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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Christ our God?
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Magersfontein Lugg
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# 18240
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Posted
I'd like to share some thoughts about Jesus and Christ and would love to know how others feel.
When I think of John 1.1 and Christ the Word existing in the beginning, and when I think of the second person of the Holy Trinity, I then find 'Jesus' talk limiting, and unhelpful. It seems some christians focus so much on the Jesus of history, and seem to ignore Christ the second person of the Godhead.
But then we talk of attributes of the Holy Spirit in all time, but what of Christ. How is the pre-existent Christ represented in art, where do we see Christ's action before Jesus?
I guess I wonder whether I have seen God as - Creator, Holy Spirit and then in the man Jesus. But thats not quite the Holy Trinity!
Yours,
Puzzled!
Lugg
Posts: 104 | From: Bottle Street | Registered: Oct 2014
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Magersfontein Lugg: It seems some christians focus so much on the Jesus of history, and seem to ignore Christ the second person of the Godhead.
To be honest, I don't assign these kinds of meanings to the names 'Jesus' and 'Christ'. Jesus is both man and God, and Christ is both man and God. The only distinction is that one is a name and the other one is a title, but in practice I use them pretty much as synonyms.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I'm not sure I'm aware of people talking about the attributes of God the Holy Spirit, 'all the time' ...
Even in charismatic circles, people rarely discuss his attributes in my experience. They may talk a lot about spiritual gifts, about particular experiences but very rarely will you hear people talk about the Holy Spirit as a Person - unless they're wanting to particularly emphasise his Personhood rather than - as is sadly often the case - treating God the Holy Spirit as some kind of impersonal 'faith force' who exists primarily to 'zap people' and give them some kind of boost ...
On the whole, I think most Christians, of whatever stripe, are pretty fuzzy on the whole thing. That includes evangelicals, liberals and everyone else.
I've even heard evangelicals - who ought, of all people, to know better - saying things like, 'Well, Jesus is sort of like God ... he's the Son of God ...' rather than saying that the Second Person of the Trinity is Very God of Very God, begotten not made ...
On the other hand, I think it's pretty much the norm in liberal circles to talk about Jesus the Man rather than as the Incarnate Word - the God-Man Christ Jesus ...
But event there the mileage varies. I'm not sure there's any stock answer to this one.
It's a bug-bear of mine but on the whole I'd say that most people in the pews or the plastic seats are pretty hazy about the whole thing.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
It's those that aren't I worry about.
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Love wins
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
Strikes me that it's probably more helpful to speak of God the Son - rather than "the Christ" - when speaking of the second person of the Trinity in terms of his "pre-existence".
[ 04. November 2014, 21:20: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Jesus must have been a liberal as He ALWAYS talked of Himself as the Son of Man.
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Love wins
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Magersfontein Lugg: It seems some christians focus so much on the Jesus of history, and seem to ignore Christ the second person of the Godhead.
To be honest, I don't assign these kinds of meanings to the names 'Jesus' and 'Christ'. Jesus is both man and God, and Christ is both man and God. The only distinction is that one is a name and the other one is a title, but in practice I use them pretty much as synonyms.
Agreed. The title Christ, which is simply the Greek form of "messiah" or "annointed one," has no meaning apart from the Jesus of history. It was Jesus who was born of Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, raised and ascended who is the long-awaited messiah, the Christ. Without Jesus there is still the second person of the Trinity, the Word/Logos of God, but there is no Christ.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Jesus must have been a liberal as He ALWAYS talked of Himself as the Son of Man.
If you read Daniel 7 you might interpret Jesus' chosen self-reference somewhat differently.
[ 04. November 2014, 21:51: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magersfontein Lugg:
But then we talk of attributes of the Holy Spirit in all time, but what of Christ. How is the pre-existent Christ represented in art, where do we see Christ's action before Jesus?
Liturgy teaches. When you say "Christ Our God" what immediately leaps to mind is this bit from the Dismissal at Matins, sung at a positively breathless race to the finish, at least at one of my local Orthodox cathedrals: quote:
Priest: Wisdom!
Choir: Master, bless.
Priest: Christ our God, the Existing One, is blessed always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.
Choir: Amen. Preserve, O God, the Holy Orthodox Faith and Orthodox Christians, unto ages of ages.
Priest: Most Holy Theotokos, save us!
Choir: More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim: without defilement you gave birth to God the Word. True Theotokos, we magnify you.
