Friday, October 24, 2003
WORLD November 1, 2003: Knick-knack of civil religion: "So let me make it clear: I have no sympathy whatsoever with those who are challenging the existing wording in the Pledge of Allegiance. They are obnoxious and wrong.
At the same time, I question the time and energy some Christians are spending trying to hang on to such knick-knacks of civil religion. I call them knick-knacks because they have so little to do with the central task of maintaining the household of biblical Christian faith."
When the word "god" is stripped of meaning--that is, the concept is emptied of attributes that the Bible assigns to God: self-existence, immutability, eternity, unity in trinity, personhood, goodness, love, etc., then those who use the word are guilty of taking His Name in vain, in violate of the Third Commandment. That's why so many who think they are worshipping are blaspheming.
At the same time, I question the time and energy some Christians are spending trying to hang on to such knick-knacks of civil religion. I call them knick-knacks because they have so little to do with the central task of maintaining the household of biblical Christian faith."
When the word "god" is stripped of meaning--that is, the concept is emptied of attributes that the Bible assigns to God: self-existence, immutability, eternity, unity in trinity, personhood, goodness, love, etc., then those who use the word are guilty of taking His Name in vain, in violate of the Third Commandment. That's why so many who think they are worshipping are blaspheming.
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Monday, October 20, 2003
What ex-Bishop Spong doesn't realize is that those who pronounce the death sentence on God are really announcing a death sentence upon themselves. God's existence does not depend upon the intelligence or knowledge of those who condescend to believe in Him. A new Christianity? It's been tried before with the same results. Because salvation is by predestination, God will always have those who worship Him. Hasta la Vista to the rest, no matter how numerous.
A New Christianity For A New World: "The traditional idea of God as a Being, supernatural in power, dwelling somewhere above the sky, keeping record books and periodically invading this tiny planet earth in miraculous ways to affect the divine will become inoperative in our space age. God's location has been destroyed and God's invasive nature has been cast into serious doubt. No wonder religious leaders have to reaffirm the old ideas. They are dying and the power of these religious leaders is at stake. No traditional theistic God means no hierarchy set up to interpret God and to proclaim God's will."
A New Christianity For A New World: "The traditional idea of God as a Being, supernatural in power, dwelling somewhere above the sky, keeping record books and periodically invading this tiny planet earth in miraculous ways to affect the divine will become inoperative in our space age. God's location has been destroyed and God's invasive nature has been cast into serious doubt. No wonder religious leaders have to reaffirm the old ideas. They are dying and the power of these religious leaders is at stake. No traditional theistic God means no hierarchy set up to interpret God and to proclaim God's will."
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This is a question that was sent to me, that I answered recently. I thought some of you might benefit.
OK, on to another question ..... When Christ took our sins upon Him on the Cross was He separated from God? Isn't that what hell is? Did only His human nature "feel" separated and it really wasn't or is it much deeper than that? So is it correct to say that his human nature suffered? What about His divine nature then? Did it ever suffer? Maybe these are mysteries that we won't know here, but we've been having this discussion in Sunday School about the 2 natures of Christ. I remember reading about the Council of Chalcedon and that they determined the 2 natures of Christ without any separation or blurring. So what about those few times Christ says He doesn't have knowledge of something i.e. when He said He didn't know the end of the age but only His Father did. Does that mean that His divine nature hadn't made that known to His human nature?
The relationship between the two natures of Christ and His single Person is a mystery as deep as the mystery of the Trinity. But let me try.
The eternal Son of God is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. By "Person" we mean that which is unique to the Son. It include self-consciousness and the relationship of sonship. He is conscious that He is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit. These things are incommunicable, which means that the Son is the only One who is self-conscious that He is the natural Son of God from eternity.
As God, the Son partakes of the very nature [the "whatness"] of God. There are not three Gods, but one. Some of the attributes of God are incommunicable and cannot be transferred to another, such as self-existence, immutability, eternity, and unity. Others are communicable and are given in measure to those created in the image of God: existence, knowledge, will, thought, love, joy, peace, etc. These things are a great mystery and have occupied the minds of the greatest thinkers and Bible students in the history of the church. The fruit of their labor you will find in the great creeds like the Belgic, Heidelberg, Westminster, etc.
So in the Trinity we do not divide the Nature or confuse or deny the Persons.
Another great mystery occurred at the Incarnation, which means "in the flesh." The Second Person of the Holy Trinity consciously became man. This was not a transformation of God into man, for that could not be; neither could it be that man could become God. What happened is that, in the body of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God [the Person--see above] was united to human nature by the Holy Ghost, so that Mary was truly His mother, but her conception was miraculous. By human nature, we mean a whole human being, body and soul, with memory, learning, knowledge, etc. This human nature was so wonderfully united to the Son of God that it became truly His nature, without, however, being mingled, mixed, or confused with His divine nature [see above for nature]. His human nature could not have been mingled with His divine nature without putting man in the Godhead, which cannot be.
