Actually, it seems more orthodox than the way many see Jesus as omnipotent and omniscient in his human walk on earth.
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Wow, KlaxâŚHow can it be âinexorable loving supernatural competenceâ if we were left as âcompletely innocent cosmic orphansâ? And how can âinexorable loving supernatural competenceâ not have the âright to judge us.â? WellâŚthatâs a question for you to answer, I suppose. BUT the question at the beginning of this post was âDid Jesus Walk on Waterâ â and I did say that the gospels were biographies (as they did biographies in that era). Given their goal â that is, to present Jesus as Messiah and God [Whom the people of that era were expecting], then it makes no sense to invent a water-walking episode â especially one that includes the detail about the future head of the nascent Christian church bumbling his way into history the way he did. A Rock âindeedâŚsink or swim.
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We are also all one in Christ.
Galatians 3:28
New American Standard Bible
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
It also says when a man and a woman come together they are one.
Itâs about having a singular will. A great hope that we all rest on. Itâs not about actually being one.
When Jesus said he and the father are one⌠thatâs no different from all Christians are one body or that we have Christ in us or spouses becoming one and etc.
Aye, that circle can only be squared in the transcendent. Why would competence judge the incompetent that it paradoxically created? What for? Only a truly, transcendentally incapable God would lick His wounds with judging His failure by projecting it on those He failed. And from the beginning I defended Jesus walking on the water. And what has your saying that the gospels are biographies got to do with anything? Sounds grandiose to me. We have no way of knowing what they were. Who wrote them. And even if Jesus were God incarnate, that doesnât stop His desperate followers making stuff up. But if He were God incarnate, Iâd give them all the benefit of the doubt. If Heâs not, I still do; they all acted out of good will from His mother on. The gospels are an afterthought of the already thriving church of Peter and Paul.
I do not think that was his implication at that place and time, but you are certainly free to.
ETA: He was saying that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, not that the corporate âweâ are One with God in the same sense he is. I wonât be capitalizing âsonâ of God with respect to myself any time soon, even though you and I are one in Christ with respect to what you were talking about.
I said they are biographies because that is the style in which they were written. Not my judgment, itâs well known. But biographies that are designed, first, to recount the life of the featured person. In this case, it was One Who claimed to be God Incarnateâ and whose followers wanted to let others know. If He were God, they would want to describe reasons that demonstrate that. The gospels may have been an afterthoughtâŚbut meant to maintain the information that was already being presented â and they were evidently preceded by the M, Q, L [etc] documents â plus Paulâs descriptions of the resurrection in letters and so forth. Itâs my understanding that people who were literate took notes as their rabbis spoke in those daysâŚand also people memorized things and did better at it than you and I do (because we do not have to â just google it or check the smartphone). The issues of literacy and memory are large subjects on their own. But OKâŚglad you believe He walked on waterâŚ
Which would carry water if not for the Old Covenant
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Jesus had a dual nature - fully human and fully divine based on the Greek verb meaning âto emptyâ (Phil. 2:7). âHe made Himself of no reputation.â - to represent us as our human hight priest.
Jesus emptied Himself of the voluntary exercise of some of His divine attributes, though not the essence of His deity. He did not stop being omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, or immutable; He chose not to exercise the full limit of those attributes during His earthly life and ministry. Although John 17:5 also shows that Jesusâ glory as Godâs eternal Son was veiled during His incarnation (Ex. 33:18, 20; 1 Tim. 6:16).
Jesus emptied Himself of His eternal riches and temporarily divested Himself of His divine glory. He emptied Himself temporarily of His unique, intimate, and face-to-face relationship with His heavenly Fatherâeven to the point of being forsaken by Him.
He became exactly like all other human beings, having all the attributes of humanity, a genuine man among men and as such without sin was dependent upon the Holy Spirit to perform miracles and healings as signs and wonders.
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They can only be biographies if Jesus was a real person. And memory is treacherous as the disharmony of the Gospels shows. They werenât any better at it than we were. Having 12 witnesses would have helped. And hindered. What did they take notes on? Copious notes by John for chapters 14-17. My three sigmas is that He was a real person. As were the Gospel writers. I give it all the greatest possible goodwill, more than it deserves as ancient text. My hopeless desire is for Him to be God incarnate. Hence walking on the rheopectic water is not a problem.