Against Nick Tamen and daronmedway, this teaches there is no real daylight between Christ and the Great I AM.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Agreed you can't go splitting Jesus the Christ into two separate pieces. To do so is to fall into any one of a dozen ancient heresies (someone else can name them, I'm having a brain fart today).
He is who he is. He is the same person pre-existently, during his earthly lifetime, and today--and forever, too. The fact that he took on human nature at a specific point in history does not change him as a person. He is one whole being. And to assign the name "Jesus" to some lesser slice of him only is IMHO an insult to the second Person of the Trinity, as on some level it denies the full Incarnation and maybe even throws doubt on God's good sense in choosing it.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It is interesting to me that in the OT, God (Yahweh) was rather down to earth and human like in many situations. In the NT, and in modern Christianity, Jesus is the one whom the personal relationship is with. God the father having retreated and seeming more remote than in the OT.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magersfontein Lugg:
But then we talk of attributes of the Holy Spirit in all time, but what of Christ. How is the pre-existent Christ represented in art, where do we see Christ's action before Jesus?
As has been pointed out above Christ is probably not the right word but the notion of the per-incarnate Jesus - the eternal Son of God is a central plank of orthodox Christian theology.
quote:
Psalm 110 [NIV]:
The LORD says to my lord:[a] “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”
And that's before we even touch on Melchizedek or the nature of Abraham's three visitors or that in John 1 it says "all things were made through him"
So there's plenty of biblical places to start looking to consider this question. And I think that the hymn/song writers have thought about this question too...
From Heaven you came, helpless babe...
You laid aside your majesty...
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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The Silent Acolyte
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# 1158
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Posted
I'm not sure I agree with you no prophet. God certainly isn't beyond dickering with Abraham and Moses and sits down to eat with the elders in the desert. He exhibits the tender care of a bird for her chicks. On the other hand there are awesome theophanies almost too numerous to list, whereby the unapproachable god touches his creation with terrifying results. I'm thinking about the mountain theophany coincident with the meal with Moses and the elders, those in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah, not to mention the more primitive storm-god encounters in the Psalms.
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
One thing I have never understood is the idea that the Jesus of history (being the 'human' bit) and the 'Christ of faith' (being the 'cosmic' bit) were somehow separable.
To use the word 'Christ' when referring to the 'non-human' part of him is, IMHO, to ignore and spoil the Jewish notion of Messiah.
But that's par for the course for some theologians who would prefer to rid the church of any Jewish identity anyway.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Nicodemia
WYSIWYG
# 4756
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Posted
I have no problem with Jesus as Son of God, Word of God, second person of the Trinity, etc.
But a long-ago pastor always used to proclaim from the pulpit that "There is a man in heaven waiting for you", as in the Assumption of Jesus was as a human man, and he remains incarnate.
This has always bothered me somewhat. Can't he remain as 100% God, Word of God, Son of God, etc. etc.?
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
I have no problem with Jesus as Son of God, Word of God, second person of the Trinity, etc.
But a long-ago pastor always used to proclaim from the pulpit that "There is a man in heaven waiting for you", as in the Assumption of Jesus was as a human man, and he remains incarnate.
This has always bothered me somewhat. Can't he remain as 100% God, Word of God, Son of God, etc. etc.?
He is also a man.
quote:
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 2 v 5
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Ad Orientem
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# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Magersfontein Lugg: It seems some christians focus so much on the Jesus of history, and seem to ignore Christ the second person of the Godhead.
To be honest, I don't assign these kinds of meanings to the names 'Jesus' and 'Christ'. Jesus is both man and God, and Christ is both man and God. The only distinction is that one is a name and the other one is a title, but in practice I use them pretty much as synonyms.
Agreed. The title Christ, which is simply the Greek form of "messiah" or "annointed one," has no meaning apart from the Jesus of history. It was Jesus who was born of Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, raised and ascended who is the long-awaited messiah, the Christ. Without Jesus there is still the second person of the Trinity, the Word/Logos of God, but there is no Christ.
As has already been said, you can't separate the two. Also I would ask, when Christ ascended into heaven did he stop being Jesus Christ? Or is he still creator and ruler of heaven and earth, Christ Pantokrator?
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
As has already been said, you can't separate the two. Also I would ask, when Christ ascended into heaven did he stop being Jesus Christ? Or is he still creator and ruler of heaven and earth, Christ Pantokrator?
