Did God "Change" With the Incarnation?

Of course it's not that easy. The broader issue here is the nature of ontological change...which has completely different implications than a basic definition. My position, and the position of orthodox theology since Niceae, has been that Christ did not change in His ontological divine being/essence at the point of the incarnation.

To suggest so smacks of Eutychianism or Apollinarianism or Nestorianism. Jesus did not change in His divine being/essence but fused together, hypostatic union, with the humanity in a perfect, unchanged union.

On patristic writer who has nailed this is Athansius in his work On the Incarnation which is available for free over at CCEL.org.

 

Mr Sock, God did not change.

http://carm.org/questions/about-god/gods-nature-changed-jesus-being-divine-and-human

 

Which part are you questioning? Are you questioning that Jesus didn't have a sinful nature? Or are you questioning the humanity of Jesus?

 

God's Word: "I don't change."
DaChaser: "Permanent change."

Hmm. Whom to believe?

 

One thing that Church history has demonstrated is that the springing up of various errors always - eventually! - led to a very healthy adjustment. Authors, being goaded on the point of contention by opposers, discover or rediscover biblical truths. my impression of Athanasius's OtI was that it was mainly a correction against Arianism. But it has been a while since I have read hat particular work, so I could easily have missed something.

If you have particular passages of Ath. in mind, please let me know. Just the citation. I have the book with me.

At any rate -and this wouldn't come as a surprise, seeing I am a Preterist - a reference to the Nicene Council would be nowhere nearly as definitive as Scriptural warrant.

I would be especially indebted if you could show me the latter, specifically showing either the fact or the necessity for Christ not, in eternity future (from the Incarnation), to be exactly the same essence that He was in eternity past.

I believe that He is, in fact, the very same that He was before the very first events of the Bible.

 

Once again, we need to find Scriptural proofs of this Hypostatic Union 2.0. I call it that because the doctrine of HU is here invoked, I believe, for a markedly different purpose than the original one. At first it was meant to nail down the nature of the Incarnation of Christ. But here, in this thread, the issue is not Christ's nature in the Incarnation, but His nature after the ascension and on into eternity.

 

the nature of man is sinful. Jesus was not sinful in nature. humanity?..... in flesh, yes, in nature? Absolutely not.

Jesus was human in flesh, not nature.

John

 

No. Jesus had a human nature just as Adam had a human nature before he fell. Jesus is the second Adam. If he didn't have a human nature, He would not be human. He was both 100% human and 100% God. The 1st Adam messed it up. The 2nd Adam cleaned it up.

 

You misusing nature. If Jesus didn't have a human nature, he wasn't human. The nature of man today is sinful, but Jesus was not. You sound as if you are denying the humanity of Jesus. Jesus was fully human, yet without sin.

 

:thumbs::thumbs:

 

KJV

What phrase is used more than any to describe God?

Come on. Two or three or four , five play the game.