Hebrews: An imperfect Christ?

Post by **_Paidion** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:34 pm

So does one learn to sin or is it something we choose to do? Its probably a little bit of both but we must be inclined or bent in the direction to start with I think.

Maybe so. But did Jesus not inherit the fallen, human nature from His mother Mary? Or did He start with a "clean slate" like the "first Adam"?

Post by **_Allyn** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:43 pm

Well it is appointed once unto man to die, so if He did inherit the sin of Adam, then Christ also, being the son of man, may well have had to die because the flesh dies. I have never discussed this type of scenerio before so I am just wording my thoughts.

Post by **_Paidion** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:58 pm

The concept of "inheriting the sin of Adam" is foreign to me. But inheriting Adam's nature is something we all share. Would Jesus be included? Was He truly a human being who pre-existed from the beginning of time as the Son of God? Or was He a "God-man" ---- half God and half Human, so that He could not have sinned, due to His being God.

Post by **_Allyn** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:15 pm

I am speaking of the original sin when I speak of Adam's sin and how that has been passed down from generation to generation and proven out in that we all die. Our flesh will see corruption. Jesus's body did not see corruption so maybe that goes to prove that He did not have the curse that came with Adam's sin. I am undecided as you can tell.

I do believe absolutely though that Jesus was fully man and fully God - not 1/2 & 1/2.

Post by **_Paidion** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:38 am

I am speaking of the original sin when I speak of Adam's sin and how that has been passed down from generation to generation and proven out in that we all die. Our flesh will see corruption. Jesus's body did not see corruption so maybe that goes to prove that He did not have the curse that came with Adam's sin. I am undecided as you can tell.

I was wondering what you would think those who are alive at the time of Christ's return, and who will "not sleep" but will be "changed in the twinkling of an eye" so as to have incorruptible bodies. They, like Elijah and others did in the past, will not experience fleshly corruption.

I do believe absolutely though that Jesus was fully man and fully God - not 1/2 & 1/2.

I am familiar with that view, but don't hold to it. I also don't understand it. How can anything be 100% A as well as 100% B. That adds up to 200%.
For example, could an animal be fully canine and fully feline?

My understanding is that Jesus was fully man, while retaining the identity of the pre-incarnate Son of God.

Post by **_Allyn** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 1:49 pm

Quote:
I am speaking of the original sin when I speak of Adam's sin and how that has been passed down from generation to generation and proven out in that we all die. Our flesh will see corruption. Jesus's body did not see corruption so maybe that goes to prove that He did not have the curse that came with Adam's sin. I am undecided as you can tell.

Paidion
I was wondering what you would think those who are alive at the time of Christ's return, and who will "not sleep" but will be "changed in the twinkling of an eye" so as to have incorruptible bodies. They, like Elijah and others did in the past, will not experience fleshly corruption.

I don't know that I have an opinion on that. We know that there have been a couple of exceptions in history and you named them but we don't have information as to what form they have now. We do know that Jesus' body was not in the grave after His resurrection and it certainly wasn't there long enough to decay or at least not to the point that Lazuras' body had begun to. So I will just leave the legistics to the Lord.

Quote:
I do believe absolutely though that Jesus was fully man and fully God - not 1/2 & 1/2.

Paidion
I am familiar with that view, but don't hold to it. I also don't understand it. How can anything be 100% A as well as 100% B. That adds up to 200%.
For example, could an animal be fully canine and fully feline?

My understanding is that Jesus was fully man, while retaining the identity of the pre-incarnate Son of God.

Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

He was not 1/2 Mighty God while here on earth. He also was not just speaking to His better half when He prayed to the Father. The Father was not 1/2 there but fully there in heaven. It is a mystery and requires faith to accept. If God is Omni-present as I believe He is then I must believe that He can be fully man and fully God at the same time.

Post by **_Paidion** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:57 pm

"And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Obviously Jesus was not and is not "the Everlasting Father".
Jesus prayed to the Father in this way (John 17:3):

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

The Father is "the only true God". Yet Jesus is "God" in the sense that He is "Deity" just as the Father is Deity. You and I are both members of humanity. The Father and the Son are both members of Deity. This is the sense in which He is "mighty God" or "mighty Deity". I am just as human as you. The Son is just as divine as the Father. He is a different "God" from the Father only in the sense that He is a different divine Individual. He is another Individual exactly like His Father. "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Here's where the analogy breaks down. No two human beings are exaclty alike.

So what about Him being called "Everlasting Father." Some manuscripts of the Septuagint translation from the Hebrew to Greek several hundred years before Christ do not have " the everlasting Father" but "the father of the age to come". That makes sense to me. Jesus will be the father of the next age, the kingdom age in which He will rule and reign.

He was not 1/2 Mighty God while here on earth. He also was not just speaking to His better half when He prayed to the Father.

If He were "fully God", then was He speaking to Himself alone?

The Father was not 1/2 there but fully there in heaven. It is a mystery and requires faith to accept.

I can accept a mystery, that is, I can accept something I do not understand. But I can't accept a contradiction. Trying to believe a contradiction by faith and calling it "a mystery" doesn't make any sense to me.

If God is Omni-present as I believe He is then I must believe that He can be fully man and fully God at the same time.

I fail to see the relationship between omnipresence and being fully man and fully God.

Post by **_Allyn** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:33 pm

I'm sorry Paidion but I am going to cut away from this discussion. You seem to not be holding to the truth that God the Father and Jesus the Son are one and the same. Unless you say I am reading you wrong, we are finished.

Post by **_Allyn** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 1:02 pm

What say you Paidion? Is Jesus a god or the only God?

Post by **_Paidion** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 1:21 pm

You seem to not be holding to the truth that God the Father and Jesus the Son are one and the same. Unless you say I am reading you wrong, we are finished.

Then I guess we are finished. The view that "God the Father and Jesus the Son are one and the same" is the ancient heresy of Sabellianism, today called "modalism". This position is also known as "oneness". Today, it is espoused by the United Pentecostal Church, and the "Apostolic Church".
Are you with one of those churches?

The early Christians wrote extensively against modalism.

Martin Luther, a Trinitarian, and a learned Greek scholar, wrote the following about John 1:1

"The lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism."

I, personally, know several people who think they are trinitarians who are actually modalists.

It makes no sense to me, that Jesus prayed to Himself. But the United Pentecostal Church says that the human Jesus, God indwelling a human body, prayed to God in heaven ... yet they are one and the same.
To my poor brain, this is utterly illogical.

Jesus Himself made a statement which implies that He and His Father were TWO (not "one and the same")

In your law it is written that the testimony of two people is true; I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me." John 8:17, 18

TWO witnesses to Christ: (1) Himself and (2) His Father.