The snag is, if your theology is of the "Jesus is my boyfriend" school, it's difficult to imagine having the Pantokrator as your boyfriend. He frowns too much and tends to dwell in unapproachable light. Much easier to cuddle up on the sofa with the hippy Jesus of history.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
As has already been said, you can't separate the two. Also I would ask, when Christ ascended into heaven did he stop being Jesus Christ? Or is he still creator and ruler of heaven and earth, Christ Pantokrator?
The snag is, if your theology is of the "Jesus is my boyfriend" school, it's difficult to imagine having the Pantokrator as your boyfriend. He frowns too much and tends to dwell in unapproachable light. Much easier to cuddle up on the sofa with the hippy Jesus of history.
We can see Jesus as both - it's not one or the other
as this hymn reveals
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Yeah, but the trick is to do both at once. As the pithy St Simeon the New Theologian puts it: quote:
As a friend talking with afriend, we speak to God, and drawing near in confidence we stand before the face of the One who dwells in light unapproachable
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I don't know why Mudfrog is bringing in the apparent neglect of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith into play again ... because the way he's expressed things here regarding the divinity and humanity of Christ - 100% fully God, 100% fully man - is completely Chalcedonian and pukka orthodox (and Orthodox) theology whether we are RC, Orthodox or Protestant - or within the latter whether we are Wesleyan, Reformed or whatever else.
I've come across some Orthodox (and some Lutherans) who believe that Calvinism can go awry in its Christology and end up Nestorian - but that's another issue and one that makes my brain ache.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Because of the supposed difference in some circles between the Jesus of history and 'the Christ of faith'.
Why can it not be the 'Jesus of faith'?
I've seen the word Christ used as if there was something very philophical and theological about 'him' in distinction to the living person called Jesus of Nazareth.
I remember being in a discussion in a biblical studies seminar where the tutor said something like "Jesus would not have said, "XYZ"' and I replied something like, 'But what about Luke 24 - the road to Emmaus?'
His reply was, 'Yes but that was the risen Christ as if it was a different being!
To my mind the word Christ is a lot more rooted in the humanity of Jesus and the ministry of the Kingdom here on earth than the pre-existent and glorified second person of the trinity. The word Christ/messiah must retain its Jewish hopes and expectations and not be merely a 'cosmic' figure of faith that is 'different' somehow to Jesus.
[ 05. November 2014, 11:09: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Magersfontein Lugg:
... How is the pre-existent Christ represented in art, where do we see Christ's action before Jesus?
I guess I wonder whether I have seen God as - Creator, Holy Spirit and then in the man Jesus. But thats not quite the Holy Trinity! ...
No, it isn't. That is conflating the Father and the Spirit and would be ditheism. It's possible that this was the area of theology that Arius was trying to simplify.
I think the starting point has to be that God is bigger than we are. That there are aspects of his trinitarian nature that are difficult to understand is a consequence of our limitations. It is not a legitimate accusation to raise against God that he is not easier for us to understand. The more amazing thing is that he condescends to reach out to us at all and tries to reveal himself to us. True, we can't exchange theological discourse with dolphins and they weren't invited to Nicea. But as far as we know, he does not try to share himself in that way with any other parts of his creation.
My understanding is that it is only because Jesus was incarnate that it is accepted that he can be represented in art. Had cameras been around in the first century, he could have been photographed. With few exceptions, it has generally been regarded as improper to try and represent the Father visually. Symbolically in the west, the Holy Spirit is often represented by a dove, derived from the baptism narratives, but I'm not sure whether Orthodox rules for iconography allow that. He is also sometimes represented as flames hovering over the heads of the disciples at Pentecost.
The pre-existent Son, not being incarnate, cannot be represented. I suppose, following 1 Cor 10:4 one could represent the pre-existent Son symbolically by using a rock, but I'm not aware that this has generally been done.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Has there been a tradition of pictorially representing the Angel of the Lord. who is often seen as being the pre-incarnate Jesus?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
I'm going to suggest that people may implicitly mean different things when they refer to Jesus, Christ, and God the Son/the eternal Logos/Second Person of the Trinity. Further ISTM that the confusion involves category errors, to wit: when some people speak of Jesus, they mean a biological man born into history; when some people speak of Christ, they mean - at the most orthodox - the God-Man of the hypostatic union of Eternal Logos with human organism who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary (but in other cases they may simply be conflating a humanised Jesus with a title (Christ); and the trickiest or most ambiguous part is what they mean by the Second Person of the Trinity/God the Son/Eternal Word in relation to Jesus. Is there perhaps a tendency to forget/ignore that the hypostatic union is permanent, with the glorified humanity of Christ Jesus being incorporated once and for all into the Godhead, so that God the Son and the incarnate Christ are in fact absolutely the same?
