Ok, I have read and re-read what you have said, and I have a brief response (and also a very lengthy one, but I will not post that at this point). Briefly, I surmise that mystery would be the response to many of your questions, and instead, I would read scripture with such questions in mind. For example, we have an example where a man asks Christ to save his son, and Christ sees the man has faith, and tells him his son is healed. Christ did not visit the sick child, and the father understood his son was healed after he returned home. My reading of this scripture is that Christ exercised divine âpowerâ (for want of a better term), while everyone could see he was human, but how did He do this? what mechanisms and physical law were invoked? etc., etc., - I cannot answer such questions.
Seeking a better understanding of scripture by asking questions is a good thing - but that does not remove the mystery - and to my mind, it may deepen our appreciation of the divine, albeit, without find testable phenomena that we may examine, analyze and subject to scientific enquiry.
Yes, we know little of what happens in the unseen world of faith. In these cases, mystery equals âwe do not knowâ. I respect the limits of what we can know and therefore, mystery. At the same time, I understand that some people are not satisfied with the answer âit is mysteryâ. Mystery often involves the hidden message âdo not even try to give a detailed answer to the questionâ.
What if the same healing case would have happened to one of us? I do not mean the role of the father, I mean what Jesus did? I do not see any reason why someone else could not have said the same words and the child would be healed, through faith and in the name of Jesus. The only difference would be that we would do it in the name of Jesus (Yeshua in that culture), with authority given by our resurrected Lord, and we would need some faith as a special gift given from above.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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What truth in the scripture?
So before He was the Jesus person, Jesus was the God the Son Person?
Sorry for my delay in getting back to you. Yes, after the resurrection Jesus was still a human with an incorruptible, glorified body. We know that he remained human because his body still had the wounds of crucifixion. The following incidents show this:
The first scene takes place after the resurrection, Jesus had appeared to all of the disciples except for ThomasâŚ
In John 20 we read:
24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, âWe have seen the Lord.â But he said to them, âUnless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.â
26 Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, âPeace be with you.â 27 Then he said to Thomas, âPut your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.â 28 Thomas answered him, âMy Lord and my God!â 29 Jesus said to him, âHave you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.â
The next scene is from Johnâs vision of the New Jerusalem in Rev 5
5 And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals; 2 and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, âWho is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?â 3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, 4 and I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 Then one of the elders said to me, âWeep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.â
6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth; 7 and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.
If anybody wants to learn more about the formation of orthodox Christian thought, I recommend The Christological Controversy by Richard A. Norris, who was the professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary.
This book is a collection of texts designed to illustrate the development of Christian thought about the person of Christ in the era of the church fathers. The earliest text translated comes from the latter half of the second century, when the ideas and problems which were to dominate christological thought in this period were first crystallized. The latest is the well-known âDefinition of the Faithâ of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451), which has generally been accepted as defining the limits of christological orthodoxy.
My advice to anyone here is to ignore all the things said about orthodox thought and such. Just read as many books on the matter as you want and make up your own mind. Make up your own orthodoxy. Christians are divided anyways. So many branches. Is not like if you create your own will hurt lol.
Iâve made peace with my theology. If I walk to any church and tell them this or that Iâll be considered a heretic by many. Even here to say the least.
And thereâs âthe rubâ, isnât it? [Or at least one of 'em.] Which takes me back to a suspicion that I expressed that you werenât comfortable with.
Re-posting a diagram that I posted elsewhere, to refresh memory of it,
I think Iâve seen a translation of that verse that goes something like this: âNo one has heard the One who sent me or seen Him, but He sent me and bears witness to me.â
I donât get this. We cannot know the essence of God, and with simplicity added to our discussion, I cannot see how you can come up with a diagram of any sort. To indulge, it is impossible to differentiate in any conceivable manner, and if we feel compelled, the only representation we could possibly discuss would be One (in essence and being), while the revelation provided in scripture is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
George is not a polytheist. He is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. English is not his first language. He has been on this forum a very long time.
Donât worry about the diagram. Itâs just saying, in essence, that God exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Also that the Father is not the Son, and the Spirit is not the Son, etc.
I enjoy many of your posts, and to clarrify, I was born and baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church, and grew up in Australia, so my primary language is English. I find @Terry_Sampson posts difficult to understand and I am leaving that discussion.
I agree that the church often defines and specifies things that should remain as uncertain.
And I tend to agree more with Nestorius than with his opponents, while noting that the descriptions of Nestorianism written by his opponents are frequently inaccurate.
Calling Mary the âMother of Godâ seems quite inaccurate and inappropriate to me.
If we can agree on the Apostlesâ Creed, we are doing good.
I am not strongly a fan of the old creeds, they are not part of the basement of my faith, but I do like the Apostlesâ Creed. The interpretations of the apostlesâ teachings in that creed seem to fit well to what we can read in the biblical scriptures.
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