Christ's Nature

What does that mean. Does it mean the part where He said go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. (an example for us to follow)?

 

Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.

So this prophesy could be fulfilled.

 

Whoa, is that some metaphysics of the ineffable God coming from HP? So do you ground ethics in necessarily existing abstract propositions that God must choose from in order to ground your morality and still give God libertarian free will? I'm amazed that in this thread the truth finally comes out when I was begging for it earlier.

 

My suspicions of you were correct all along; you indeed operate with quite a detailed metaphysic concerning God but perhaps never thought about it enough.

Well, that's fine your view entails that God's essence is amoral and that He could have chosen to be evil and acted accordingly creating an evil world. The only things that necessarily exist are the abstract propositions that ground the laws of logic and ethics, God's existence is contingent. Frankly, good and evil have nothing to do with God and exist independent of Him in your view. Thankfully, God happened to choose to be good in this world, but there are many possible worlds where He could have chosen to be evil in your view. Furthermore, the divine nature of Christ gets to make a "double choice" so to speak. He must choose (along with the rest of the Trinity) to be good before creating the world, but gets to choose again to be good after the Incarnation in order to be truly tempted as you claim. Why He gets to choose again is beyond me, and it undermines your notion that God doesn't change and is always the same, but then again your whole view of ethics undermines that so I guess it's not a problem for you.

No thanks on adopting your view of love and morality, I'll stick with God being essentially good and His actions always reflecting this.

BJ

(I'm still around, but very busy with other endeavors).

 

I believe He changes not also.

We have our souls and a spirit and so did he. When we sin our souls and spirit lend our members to do so. Though He had a body of flesh likenen unto us, He was from Heaven and His soul did not die, nor His Spirit which was from Heaven and of the Holy Ghost. His body was like ours for the suffering of death. He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. God cannot sin and His fleshly body He took was for the suffering of death only. He was tempted of the devil but that was as if I held a new car in front of you to get you to do something. Unless it tempted me within then it had no bearing on me whatsoever. Many men are tempted every day of their lives. Look at all the credit card "come ons", I suppose it eventually gets to some, but in the Lord's case it did not get to Him.

Seems to me that you are reading this as if the Lord inside of Himself was "tempted" to take those things but that is not what the scripture is saying. It is saying the devil tempted Him with those things.

Romans, chapter 6
"18": Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

"19": I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

"20": For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

 

If Christ did not have the ability to Sin then he was not 100% man and did not have freewill.

 

God cannot lie and He said if you have seen me you have seen the Father. He also said I came not to destroy the Law but fullfil the thing written in the Books of Moses and Pslamns concerning me. Now, if He could of just went off any way then He would have to lie. Even at twelve He said I must be up and about my Father's business. The flesh (body) was what was for the suffering of death.

I think I see you and HP's point but it goes beyond the man in this case and It was already set in motion what Jesus was going to do and not do and He changes not. Jesus could not go against the Father for He was the Father and would of had to go against himself. The suffering He had to bear was the body of flesh.

 

Amen

This is Circa all over again.

Chalcedonian Creed


Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

 

Nor can God die.

 

You have to put this in perpsective, for God to be evil he would have to be a transgression against himself. God did create this world, this world is evil. This earth is the lords and the fullness there of, all they that dwell within. How did evil get into the creation of an all knowing God?

Choice is what separates good people from evil people. If good was the only possibility then all would be good. Instead, good are people who had a choice or chance to be evil yet choose good over evil. I don't see how this would undermine the notion of God doesn't change. Can you expound on that?

That which is born of flesh is flesh and flesh is evil. Jesus was God in the flesh so had the ability to do everything flesh is capable of doing yet did not sin.

 

Yes, I believe we must keep in mind 100% God and 100% man. God can't lie but man does all the time. Jesus the flesh could have lied yet he lied not.

 

BTW..this is called the hypostatic union. Not sure if this is one word or 2 words.

But its meaning is...100% man...100% God..fully in both natures...yet one in person

 

That is the whole point. There was more to this man than just the flesh.

 

what happen on the cross? With no death their is no atonement.

Christ die....YES REALLY

 

...and if Christ couldn't have sinned, temptation would have been an oxymoron.

 

He took upon Himself a "body of flesh" for the suffering of death and He indeed did die but not His soul or Spirit.

If He was only 100% man then He could of sinned, but He also was 100% God and could not separate the God part from the humanity part and therefore could not sin.

 

LeBuick can maybe help us out on this....for it has been a while for me.

But..there were 3 major views. the error came as you have stated..how can one be 100% of both? If you are 100%..this leaves no room for anything else. So..it was said by some that Christ was man in the flesh..and God in the Spirit. This is rather long...but it short this does not work. The Assyrian Church held this view.

another view was...the two natures were like water and oil...in one glass...together as one...but natures are 2...never mixxing. again..wrong.

Cyril wrote the hypostatic union view...100% of both natures.

This debate lasted close to 100 years

 

i agree 100%. thus He was 100% man. and this is why the hypostatic union won out. The other views could not over come this, without damage to God. He was not part man and part God. All man...and all God.