Part of the confusion is, I think, that many (most?) people who call themselves Christians are not really or fully trinitarians, and if they are part of a tradition that uses the ecumenical creeds, don't really understand what the terms of these mean.
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Sorry to double post, but missed the edit window. To clarify, when I suggest that category errors may often be involved, I mean both the creation of separate categories that in this case do not exist in orthodox Trinitarian-Chalcedonian theology, as well as the idiosyncratic conflation of various conceptual categories, or the ignoring of some Christological concepts altogether. ISTM that there are great differences in popular understandings and what orthodox Trinitarianism and Christology actually teach.
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
the idea that the Jesus of history (being the 'human' bit) and the 'Christ of faith' (being the 'cosmic' bit) were somehow separable.
They are really not different, except in terms of human perception and knowing.
The historical Jesus is nothing less and nothing more than that person we can know through the apparatus of historical science. Using secular techniques of paleographic, archeologic, sociologic, economic, etc., analysis, what can be said?
The Christ of faith? We'll that requires different kinds of knowing—can I say Science, without being misunderstood?
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
I'm not sure I agree with you no prophet. God certainly isn't beyond dickering with Abraham and Moses and sits down to eat with the elders in the desert. He exhibits the tender care of a bird for her chicks. On the other hand there are awesome theophanies almost too numerous to list, whereby the unapproachable god touches his creation with terrifying results. I'm thinking about the mountain theophany coincident with the meal with Moses and the elders, those in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah, not to mention the more primitive storm-god encounters in the Psalms.
I know we are at pains to see continuity between God of OT and NT, but not sure it seems quite the same. But perhaps I am conflating the 'personal relationship' with Jesus we hear much of presently versus the OT/NT characterisation.
I think we often construct God and Jesus in our own way, to fit personal,cultural and national biases. Which we often don't examine much. I hear of praying to Jesus, as if hived off and separate.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
…the 'personal relationship' with Jesus we hear much of presently…
and quote:
…praying to Jesus, as if hived off and separate…
I think you have the problem precisely nailed down.
You'll read others on these board scathingly mock the Jesus is My Boyfriend, Yay! piety for good reason.
There are certainly rich veins of Jesus is Lover, a eroto-spiritual (desiring) strain of piety. But, these are properly situated in a universal Church that insistently, publicly, repeatedly (even annoyingly) prays in the name of the Trinity.
It seems one can't worship with the Orthodox for 30 seconds without being hit with yet another invocation of the Trinity.
I hope it's not to tedious to quote the following. It's the run up to the recitation of Psalm 51. It's longer than the psalm itself. quote:
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee!
O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life - come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Holy God! Holy Mighty! Holy Immortal! Have mercy on us. (3x)
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
O most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. O Lord, cleanse us from our sins. O Master, pardon our transgressions. O Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities, for Thy name’s sake.
Lord, have mercy. (3x)
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Lord, have mercy. (12x)
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Come! Let us worship God, our King!
Come! Let us worship and fall down before Christ, our King and our God!
Come! Let us worship and fall down before Christ Himself, our King and our God!
There is no Jesus! My BFF! here and the Trinity is invoked and implied…what…seven, eight, nine times.
Western liturgy get at things in a slightly different way—while still invoking the Trinity, just not as often—by being very particular about identifying which person of the Trinity is addressed, and they all get addressed.
With some churches, it seems to be Jesus, Jesus, Jesus all day long.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
I think you have the problem precisely nailed down. ....
Silent Acolyte, I agree with what you're saying in your post, but if you don't mind me saying, that strikes me as a very odd phrase to use.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Against Nick Tamen and daronmedway, this teaches there is no real daylight between Christ and the Great I AM.
Actually, I would agree with what you've said here.
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
As has already been said, you can't separate the two. Also I would ask, when Christ ascended into heaven did he stop being Jesus Christ? Or is he still creator and ruler of heaven and earth, Christ Pantokrator?
