The humanity of Jesus

[Robert Michael Mahoney]

In thinking about the birth of Jesus, and Him taking His humanity from the most holy Theotokos, is it correct to say that Jesus recieved a fallen human nature?

The reason I ask is in a discussion with a friend, I was explaining the difference between the eastern and western understandings of the fall. In the west, all who are born are born with the guilt of Adam, but in the east, we are born with the weakened nature but not the guilt.

My friend replied that if Jesus did have a fallen nature, then that would make Him sinfull. I replied that, if Rome is correct, than yes, he would be sinfull and thus all the Roman Dogma about Mary being sinless from her birth.

But, if the east is correct, then Jesus was born with our fallen nature, but not the guilt of Adam, so He was fully man in that He was weak but He was also fully God so that He was able to not fall into sin. In my understanding, the east makes Jesus out to be really human who can relate to my weakness and temptations to sin, yet, He never gave in to them. In the western view, His weakness can be summed up to where it was really only an illusion.(how can one tempt what can't be tempted?)

Am I correct in my understanding of the difference between the east and west and original sin vs ansesteral (sp) sin?

Robert
ICXC+NIKA

[Owen Jones]

The answer is "no," although someone more adept in the Fathers than I will have to provide references. But in Jesus is the Incarnation of the Eternal Logos which is sinless from before the beginning of time. He does not require an IMMACULATE CONCEPTION in order to be sinless from the beginning. Unfortunately, the Roman Doctrine of sin, which seems to be predicted on Augustine's version of Original Sin, but is perhaps too literalistic a construct of it, requires the Immaculate Conception to make Jesus sinless from birth. The Arians believed that Jesus was not born fully divine, and that Christ is not eternal. That's how they think they get around that problem.

Now, concerning weakness. Weakness is not necessarily the same as sin. Jesus demonstrated his human weakness by being susceptible to temptation, which is how God condescends to our level, but He does not act on His temptation as we typically do. Temptation is not the same as sin. The Incarnate Logos in Jesus acquires human weakness, but not human sin. He took on mortality, not as a punishment for His sin, but as a way to grant to us immortality.

[Robert Michael Mahoney]

Sorry, but I am bit fuzzy as to your answer.

I believe that Jesus was weak as we are, He was born with the same nature we are all born with,but unlike Rome, we are not guilty of sin from birth becuase of Adam. Am I correct in this?

So, is it wong for me to say the Jesus was fully human in that he had a fallen nature as we do? Now, my protestant friend will hear "fallen nature" and think original sin "ala Augustine, Calvin, Luther" when in fact in the estern Church it just means weakness to sin, but unlike us He did not give in...am I correct?

Robert
ICXC+NIKA

[Iqbal Youssef]

Is it true to say Jesus was "tempted"? I think we need to make a distinction between a trial, temptation and sin. Trial may or may not lead to a temptation, and a temptation may or may not lead to a sin. If a trial never leads to a temptation, then it will never lead to sin. I believe Christ was never tempted.

Take for example, when Satan told Christ to convert the rock into bread, and Christ rebuked Satan by saying that He shal not tempt the Lord. Was this really a temptation? or simply a trial? Since converting a rock into bread isnt exactly a "sin", i would view this as a trial.

To emphasise my point i would put forth the following analogy. If i threw a gun into the hands of a man, in the presence of that mans worst enemy, i have automatically put that man under trial. That man may automatically as a reflex action throw the gun away without even considering killing his enemy - hence his trial did not lead to temptation. However that man may be tempted to use this gun, he thinks long and hard, in the end he may yield to the temptation and sin, or he may in the end put the gun down.

Now i put forth the proposition that Christ, due to the divine nature which was united with the human nature could never have been tempted, but rather was constantly trialed. For example, to take an extreme example, if a beautiful woman walked in the presence of Christ, do you think its correct to say, he was tempted to lust? I think not. I think just as the man under trial threw away that gun without thinking, that likewise Christ due to his absolute holiness, could never have had such a thought cross his mind.

What do y'all think?

