children,[16] unless we recognize that what we have at best is a formulation of truth rather than an explanation of truth, we will never get beyond it. But the fact that it is mysterious, the fact that it is difficult, the fact that it taxes our minds, the fact that this isn’t a blessed thought for blessed individuals to go on their blessed way does not mean that we should step away from this—rather, that we should give ourselves to it, especially when we recognize the pluralism and syncretism that is represented in our culture.

If Jesus is less than God, he can’t reveal God.

Two John 7 says, “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus … in the flesh, have gone out into the world.” Therefore, he says, it is imperative that when you use the name Jesus, when you say that Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane and that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood,[17] and he was overwhelmed to the point of sorrow,[18] and he said, “Father, if there’s any other way that I can get out of this situation, would you please come up with it now, because I’m paralyzed with the prospect of what is about to happen,”[19] the mystery is, you see, that he is not compelled by some divine force that moves him against his ability to choose as a human, but the very compulsion is his own compulsion; that he bows, as it were, as he is before the mystery of what he was.

If Jesus is less than God, he can’t reveal God. If he’s less than God, he can’t reveal God; the reading with which we began in Hebrews 1 is bogus: “In the past, in various ways, God has spoken to us by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us”—he has revealed himself to us—“in his Son.”[20] And the claim of Christianity is simple; it’s profound, but simple: that God has made himself known, has revealed himself in the world, in the order of creation; he has revealed himself in the conscience of man—generically, men and women—inasmuch as we have the faculty of moral choice and decision-making; he has revealed himself in the wonder of this Bible that is a book that understands us even though, many times, we don’t understand it; and he has revealed himself fully and finally and savingly in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if Jesus is not God, no, he hasn’t. ’Cause that which is not God cannot reveal God. And if Jesus is not God, then he can’t reconcile man to God. Therefore, if Jesus is less than the person he claims to be, we have no revelation, and we have no redemption, and therefore, the whole thing is completely bogus. So do you understand how important this is? As opposed to some silly approach to Christianity that just says, “Oh yes, you know. Yes, whatever. You know, who knows? Give everyone a hug. Have a hug and have a great day, you know”—a sort of mindless, gaumless, futile, stupid existence.

And here in Gethsemane, as we will come to this scene, when he experiences anguish and distress, when he encounters an agony greater than anything that we might ever know, we may be confident that he understands, that he empathizes, that he cares, and that he cares to the fullest extent of caring. The writer, again, to the Hebrews says, “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”[21]

You see, the God of Christianity is not a God on a deck chair, removed from the experiences of life. The God of Christianity is a God on a cross, is a God in a garden, is a God down here as well as a God out there. He is a God who is tangible. He is a God who is reachable. He is a God who is knowable. He is a God who understands us. And many of us this morning, if we think anything of God, we simply think that God is somewhere away up there, you know. How are we, then, to unscramble all of those notions of God? Well, by looking at Christ. But not if Christ is a created being! But he is the very emanation of God himself. He is God; he is man.

In the ’60s, we sang about this. You know, we sang,

In the stars his handiwork I see,
And on the wind he speaks with majesty.
And though he ruleth over land and sea,
What is that to me?

And then it went,

But then one day I met him face-to-face,
And I felt the wonder of his grace.
And now I know that he is not
A God who doesn’t care,
Who lives away up there.
And now he walks beside me every day,
Helping me to find the narrow way.[22]

Enabling me to say, “Jesus, my Lord and my God.”

Buddha will bow at the feet of Christ and declare him Lord, to the glory of God the Father.[23] That is the claim of Christianity—a daunting, perplexing, invigorating claim. The whole world is against it. Then I am against the whole world.

Let us pray together:

O God our Father, thank you for sending the Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus, thank you for coming. Holy Spirit, teach us more and more about who Jesus is, and what he has done, and how we may know him and trust him and serve him.

And may the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one, today and forevermore. Amen.

[1] Donald Macleod, From Glory to Golgotha: Controversial Issues in the Life of Christ (Fearn, UK: Christian Focus, 2002), 15.

[2] John 19:27 (paraphrased).

[3] Luke 18:18 (NIV 1984). See also Mark 10:17.

[4] Mark 10:21 (NIV 1984).

[5] See Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34.

[6] See John 11:33–36.

[7] See Mark 6:6; Luke 7:9.

[8] See Matthew 4:5–7; Luke 4:9–12.

[9] Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32 (paraphrased).

[10] Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1982), 141.

[11] Phillip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom with a History and Critical Notes, vol. 2, The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1877), 62.

[12] The Westminster Confession of Faith 8.2.

[13] J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1993), 109.

[14] 1 Timothy 3:16 (KJV).

[15] 1 Timothy 3:16 (NIV 1984).

[16] See Matthew 18:3.

[17] See Luke 22:44.

[18] See Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34.

[19] Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42 (paraphrased).

[20] Hebrews 1:1–2 (paraphrased).

[21] Hebrews 2:18 (NIV 1984).

[22] Ralph Carmichael, “He’s Everything to Me” (1964). Lyrics lightly altered.

[23] See Philippians 2:10–11.