I fear I wasn't clear. I agree that the two cannot be separated, which is what I understood the OP to be attempting to do, with Jesus=human and Christ=divine. My point was not to agree that the two are separate, but to say that the Jesus=human/Christ=divine dichotomy doesn't work because the title "Christ" has meaning only as applied to God Incarnate. It is God Incarnate who is the messiah, the annointed one of God; it was God's coming as Emmanuel that warrants the title "Christ."
But I agree completely that, as TSA puts it, there is no daylight between Christ and the Great I AM. John the Evangalist, it seems to me, goes to great lengths to emphasize that point.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
.....
With some churches, it seems to be Jesus, Jesus, Jesus all day long.
Your post was helpful. I am reminded of a sermon I heard in the early 1980s. The priest talked of "persona", as in the actor in Greek tragedy/comedy being the same person but swapping masks as he/she said different lines and acted differently in character. I found myself understanding the metaphor of trinity better. But I also understood that we may call it trinity, and God god, but these are also our metaphors, which may be helpful, but also limited. Like divine puns or something. Like "I love you enough kill you".
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
My point was not to agree that the two are separate, but to say that the Jesus=human/Christ=divine dichotomy doesn't work because the title "Christ" has meaning only as applied to God Incarnate.
Quoting myself because reading this, I think I still wasn't clear. I think it's closer to what I'm getting at to say that the title "Christ" is not somehow the word for the divine nature of God because the title finds its meaning in the context of the Incarnation.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
n p etc, that's modalism. Easy to understand. And wrong.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Holy Smoke
Shipmate
# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I'm going to suggest that people may implicitly mean different things when they refer to Jesus, Christ, and God the Son/the eternal Logos/Second Person of the Trinity. Further ISTM that the confusion involves category errors, to wit: when some people speak of Jesus, they mean a biological man born into history; when some people speak of Christ, they mean - at the most orthodox - the God-Man of the hypostatic union of Eternal Logos with human organism who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary (but in other cases they may simply be conflating a humanised Jesus with a title (Christ); and the trickiest or most ambiguous part is what they mean by the Second Person of the Trinity/God the Son/Eternal Word in relation to Jesus. Is there perhaps a tendency to forget/ignore that the hypostatic union is permanent, with the glorified humanity of Christ Jesus being incorporated once and for all into the Godhead, so that God the Son and the incarnate Christ are in fact absolutely the same?
So where do you get that from? My understanding was that Jesus (the incarnate Son) ascended into heaven, where he sitteth at God's right hand, etc. If he was absolutely the same as God the Son (i.e. God), then he wouldn't be sitting next to him, surely, neither would he come again (in person, presumably) to judge the quick and the dead.
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2009
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
My understanding was that Jesus (the incarnate Son) ascended into heaven, where he sitteth at God's right hand, etc. If he was absolutely the same as God the Son (i.e. God), then he wouldn't be sitting next to him, surely, neither would he come again (in person, presumably) to judge the quick and the dead.
The creeds say he sittith on the right hand of the Father, not the right hand of God.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Mudfrog: We can see Jesus as both - it's not one or the other
as this hymn reveals
There's a disappointing lack of Jesus on a sofa in this song.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Interesting OP!
The classical name for the Son as God is of course "Logos", which is often translated as "Word". However, that falls short of what the Greek term would have implied in NT times (see Wikipedia, for example). Logos was used as a more technical term and would have meant "word" in a broad sense implying things like: reasoning, argument, principle, concept, understanding, idea, discourse, account.
That neatly folds into the association of the Son with the Intellect (and hence "Logos") and the Holy Spirit with the Will (and hence "Love") of God. IIRC this interpretation was already advanced by St Augustine (and possibly other Church Fathers before and after), but it certainly fitted St Thomas Aquinas' concepts about the human mind very well. For Aquinas was an "intellectualist" (as compared to Ockham et al.'s "voluntarism"), i.e., for him the intellect was first in discernment, followed by the will which desires what the intellect has determined as good (note: "intellect" here used in a very general sense, not just cool ratiocination). So this matches perfectly the order of the processions in God (first the Logos and then the Love). It also matches perfectly with the idea that the essence of a human being is to be a "rational animal". Then it makes sense that the "Intellect of God" incarnates as such a "rational animal". It also matches with the idea that we are created "in the image and the likeness of God" precisely by virtue of our rational capacity. Whereas the Logos is as the Son the perfect Image of God, a kind of ideal and infinite reflection as pure Knowing, we are like an imperfect and finite reflection as embodied knowing. And once more it makes sense that the perfect Image incarnates as the imperfect image.