[Owen Jones]

I think you are splitting hairs in order to defend a romanticized version of Christ. If Christ was not tempted by Satan in the desert after His baptism, what would you call it? OK, a trial. But the nature of the trial was the temptation. What was the temptation? To use his religious power to save the world in a non-spiritual or worldly sense of salvation. To help people in need. To bring peace to the world. To perform miracles. In other words, to help man escape from his suffering without us ever again having to endure trials and temptations. It is the constant sin of all religious leaders. To control other people under the guise of saving them. We are not told that Christ ever even toyed with the idea. But the offer was made and it was clearly a temptation made to him, unless we are to redefine temptation so as to not have anything to do with us. If his temptation has no relevance whatsoever to the kinds of temptations that we are challenged with, then what has Christ to do with us? In this regard, it may be useful to consult the glossary found at the end of each edition of the Philokalia published by Faber and Faber, in which the desert fathers describe several levels of temptation before the sin occurs. But it seems to me that, even though Christ was sinless, and that it was written into the fabric of reality before creation that Christ would not sin when tempted, that nevertheless the possibility exists, from our perspective. Otherwise his victory over temptation is utterly irrelevant to us.

[Robert Michael Mahoney]

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 2:18


For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin.

Hebrews 4:15

[Steven J. McMeans]

Dear Robert,

I have two thoughts that might help. Please be aware that I claim no professional theological authority.

First, to answer your question directly, no, Christ did not inherit our "fallen nature." The reason for this is that whatever "fallenness" our nature has is handed down seminally; that is, through the biological act of procreation. The things contrary to nature, tendency toward sin, weakness, etc. are passed on through the male. (I believe this is part of doctrinal theory called Traducianism (sp?), popular among scholastic Protestants but found in the early fathers.)

Christ did not have an earthly father to pass these traits. Therefore, he could not have them.

Second, it is not necessary to have a "fallen nature" to be vulnerable to temptation. Remember that Adam was not created with a fallen nature but was tempted to sin and did! Hence, our scriptural and liturgical emphasis on Christ as the Second Adam. Hope I've helped.

Acts 17:11

Steven

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

St John of Damascus writes:


"Moreover, we confess that He [ie Christ] assumed all the natural and blameless passions of man. This is because He assumed the whole man and everything that is his, except sin,-for this last is not natural and it was not implanted in us by the Creator. On the contrary, it grew up in our will from the oversowing of the Devil, freely and not prevailing over us by force. Now, these passions are natural and blameless which are not under our control and have come into man's life as a result of the condemnation occasioned by his fall. Such, for example, were hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, the tears, the destruction, the shrinking from death, the fear, the agony from which came the sweating & drops of blood, the aid brought by the angels in deference to the weakness of His nature, and any other such things as are naturally inherent in all men.

So, He assumed all that He might sanctify all. He was put to the test and He conquered that He might gain for us the victory and to give to our nature the power to conquer the Adversary, so that through the very assaults by which the nature had been conquered of old it might conquer its former victor.

Now, the Evil One attacked from the outside, just as he had with Adam, and not through thoughts- for it was not through thoughts that he attacked Adam, but through the serpent. The Lord, however, repelled the attack and it vanished like smoke, so that by being conquered the passions which had assailed Him might be easy for us to conquer and the new Adam thus be restored by the old.

Actually, our natural passions were in Christ according to nature and over and above nature. Thus, it was according to nature that they were aroused in Him, when He permitted the flesh to suffer what was proper to it; whereas it was over and above nature, because in the Lord the things of nature did not control the will. For with Him nothing is found to be done under compulsion; on the contrary, everything was done freely. Thus, it was by willing that He hungered and by willing that He thirsted, by willing that He was afraid and by willing that He died."
(Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Chap.20)

Note several crucial points. One is the Patristic concept of the 'blameless passions' to refer to what is natural in man as created by God.

Then there is the manner of Christ's temptation: 'from the outside' as St John of Damascus says and not through the thoughts. We are also told that the evil one attacked Adam from the outside just he had Christ. This is a crucial point that affects the Orthodox concept of spiritual healing, prayer, etc.

The last point is that even though Christ endured the natural passions He did so freely by willing. As St John explains, the reason for this is that in Christ, "nothing is found to be done under compulsion."

