The Inevitable "Nature of Christ" thread

RC_NewProtestants said:

Now what would be the purpose of God becoming human. If this is God then the purpose is to reveal God in a way that humans can see. It serves no purpose for God to become human and show that He can keep the laws of God perfectly, because He is God we expect He can follow His own rules, no surprise there.

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You raise an excellent point here RC. It has always thought the primary purpose of God condescending in Christ to take on human flesh and live as a man among men bes so that the face of God -- the countenance of His character and the eyes and vision what forms the window to His heart -- could be readily apprehended by human beings.

AndrewK788 said:

I'm not an expert on the traditional view of the nature of Christ, but I think I tend to agree with you. If Jesus was showing how we could live a perfect life, as if it were possible, why did he even come at all? The point was it is not possible. I think that his life wasn't to show us what we needed to try to become, but to show us that we were entirely incapable of it. Thus to be saved we must rely fully on Christ, because a human can never be perfect.

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Ohhhh this bes wonderful! Exactly so!! How can anyone believe that the "imputed" righteousness of Christ -- the very atonement for which He laid down His precious life itself and suffered pain and mistreatment and ignominy -- bes only for "sins past" when EVERY sin ANY of us ever committed whats alive today bes STILL FUTURE when He died? Or how can they believe that forgiveness bes a one-time-only deal when we need mercy and grace EVERY day to sustain us because not a single one of us fails daily to make some mistake somewhere or even willfully do our own thing at the expense of someone else. The ONLY thing human beings NEVER fail to do? SIN! We need that mercy and forgiveness EVERY day, not just once at the beginning of our faith journey but EVERY day for our shortcomings and little secret pockets of disregard and sneaky little graspings. Why do we think He taught us we must forgive and forgive and forgive again, no matter how many times someone offends us? He bes teachsy us what we bes up against for the REST of our lives!! The need for forgiveness, compassion, forbearance, choosing to treat one another not as we deserve but in mercy, sweet sweet mercy and benefit of the doubt and always offering a fresh new second chance, will NEVER EVER go away and NEVER EVER lose its power because it bes born of the BLOOD that shall never lose its power.

Indeed whilst at college many years back and under the terrible tainted, corrupting spell of perfectionism, Moriah had an experience one afternoon with some friends in which its eyes bes opened by God and it bes seesy clearly that the knitting together of fellowship AFTER and OUT OF disagreement and conflict THROUGH humility, repentance and forgiveness, bes a thousand times sweeter and truer and deeper than if no unpleasantness had ever arisen at all!! And herein for certain lies a great mystery but it bes the Mystery of our Loving God, one which He flings open the door fully and invites us into the bridal chamber to learn.

Concerning the human part of the nature of Christ, Moriah believes He took the exact same flesh that we have, inheriting the same "fallen" DNA we all share, from Mary, His mother. The seed of the Holy Ghost, however, bes pure divinity and contained the blueprint of His heavenly being and character or personality. It bes said in Christ dwelt ALL the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The Godhead fulness from the Holy Ghost and the "bodily" from Mary, a human woman.

Thus He bes made in every way like unto us and subjected to the same struggles and temptations we all face, yet He bes without sin because His bes the inborn divinity from the Holy Ghost. Now, in replicating Himself, the fire of the Holy Spirit falls upon us as we bes born again or born from above into the Kingdom when we receive personally His gift of salvation and then we receive also the indwelling Spirit. The Spirit BIRTHS LITERALLY in us the same kind of configuration and this bes the Mystery alluded to in Romans 7 and 8, that our sense of self and identity becomes separated from the body of our birth as we bes born again from above by the Holy Spirit. Now our minds which before could not agree with the law of God that it bes good, agrees and wrestles with this flesh that bes determined to sin because the law of sin & death bes alive in it. We bes delivered from bondage to our mortal bodies by Christ and through our faith in Him and Him alone -- HIS mercy, HIS sacrifice, HIS forgiveness, HIS triumph over sin, death and the grave -- we believe He has the power to keep us in Him alive and through Him reconciled to the Father.

A lot of ppls make what Moriah perceives to be an unnecessary fuss over the notion of human volition and so-called "free will". Unnecessary because no such thing actually exists. Without Christ we bes in bondage, period, no hope of reprieve or release, and no free agency whatsoever because we bes enslaved to the sin nature. WITH Christ we can taste something else but only BECAUSE of Him. In a very real sense, Christ bes the ONLY "free will" human beings will ever have.

AndrewK788 said:

My point was this: Humans do have a choice to do whatever they want to in their lives and they are indeed in control of their own thoughts and actions.