There's plenty along these lines to be found in the old texts. I think this stuff is very nice, indeed, inspiring. However, it may also explain why it is not "depicted" or even sung about so much. For it appears easier to turn into art motions of the will (desire, love, ...) than of the intellect. The most concrete "Intellectual action" just was the Incarnation, and so that gets all the attention. My point is that asking why we don't do the Logos more in our "cultural performances" is perhaps a bit like asking why we don't do mathematics and philosophy more in our "cultural performances". And that we focus on the Incarnation is a bit like saying that the most important part of science is the engineering that comes from it, which is indeed a common attitude. Finally, if one was to take this intellectual angle serious, then perhaps the best way to celebrate the Logos would be to study theology.
Of course, for many moderns the very idea that Jesus Christ may have been God's Intellect incarnate might strike them as absurd, given the incessant focus on Jesus as the ultimate love machine in much of contemporary preaching. Yet the idea is of course that the will follows the intellect, that the Holy Spirit follows the Logos, and I think it is a fair characterisation of His mission to say that Jesus was teaching love. And teaching involves understanding, an opening of the eyes and the ears, first.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
God the Son is not absolutely the same as, congruent with, God.
[ 05. November 2014, 21:27: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Mudfrog, yes, I've come across the tendency you're referring to -- although perhaps not in as formal a theological context as the one's you're describing ie. I've not studied these things academically but take an 'amateur' interest as it were ...
So, yes, I can certainly relate to the points you're raising here.
The fact is, regarding the dichotomy that some set up between the 'Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith', we know more about the latter than the former ... in fact, in some ways we only have the 'Christ of faith' to go on as that's who the Church has represented to us through scripture and tradition (or God through the Church, scripture and tradition if that sounds too Church-centric for some people ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ) ...
Of course, those of us who are conservative theologically would argue that the 'Jesus of history' and the 'Christ of faith' are one and the same.
It's been well said of 19th century liberal German theologians that in attempting to reconstruct a 'Jesus of history' separate from a 'Christ of faith', they ended up looking down the well and saw their own reflections looking back up at them ... they'd effectively created a Christ in their own image.
Meanwhile, on the 'congruence' thing that Martin60 raises - who is apparently less 'PC hazardous' these days - I'm not sure what you're saying there Martin.
Are you saying that God the Son isn't God?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
It's very late and I'm tired but if I had more energy I might like to explore an issue that's cropped up for me elsewhere - and that is the issue of Christology and Calvinism.
Apparently, some Calvinists in the US have changed the words of that wonderful Wesley hymn, 'And can it be ...' so that it says, 'That Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me.'
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
They've done this on the grounds that it might be confusing to say that God died.
Which raises a few issues about the hypostatic union - did the Incarnate Son of God die in his humanity or his divinity?
Of course, with the Chalcedonian concept of the hypostatic union the Person is one ... two natures in one ... so it is entirely correct of Wesley to have written, 'That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me.'
It's these well-meaning but misguided US Calvinists who are introducing some confusion here.
It's similar to their squeamishness over the term Mother of God in relation to Jesus. What, are you saying that Jesus is not God then?
And so it goes on ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Or as Graham Kendrick would have it:
quote:
Meekness and majesty, manhood and Deity,
In perfect harmony, the Man who is God.
Lord of eternity, dwells in humanity,
Kneels in humility and washes our feet.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
God the Son is not absolutely the same as, congruent with, God.
Not sure what you are trying to say. The three Persons of the Trinity are co-eternal and consubstantial. The Deity as we understand it in orthodox Christian theology is Three Persons of a single "substance", and in the Athanasian formula none is afore or after the other; each is God, yet there are not three Gods but one God.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I'm going to suggest that people may implicitly mean different things when they refer to Jesus, Christ, and God the Son/the eternal Logos/Second Person of the Trinity. Further ISTM that the confusion involves category errors, to wit: when some people speak of Jesus, they mean a biological man born into history; when some people speak of Christ, they mean - at the most orthodox - the God-Man of the hypostatic union of Eternal Logos with human organism who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary (but in other cases they may simply be conflating a humanised Jesus with a title (Christ); and the trickiest or most ambiguous part is what they mean by the Second Person of the Trinity/God the Son/Eternal Word in relation to Jesus. Is there perhaps a tendency to forget/ignore that the hypostatic union is permanent, with the glorified humanity of Christ Jesus being incorporated once and for all into the Godhead, so that God the Son and the incarnate Christ are in fact absolutely the same?