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Mary Stavroula]

Not to subscribe to the concept of original sin, but to clear some things up on the Catholic viewpoint, Mary's Immaculte Conception has nothing to do with Jesus assuming a fallen nature or not.
Quoting the Catholic encyclopedia:
"Our Lord, being conceived by the Holy Ghost, was, by virtue of his miraculous conception, ipso facto free from the taint of original sin."

Therefore, the concept of the Immaculate Conception is not trying to solve the "problem" of Jesus' inheriting a fallen nature, in fact, it depended on the merits of Christ. It had more to do with her being Theotokos or Mother of God, than mother of his human nature, but also to testify to the repeated claims of her holiness from the first words of the angel at the Annunciation through many of the church fathers.

Quoting again:
". . .by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race." The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. ". . .by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race."

And finally, according to Catholic theology, Jesus did inherit the fallen nature of humanity "and the simultaneous occultation of the Divinity. Christ's abasement is seen first in His subjecting Himself to the laws of human birth and growth and to the lowliness of fallen human nature. His likeness, in His abasement, to the fallen nature does not compromise the actual loss of justice and sanctity, but only the pains and penalties attached to the loss. These fall partly on the body, partly on the soul, and consist in liability to suffering from internal and external causes."

[M.C. Steenberg]

Above it was written:


Take for example, when Satan told Christ to convert the rock into bread, and Christ rebuked Satan by saying that He shal not tempt the Lord. Was this really a temptation? or simply a trial? Since converting a rock into bread isnt exactly a "sin", i would view this as a trial.

Ah, but it was. Where does the sin lie -- in the act or in the intention? Satan's prompt to Christ was not merely to the 'act' of transforming this stone into a loaf, rather, to the intention (genuinely sinful and wrong) to live by one's own power and provision, apart from the gift of the Father. Thus Christ rightly rebukes the devil, not by saying 'It is wrong to transform rocks into bread', but 'man shall not live by bread alone'.

INXC, Matthew

[Iqbal Youssef]

Dear M.C. Steenberg

I stand corrected. However, im still a bit not sure of something Owen said:


But it seems to me that, even though Christ was sinless, and that it was written into the fabric of reality before creation that Christ would not sin when tempted, that nevertheless the possibility exists, from our perspective.

What does this imply, that the possibility of Christ to sin existed? The possibility of a self-contradiction within the person of Christ, hence a contradiction between Father and Son, and hence the ultimate annhilation of God?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Youssef,

In your recent message, you wrote the following in response to an earlier comment by Owen:


Owen: But it seems to me that, even though Christ was sinless, and that it was written into the fabric of reality before creation that Christ would not sin when tempted, that nevertheless the possibility exists, from our perspective.

You: What does this imply, that the possibility of Christ to sin existed? The possibility of a self-contradiction within the person of Christ, hence a contradiction between Father and Son, and hence the ultimate annhilation of God?

While I am not entirely certain of Owen's nuance and intention, I personally find that his qualifier 'from our perspective' to be very important.

It is important that we try to understand the incarnation of Christ from the perspective of the incarnation, and from our own human experience of and approach to this mystery. Incarnational thought which is challenged by a metaphysical starting-point, often fails to build its presupposition upon the foundational witness of scripture, that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'. What we human persons experience, and the 'model' or image of the incarnate Saviour from which we must build our understanding, is that same Christ 'who dwelt with us' -- not, ultimately, the eternal Word 'as distinct from' the incarnate Son. It is as Jesus Christ that we know the Son; even when the prophets and patriarchs heard the Word's voice or beheld him in vision, the fathers teach that they beheld foreshadowings of the incarnate Word. The one born in a manger is the one who must always be the starting point of our discussion.

In this light, what does it mean for the Word to become human, to become 'like as we are, save sin'? The fullness of the human nature assumed by the Word demands that he be man, truly and fully man, even as he is ever and always the Word -- God. So the question thus becomes: if the incarnate Son were 'unable to be tempted', is he truly a human person, fully in possession and in the experience of genuine human nature and life? Which human person fits this bill? Even if we allow ourselves a moment to speak of 'pre-' and 'post-fallen' humanity, does the fact not remain that pre-fallen Adam still was able to be tempted? This is in fact what allowed for the transgression and introduction of Sin. For the Word to assume that 'un-fallen' human nature would still not exempt him from the possibility of temptation.