The result was not a hybrid of some sort of monstrous man-god mixture. He was truly and fully human. He was born of Mary, brought up in the carpenter's shop, grew in wisdom and stature, suffered hunger and thirst, suffered temptation, prayed and was strengthened by angels and by the word of God, was only in one place at a time, suffered weariness and mental distress, suffered the death of the cross, lay in the grave until the third day, rose from the dead, and is now in the same heaven that you and I will be some day by the grace of God, but He will return to judge the world in the last day.
He did all this without in any way changing one bit in His divine nature. He remained the Creator, was in all places and times, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, eternal, and One with the Father. He was fully conscious at all times that He was the Son of God, the Creator of all things. Philippians says that he "emptied himself," that is, he laid aside the manifestation and privileges of the Godhead, without in any way ceasing to be God.
So Jesus Christ in His Incarnation is one Person, fully conscious in His single consciousness that He is both human and divine.
This brings us to an important doctrine: hypostatic union. "Hypostatic" means "Person" The union of the two natures of Christ was in His Person, in that they both were His natures. Just as you and I have two natures, a body and a soul, but there are not two centers of self-consciousness, so in Christ he had both a human and a divine nature, but only one self-consciousness. He also possessed in his human nature both a real human body and a real human soul. But He is one Person, the same Person who was with the Father from eternity.
So this brings us to still another doctrine: economic appropriation. This means that, because Jesus is one Person, the Son of God, what is human can be attributed to Him, and what is divine can be attributed to Him. Is He the Creator? Yes, because He is the Son of God. Was He born of the Virgin Mary? Yes, because He is the man. Did He die on the cross? Yes, because He is man.
But there is more: Sometimes one attribute of one nature may be attributed to the other nature, because they are both possessions of the Son of God. Hence, we are saved by the "blood of God." [Acts 16]. It is true that God does not have blood, but Jesus had blood, and Jesus is the Son of God. The early church called Mary the mother of God. It is true that God does not have a mother, but Jesus had a mother, and Jesus is God. Sometimes that which is properly belongs to God is applied to the man, as when He said that He could come to judge the world.
We do not attribute this to the human and that to the divine, for Jesus did it all. We do recognize that when Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and didn't know something, or hungered, or was weary, or dies, and rises again, and comes again, He is doing this with regard to His human nature, but He is doing it, the same "He" that created the heavens and the earth, albeit, the Creation was done in the divine nature. So there is not a human Jesus and a divine Jesus, but one Jesus who is both human and divine. God cannot be transformed into man and man cannot be transformed into God, but the Son of God could become man by uniting to Himself at conception a true human nature formed from the body of the Virgin. "Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh...."
So on the cross, He suffered. He was abandoned of God. He suffered a most cruel death. He really died, and was buried and during that time His soul was in Paradise with the thief. Of course this was in His humanity, but it really happened to Him. So in that sense, yes, He was separated from God, He suffered Hell on the cross, he "felt" the separation and the triumph of the cross [Ps. 22}. His human nature suffered, but this was Him, although with respect to His divine nature there was never any alienation from God.
One other note: We know there are three Persons in the Godhead, because the Father speaks to the Son, and the Son speaks to the Father; they both send forth the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Spirit speaks of both the Father and the Son. We also know that there is only one Person in the Son, because the divine nature never speaks to the human nature, and there is never a hint of two self-consciousnesses, one human and one divine.
There are two wills in Christ [Settled at the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople III], refuting the heresy of the monothelites, who believe that there was only one will in Christ, for He prayed, "Not my will, but Thine be done." There are two knowledges, for as the Wisdom of God, He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, but He grew is wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
Therefore God really did bear our sins; He really did suffer temptation like we do; He really knows what it means to be hungry and tired and discouraged. He knows what it means to need to pray and trust in God. He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
It would not be correct to say His human nature suffered or His divine nature did this or that. It would be correct to say that He suffered in His human nature and that He created the world in His divine nature. We separate the natures, but we do not divide the Person.
These doctrines will unlock a lot of the Scripture to you.
But I do go on and on. God bless you. I hope this helps.
OK, on to another question ..... When Christ took our sins upon Him on the Cross was He separated from God? Isn't that what hell is? Did only His human nature "feel" separated and it really wasn't or is it much deeper than that? So is it correct to say that his human nature suffered? What about His divine nature then? Did it ever suffer? Maybe these are mysteries that we won't know here, but we've been having this discussion in Sunday School about the 2 natures of Christ. I remember reading about the Council of Chalcedon and that they determined the 2 natures of Christ without any separation or blurring. So what about those few times Christ says He doesn't have knowledge of something i.e. when He said He didn't know the end of the age but only His Father did. Does that mean that His divine nature hadn't made that known to His human nature?
The relationship between the two natures of Christ and His single Person is a mystery as deep as the mystery of the Trinity. But let me try.
The eternal Son of God is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. By "Person" we mean that which is unique to the Son. It include self-consciousness and the relationship of sonship. He is conscious that He is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit. These things are incommunicable, which means that the Son is the only One who is self-conscious that He is the natural Son of God from eternity.