So where do you get that from? My understanding was that Jesus (the incarnate Son) ascended into heaven, where he sitteth at God's right hand, etc. If he was absolutely the same as God the Son (i.e. God), then he wouldn't be sitting next to him, surely, neither would he come again (in person, presumably) to judge the quick and the dead.
See my response above. Further, per Quicunque Vult, the Incarnation involves the taking of the manhood into God, rather than the transformation of divinity into man. God takes humanity into Himself; at the Ascension, the hypostatically unified Christ - God the Son united with the human nature - takes this humanity back into the internal being of the Triune Godhead.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Against Nick Tamen and daronmedway, this teaches there is no real daylight between Christ and the Great I AM.
Not sure I follow you TSA. I haven't suggested an ontological distinction between God the Son and Jesus the Christ, I've suggested that theological discussion of the Trinity is best couched in terms of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit rather than God, Christ, and Holy Spirit.
For example, talk of "God and Jesus", as if Jesus is somehow a complementary or even optional addition to God's essence does violence to the doctrine of Trinity, as you so rightly point out. And it's a violence that has a genuine impact in the pew because it prevents people from worshipping and glorifying God in his essential nature as three persons eternally united in love.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, I can see what you are getting at, daronmedway and wince whenever I hear some evangelicals talk of 'God and Jesus' as if somehow God the Son is subordinate in some ontological sense to God the Father.
I'd also suggest that many evangelical charismatics are also weak on the Godhead of God the Holy Spirit.
It's a sorry state of affairs all round.
Meanwhile, without aiming to take sides on this one, as a Reformed flavoured Christian, Daron, are you aware of some of the accusations that Calvinist Christology is flawed?
This is something I've only come across recently, in terms of Orthodox objections to certain passages in R S Sproul's writings - but I'm told that the Lutherans take similar issue.
I could unpack that some more if necessary but whilst I've heard all manner of objections to Calvinism - as I'm sure you have too - this is the first time I've heard it challenged on a Christological or Trinitarian basis.
I'd always assumed that the Reformed were on the same page as all other Trinitarian Christians on that aspect ... It might well be that they are but certain people are trying to make out that they aren't for reasons best known to themselves - but it has set me wondering aloud ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
God the Son is not absolutely the same as, congruent with, God.
Not sure what you are trying to say. The three Persons of the Trinity are co-eternal and consubstantial. The Deity as we understand it in orthodox Christian theology is Three Persons of a single "substance", and in the Athanasian formula none is afore or after the other; each is God, yet there are not three Gods but one God.
However, God the Son is not identical to God inasmuch as there are true statements that can be made of one but not of the other. For example, 'is eternally begotten of the Father' or 'is in three Persons'.
(Cf incredibly arcane arguments about the lack of an article in John 1:1.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
God the Son is not absolutely the same as, congruent with, God.
Not sure what you are trying to say. The three Persons of the Trinity are co-eternal and consubstantial. The Deity as we understand it in orthodox Christian theology is Three Persons of a single "substance", and in the Athanasian formula none is afore or after the other; each is God, yet there are not three Gods but one God.
However, God the Son is not identical to God inasmuch as there are true statements that can be made of one but not of the other. For example, 'is eternally begotten of the Father' or 'is in three Persons'.
(Cf incredibly arcane arguments about the lack of an article in John 1:1.)
More to the point, God the Son is not identical to God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, as each Person is distinct, but indeed each is God and all together are one Triune God. Really, when one starts chopping up the Trinity, the concept degrades into a form of tritheism. The three "Persons" are interpenetrating and of one "Substance"/"Essence". Of course, talking about God in this way reveals how metaphorical our language has to be. Yet, perhaps that's little different to the metaphorical model of the structure of the atom and macro-atomic particles upon which nuclear fission was first achieved.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, I can see what you are getting at, daronmedway and wince whenever I hear some evangelicals talk of 'God and Jesus' as if somehow God the Son is subordinate in some ontological sense to God the Father.
I'm not sure exactly how you're using "ontological" here, but God the Son is in fact begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. There is a hierarchy of sorts. The Father is the source, in some sense or other, whether through begetting or proceeding, of both the Son and the Spirit.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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