Fr Raphael and others above have brought up the important ideas of passionless passion, of an un-actualised potential to transgress. It is, in fact, only if Christ is fully in possession of these that he is human as you and I are human, that he can genuinely be one 'who is not unable to relate, but is like us in every respect save sin'. More importantly, it is only if he is human in this full sense that he redeems humanity in this full sense. As Irenaeus first noted (though Athanasius peared-down the wording and gets all the credit), 'that which is unassumed is unhealed'. If the Word became such a man as could not be tempted, who never faced the real potential for sin, then he healed only such man as cannot be tempted and face no danger of transgression. In which case, he certainly did not save me.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Fr Raphael and Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This is my first post. Fr Raphael quotes St John Damascene on the natural and blameless passions : Such, for example, were hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, the tears, the destruction, the shrinking from death, the fear, the agony from which came the sweating & drops of blood, the aid brought by the angels in deference to the weakness of His nature, and any other such things as are naturally inherent in all men.

Can somebody please explain the difference between passions that are natural, against nature and above nature? In the particular example of sexual desire, is it a natural blameless passion, and if so, how and when does it turn into lust (presumably the name of the same passion when it operates against nature?)? Reference to any fathers on this theme would be most useful.

INXC, Byron.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Byron,

Taking the example of hunger: hunger is a blameless passion "which [is] not under our control and have come into man's life as a result of the condemnation occasioned by his fall."

Against nature would be gluttony, "for this last is not natural and it was not implanted in us by the Creator. On the contrary, it grew up in our will from the oversowing of the Devil, freely and not prevailing over us by force."

Over & above nature refers to Christ for even though, "it was according to nature that [the blameless passions] were aroused in Him, when He permitted the flesh to suffer what was proper to it whereas it was over and above nature, because in the Lord the things of nature did not control the will. For with Him nothing is found to be done under compulsion; on the contrary, everything was done freely."

Could we not also say that Christ's grace acts in this way in His saints? Of course not identically to Christ Who freely allowed hunger & the other blameless passions. But rather in the sense that in the saints through Christ manifestations of the condemnation such as hunger are often overcome in a miraculous manner. The saints through Christ are 'over & above nature.' (Is it Met. John Zizoulas who has also written along these lines about the saints overcoming 'the neccesity of nature'?).

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Anastasia Theodoridis]

By human logic, based upon our own experience, we are caught in a dilemma: either Christ COULD have sinned and that brings up the contradictions you mention, or else Christ COULD NOT have sinned, which would imply He is less than free. Or so it would seem.

But in Christ we have a unique thing in human experience: **Perfect** freedom. He wasn't driven by the passions. He wasn't a slave to sin or to sin or to anything else, was not controlled or determined by anything but His own Will. (Sin is always a form of slavery, as St, Paul teaches.) To say He could have sinned is only to affirm that He had the ability. To say He "couldn't" have sinned implies not that He lacked the ability or wasn't free to do so, but that in Him was the perfection and fulfillment of freedom. While in us freedom means freedom to sin, in Him it means freedom FROM sin.

[John Curtis Dunn]

Anastasia Theodoridis posted; "To say He that is Christ could have sinned is only to affirm that He had the ability."

I think we should amend the above; to say that Christ could have sinned is to say he had the will to sin, but this he never had. Where there is no will there is no ability. There was a choice to sin, but no will and thus no ability.

rdr. john dunn

[Anastasia Theodoridis]

>> I think we should amend the above; to say that Christ could have >> sinned is to say he had the will to sin, but this he never had. Where >> there is no will there is no ability. There was a choice to sin, but >> no will and thus no ability. > > > Okay. That works. All I meant was that His inability to sin was not due to any *defect* in His freedom of will, but instead was due to the *perfection* of it.

[M.C. Steenberg]

If Christ could not have sinned, he could not have saved.

