February 6, 2020
Although I wasn’t at youth group last night to witness all of the happenings, regardless, I know that it was a good night! I had just gotten back from a Pastors Conference last night at 6:30pm, and decided that it would probably be best to not push it and try to engage with the students in a sleepy stupor after traveling all day. Instead, our incredible youth staff led the evening.
Ollie O’Brien and Ryan Donovan led the respective high school and middle school groups into the scriptures as they explored the hypostatic union. Thats a big theological word that means that Christ is 100% Man, and 100% God at the same time. Having just finished the OT, the students focused on Matthew 1, and Luke 1, discussing how the biblical authors set their readers up to look for a ‘snake crushing man’ from Genesis 3 onward. We see this in God’s promise to Abraham, that he’ll have offspring and spread blessing to the earth, and we see it in David, that God will provide him a son to rule forever. Finally, we see it’s fulfillment in Jesus! Importantly, we know that Jesus IS the snake crusher because he’s born of a woman (he’s a man), and he’s also from the line of David, just as God promised. At the same time, if Jesus was just a man, He would not have been able to pay the price for the sins of the world. We learned through the prophets that mankind cannot defeat the serpent’s temptations alone. Therefore, Luke 1:29-35 tells us that Jesus is created by the working of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary!
The implications for the hypostatic union of Christ are astounding! It’s only because God humbled himself by becoming man, whilst still maintaining his position as the Son of God, that we can be saved through His perfect life, death, and resurrection from the grave. God’s plan is good, and all of His promises have found their YES in Him (2 Cor. 1:20).
Here’s some questions to further discuss with your students:
- Why does Matthew start with a genealogy? Is this important? What does it tell us about Christ? (He does this to trace the line of Jesus back to Abraham, and David – proving Jesus as the messiah/snake crusher)
- Why is it important the Jesus was 100% God, and 100% man? Is it important that we defend this as a fact when others try to tell us that Jesus is, in fact, not God?
- How would you defend the fact that Jesus is both God and man? What would you say to help others see that Jesus IS God as well as a man?