As God, the Son partakes of the very nature [the "whatness"] of God. There are not three Gods, but one. Some of the attributes of God are incommunicable and cannot be transferred to another, such as self-existence, immutability, eternity, and unity. Others are communicable and are given in measure to those created in the image of God: existence, knowledge, will, thought, love, joy, peace, etc. These things are a great mystery and have occupied the minds of the greatest thinkers and Bible students in the history of the church. The fruit of their labor you will find in the great creeds like the Belgic, Heidelberg, Westminster, etc.
So in the Trinity we do not divide the Nature or confuse or deny the Persons.
Another great mystery occurred at the Incarnation, which means "in the flesh." The Second Person of the Holy Trinity consciously became man. This was not a transformation of God into man, for that could not be; neither could it be that man could become God. What happened is that, in the body of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God [the Person--see above] was united to human nature by the Holy Ghost, so that Mary was truly His mother, but her conception was miraculous. By human nature, we mean a whole human being, body and soul, with memory, learning, knowledge, etc. This human nature was so wonderfully united to the Son of God that it became truly His nature, without, however, being mingled, mixed, or confused with His divine nature [see above for nature]. His human nature could not have been mingled with His divine nature without putting man in the Godhead, which cannot be.
The result was not a hybrid of some sort of monstrous man-god mixture. He was truly and fully human. He was born of Mary, brought up in the carpenter's shop, grew in wisdom and stature, suffered hunger and thirst, suffered temptation, prayed and was strengthened by angels and by the word of God, was only in one place at a time, suffered weariness and mental distress, suffered the death of the cross, lay in the grave until the third day, rose from the dead, and is now in the same heaven that you and I will be some day by the grace of God, but He will return to judge the world in the last day.
He did all this without in any way changing one bit in His divine nature. He remained the Creator, was in all places and times, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, eternal, and One with the Father. He was fully conscious at all times that He was the Son of God, the Creator of all things. Philippians says that he "emptied himself," that is, he laid aside the manifestation and privileges of the Godhead, without in any way ceasing to be God.
So Jesus Christ in His Incarnation is one Person, fully conscious in His single consciousness that He is both human and divine.
This brings us to an important doctrine: hypostatic union. "Hypostatic" means "Person" The union of the two natures of Christ was in His Person, in that they both were His natures. Just as you and I have two natures, a body and a soul, but there are not two centers of self-consciousness, so in Christ he had both a human and a divine nature, but only one self-consciousness. He also possessed in his human nature both a real human body and a real human soul. But He is one Person, the same Person who was with the Father from eternity.
So this brings us to still another doctrine: economic appropriation. This means that, because Jesus is one Person, the Son of God, what is human can be attributed to Him, and what is divine can be attributed to Him. Is He the Creator? Yes, because He is the Son of God. Was He born of the Virgin Mary? Yes, because He is the man. Did He die on the cross? Yes, because He is man.
But there is more: Sometimes one attribute of one nature may be attributed to the other nature, because they are both possessions of the Son of God. Hence, we are saved by the "blood of God." [Acts 16]. It is true that God does not have blood, but Jesus had blood, and Jesus is the Son of God. The early church called Mary the mother of God. It is true that God does not have a mother, but Jesus had a mother, and Jesus is God. Sometimes that which is properly belongs to God is applied to the man, as when He said that He could come to judge the world.
We do not attribute this to the human and that to the divine, for Jesus did it all. We do recognize that when Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and didn't know something, or hungered, or was weary, or dies, and rises again, and comes again, He is doing this with regard to His human nature, but He is doing it, the same "He" that created the heavens and the earth, albeit, the Creation was done in the divine nature. So there is not a human Jesus and a divine Jesus, but one Jesus who is both human and divine. God cannot be transformed into man and man cannot be transformed into God, but the Son of God could become man by uniting to Himself at conception a true human nature formed from the body of the Virgin. "Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh...."
So on the cross, He suffered. He was abandoned of God. He suffered a most cruel death. He really died, and was buried and during that time His soul was in Paradise with the thief. Of course this was in His humanity, but it really happened to Him. So in that sense, yes, He was separated from God, He suffered Hell on the cross, he "felt" the separation and the triumph of the cross [Ps. 22}. His human nature suffered, but this was Him, although with respect to His divine nature there was never any alienation from God.
One other note: We know there are three Persons in the Godhead, because the Father speaks to the Son, and the Son speaks to the Father; they both send forth the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Spirit speaks of both the Father and the Son. We also know that there is only one Person in the Son, because the divine nature never speaks to the human nature, and there is never a hint of two self-consciousnesses, one human and one divine.
There are two wills in Christ [Settled at the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople III], refuting the heresy of the monothelites, who believe that there was only one will in Christ, for He prayed, "Not my will, but Thine be done." There are two knowledges, for as the Wisdom of God, He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, but He grew is wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
Therefore God really did bear our sins; He really did suffer temptation like we do; He really knows what it means to be hungry and tired and discouraged. He knows what it means to need to pray and trust in God. He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
It would not be correct to say His human nature suffered or His divine nature did this or that. It would be correct to say that He suffered in His human nature and that He created the world in His divine nature. We separate the natures, but we do not divide the Person.
These doctrines will unlock a lot of the Scripture to you.
But I do go on and on. God bless you. I hope this helps.
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