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My pastor made a helpful comment that the real contrary to nature stuff occurs mostly around the Exodus and Jesus.
Ironically from a philosophical point of view, miracles for God are easier to understand than the way he providentially answers prayer.
How does a person you were worried for, arrive home, after immeasurable moments wrestling with God, the exact moment you surrender your trust to God?
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Interesting perspective, Klax. In one sentence you say âIF Jesus was a real personâ and then you say that your âsigmaâ asserts that âHe was a real person.â Will the real perspective of Klax please stand up? What do you mean âwhat did they take notes on?â What WOULD you take notes on if a person you admired greatly were speaking? And that is only for the ones who might have been doing the note-taking. Itâs not a hopeless desire. When Jesus said, âBefore Abraham was, I amâ â people in those days got the point. Itâs what got Him crucified. Blasphemy was the charge, at least from the religious types in the neighborhood.
Thatâs it. Whatâs unreal about that. And itâs sigmas. Three.
Depending on how wealthy I was, papyrus, parchment or even a stack of wax tablets. Or get my man to do it. In Aramaic shorthand. You? And what about the ones who might not?
For me itâs a virtually hopeless desire now. Feels like four sigmas. If Iâd have been there, Iâd have got the point. For good or ill depending on my enculturation, disposition. I get the point of the claim now, but the ontic reality of the claim, its interpretation even if He were God incarnate, is another thing.
The dove settled on Him. Prior to that He couldnât do or even ask anything even with divine nature. After that the Holy Ghost levelled up to His expectations. When He stepped on to the sea, it was custard.
Iâm sympathetic to the adoptionism found in GMark which has no infancy narrative (virgin birth) or pre-existence like in GJohn. I think a lot of early Christians believed this but I am not dogmatic about it as the church has deemed it heresy for a very long time and we do find the idea of Jesus lowering himself outside the Gospels long before they were even written in the earliest stratum we have (Paul wrote Philippians 2:7). The Gospels and NT show developing beliefs about Jesus. That means they are not all consistent with one another. To focus on one aspect of that may be correct or it may simply miss the big picture. The church largely came to see Jesus as God incarnate and part of a triune God-head. Not as a mere good man adopted by God. A man adopted by God is not a deity humbly lowering himself. This view strips all divine condescension and solidarity from the incarnation.
Vinnie
Adoptionism is the theology of the moonies (aka Unifications church, aka Family Federation for World Peace). It is the natural position for a religion to take when they intend to declare a new religious leader of their own to be the messiah for modern times. For that reason it is also rather understandable why the Christian church would not look favorably on such a theology.
I would quite agree that considerable support for this position can be found in the Bible. In many ways, it looks to be Godâs standard operating procedure â choosing various historical persons for a messianic role in human history.
On the other hand, Adoptionism is a dangerous theology for obvious reasons. And this is one of the reasons I have opted for the Christian way of thinking â the belief in God become man. But there are so many more reasons⌠the idea of a God with less limitations and a God willing to do so much more for usâŚ
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From the Gospel Coalition:
Many modern theologians seek to understand the mystery of the incarnation by dividing Christ, by isolating one of his natures and asking how a particular action is possible. Not only do Christological problems result; it leads to grave Trinitarian ones as well. For to suggest Jesusâs miracles arenât touched by his divine nature is to divide the works of the Trinity, to parcel out discrete acts among the Father, Son, and Spirit. Classical Trinitarian theology, however, joins Godâs essential unity (Deut. 6:4) with the co-inherence of the persons (John 14:11) and holds that every work of the Trinity is undivided. When God acts, each person acts. Itâs not wrong to say that the Spirit is acting in Jesusâs miracles; he is. It is wrong to say that the second person of the Trinity isnât.
Would you agree with this?
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Yes, I agree on all counts. My main understanding of the atoning work of Christ is through âsolidarityâ (not ransom theory, penal substitution, satisfaction or anything else like that). Without an actual incarnation, a self-stripping and lowering, the essential backbone of my faith doesnât exist anymore.
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Well, if we get that figured out and and come up with a Unified Theory of the Trinity, we could apply for the Nobel prize in theology if it existed.
I agree we cannot separate God into discrete portions, but apparently Jesus did empty himself those attributes and so became flesh. Had he not, it is difficult to understand how he could serve as our model, example, and high priest.
Aye it does. But God the Son is superfluous A back formation.