I wrote > Never mind, Judy, I found it. Your
statement is the opinion of a preacher named Dr. DeHaan of the
Radio Bible Class, but he doesn't give his sources either. It seems like he
should have told you (and by extension us) of the obscurity of
his definition for this word.
jt: ... If I were writing about
the subject today I would not even bother with all that and I'm not
even sure that I like the "Original Sin" subject line since so many equate
this with the RCC and Augustine or whoever it was who came up with the
term.
BT: That's fine with me Judy, preferable even.
I rarely use the term for the same reason; it just so happened that it is
the heading someone(?) chose to use for this thread, that's
all.
Do you find it ironic Bill that
we get into this controversy over whether or not Jesus was born with the old
Adamic sin and death taint on him (like us) on the one hand and then argue
over whether or not he was "Emmanuel" (God with us) - on the other which is
the same as saying that God (Emmanuel) has now taken on Satan's
nature along with the rest of fallen humanity?
BT: I will point out once again the
deficiency in your thinking via your question above. The person of "Jesus"
was not an amalgomization in the sense that his two natures came
together to form a new alloy, like copper and zinc do in forming brass. His
two nature did not fuse to become a different kind of new substance,
partly God and partly man, similar yet disimilar from what they both
would have been otherwise. This is what you propose above: that the divinity
of Jesus could somehow be tainted by his humanity ("that God (Emmanuel) has now taken on Satan's
nature along with the rest of fallen humanity"). But you only think this way because you are thinking of
Jesus in terms of an alloy. But your idea of Jesus is
nothing other than the syncretism Greek mythology with Christianity; it
is their idea of a demigod that you are upholding, Jesus being
"the offspring of a god and a mortal, who has some but not all of the powers
of a god" (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the
English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin
Company). The person of Jesus was not an alloy; he is a
union -- the union of two natures coming together in one person:
fully God, fully man.
This idea is not
difficult to grasp, if you will allow yourself to think of it in terms of a
Hebrew concept and not through your Greek grid. When Jesus prayed that we
would be one with him as he is one with his Father, he was not suggesting
that we would somehow become little gods, that we would be a new
divine substance similar to God. No, the "one" to which he speaks
can only be understood relationally, like a husband and a wife come together
to make one flesh. They do not become an alloy, a new kind of substance;
they become a union. That is what happened in the person of Christ between
his human nature and his divine nature; they formed a union, not an alloy.
Therefore God was in now way tainted by the fallenness of
humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Instead humanity was purified in
relationship with God in Christ's person throughout his life, the
tryants being defeating all along the way, and the humanity "becoming
perfected" in the process of learning obedience to God through the things he
suffered.
Think of the two
natures in the one person of Christ as a union and you will not ask
questions like the one above. Jesus is Emmanuel, NO PROBLEM. But think
of Jesus like the Greeks thought of demigods, and you will have major
problems with everything related to the person of our Lord. You'll have
problems with his humanity, and you will have problems with his divinity.
You will be saying things like "Jesus did not come here as God," on one day,
and he "took on part, but not all" of humanity, i.e., "the flesh but
not the blood" on the next. Repent of your Greek concepts, Judy, and think
like Jesus, a Jew. There is no excuse for continuing in ignorance and
unlearnedness once you have heard the truth.
All it takes is Heb 13:8 to shoot
that notion in the foot - think about it "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever."
Yesterday he was the second
member of the Godhead. God is a spirit (Jn 4:24). So what part
of Jesus the man was "Emmanuel" God with us?
More of your Greek mythology, Judy: Jesus was
not partly man and partly God, the flesh being one part and the spirit part
another. Jesus was human in the way that we are. Whether it be
trichotomouly, as you suggest, or integrated like the Hebrews thought, he
was fully human. In other words, He had a human spirit like all humans
have (take it away and he was not human), yet at the same time he was
fully God, yes, Spirit -- the two natures coming together
in union in the one person of Jesus Christ. He was not a
demigod. He was Emmanuel, God with us in the person of Jesus
Christ.
Bill