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Again, Moriah would have to disagree. It perceives Scripture to paint a very different picture of the human condition, one in which volition has become the most seductive delusion of all, representational of a black box whose contents bes so diverse and complicated that they cannot be adequately numbered nor described, so humans resort to naming the box itself and leaving the matter closed. All illusions of "choice" arise from a selection process containing multiple parameters of impulse, inclination, perception, sum total of experience currently available to recall and subjectively perceived as relevant to the present situation, etc. We have no way of knowing whether the ultimate outcome of any given selection process truly occurs independent of these factors or entirely as a product of them, though all available research as well as theories about emergent patterns, etc. would seem to indicate the latter. At the very least, any agency of supposed human "volition" would, itself, by definition, be fallen in nature and therefore subject to the law of sin and death at work in our members. We simply cannot rise above and out of ourselves, cannot step outside our own person or nature, cannot of ourselves transcend ourselves by ourselves; we required One to come down into the miasma where we dwell AS one of us to lift us out of it, and that lifting out only transpires IN HIM and THROUGH HIM. WITHOUT Him it does not exist at all, and so without Him any concept of human volition separate from subjugation to the Virus we call SIN would be a delusion.

However, when someone is deliberately pushing God aside, there is no such thing as being neutral. You're either for God or you are not for God. If you are not for God, who are you for? As far as I know, there are only 2 opposing forces in this universe.

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You bes almost there, but instead of the only alternative being "the devil" directly as a personal being, the Scriptures (as Moriah understands them) portrays a picture of the alternative being man's own confusion and subjugation to an inborn "Virus" called sin which taints and twists and adulterates -- sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly -- everything he thinks, feels, says, does, perceives, reacts or responds to, and experiences in his (or her) life. In certain rare cases this may take the form of direct subjugation to the forces of darkness in a "praeternatural" fashion, but (a) this bes NOT the "ultimate end" of all human beings without God so much as succumbing to the "virus" and ultimately death would be; and (b) being afflicted in this specific fashion does not necessarily indicate that one has lived a more corrupt or wicked life than others, any more than being born blind would (see John 9:1-3).

But when we turn away from God the only other alternative is the devil, whether we admit it or not.

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Not the devil directly and personally, per se, but the virus we call sin which lives in our flesh, yes. Sorry if it seems Moriah picks a nit here but it has seen vast swathes of spiritual and psychological damage done by poor theology conflating the two. The devil bes an actual personal being -- the FirstFallen of Creation -- the first in whom the Virus arose. The Virus itself (sin) bes just that -- without personality, thoughts or feelings, just a random self-replicating bit of bad spiritual code that corrupts various "applications" or programs, along with the "operating system" and ultimately the entire "hard drive" and "boot sector" in a human being.

There is no such thing as spiritual neutral ground in this world where someone can go and neither be under the influence of the Spirit nor the Devil.

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Did you know that Scripture says there bes nowhere we can go where God's Spirit bes not?
[bible]Psalm 139:7-8[/bible]
For obvious reasons, Moriah -- what cannot control its thoughts, feelings, or actions, and under subjugation or symbiosis just might appear to willingly lay down and open itself to Satan -- finds great comfort in these verses.

Hey guys, can we please stay on topic here or at least close to it? Thanks.

AndrewK788 said:

Sorry, Moriah. I guess we were straying from it a little.

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No worries -- and pertinent side-discussions bes fine -- just didn't want it going too far off course, bes all.

StormyOne said:

I think Jesus was more than human given that he was God.... that his nature enabled him to complete his reason for living among men... and I don't have a problem with that....

There are those who believe we are all the same, humans that is.... we are, and we are not.... I am not Michael Jordan, will never be able to play basketball like he did, no matter how much I dress like him... I am not Mike.... Is he human? Yes.... but Mike's abilities transcend mine... now imagine my frustration attempting all my life to be a ball player like Mike.... get the analogy?

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Good analogy.
Human beings bes all equal in the sense that we all bleed when we get cut, literally, figuratively and metaphorically, and we all share in common a need for nurture -- not just in terms of food but in terms of emotional support, encouragement, enlightenment, learning, etc. -- and connection with others. No one of us can claim his or her needs to be more important than anyone else's.

But we bes not all "equivalent" as you have pointed out -- we do not all possess a talent for basketball, or singing, or architectural engineering. We do not all have good people skills, or pleasing personalities, or great oratory, or charm, or good looks, or wealth, or good health. We do not all have high paying jobs or professions yet when push comes to shove the guy hauling off your garbage or mopping the floor in your office can be seen as just as much necessary to the well being of our society as the guy operating on your tonsils or protecting your legal rights before a judge.