INXC, Matthew

[Moses Anthony]

Dear John Curtis Dunn,

When I read your post, my first thought was, "That's a dangerous statement", then I read Anastasia's clarification and Matthew's post, and I went "Yeah!" Surely you have read, "...He was made in all things as we, yet without sin." The inference is, that when Jesus was made, rather, took on the form of a servant, the form of those whom He came to redeem, in that form He had a will which could be tempted, if not the temptations would never have happened. He overcame the temptations, not by the divine power inherent in Him as the Word of God; but as Anastasia said by His perfect will, perfected by being submitted to the will of God.

In other words, what Anastasia and Matthew said!

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Matthew,

You wrote, "If Christ could not have sinned, he could could not have saved." I have given this some thought and still feel uneasy with it being formulated in this way. Basically what I am getting at is the idea that Christ could have sinned. It is one thing to say (correctly- theologically & Patristically) that temptations could & did come before Christ. But this is quite different from saying that He could sin.

I have found again from St John of Damascus his comments about this. "So, He assumed all that He might sanctify all. He was put to the test and He conquered that He might gain for us the victory and to give to our nature the power to conquer the Adversary, so that through the very assaults by which the nature had been conquered of old it might conquer its former victor.

Now, the Evil One attacked from the outside, just as he had with Adam, and not through thoughts- for it was not through thoughts that he attacked Adam, but through the serpent. The Lord, however, repelled the attack and it vanished like smoke, so that by being conquered the passions which had assailed Him might be easy for us to conquer and the new Adam thus be restored by the old."

We see how the above refers to Christ being "put to the test" and also the "assaults" He underwent. Crucially however we are to understand these as, "the Evil One attacked from the outside, just as he had with Adam, and not through thoughts- for it was not through thoughts that he attacked Adam, but through the serpent." Does not "from the outside" relate to Christ being "without sin" and this not by a process of human perfection (ie from sin to not sin) but rather that He IS by nature without sin?

I am wondering if the best way to proceed in order to avoid the confusion of each of us saying the same thing in different ways would be to look at the matter from within the following context. At the back of the Philokalia in the Glossary under Temptation we find how this is broken down into five parts: provocation, momentary disturbance, communion, assent, and prepossession. The glossary says that provocation is an "'image-free stimulation in the heart'; so long as the provocation is not accompanied by any images, it does not involve man in any guilt. Such provocations, originating as they do from the devil, assail man from the outside independently of his free will, and so he is not morally responsible for the. His liability to these provocations is not a consequence of the fall: even in paradise...Adam was assailed by the devil's provocations. Man cannot prevent provocations from assailing him; what does lie in his power, however, is to maintain constant watchfulness and so to reject each provocation as soon as it emerges into his consciousness...".

Could we thus say that Christ endured provocation but none of the further stages? And if someone believes that Christ could have gone through the further stages of sin could they show this so theologically?

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

I don't know how any of the Fathers deal with this, but surely the issue of divine foreknowledge must come into play. Surely the Father knew that the INcarnate Christ would not sin. But did the INcarnate Christ know that for sure? If so, I cannot conceive of why he would even suffer any temptation at all, provocation, stage 1, stage 2, whatever. Rather, he would have laughed it off. It strikes me that the INcarnate Christ's foreknowledge was somehow limited by his physicality, otherwise, why suffer in the Garden, why suffer isolation on the Cross? No, he would have said to his family and disciples, don't worry, this is all just a big ruse to trick the Devil. I'm not really suffering at all in any spiritual way. I just have to undergo some brief, physical torture, which is not as bad as most people who are crucified. That makes no sense to me. What am I missing?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Owen,

I don't think you are missing anything at all. Although I am not sure about Christ's foreknowledge being limited by His physicality - He is still the Pre-eternal Divine Logos after all, even Incarnate.

In any case Christ truly suffered for us for our salvation but in a blameless way- ie not involving any sin on his part, eg anger, resentment,etc. So it seems to me that while Christ truly suffered & is Incarnate this does not imply that He could have sinned or that this latter was crucial for the redemption of humanity.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

I am not referring to Christ's physical suffering on the Cross (which the West over accentuates in my opinion) but rather to his spiritual suffering, as he is tempted by Satan, as he suffers in the Garden, as he suffers isolation on the Cross. These all seem to be palpable Biblical messages, that he had to struggle internally.

The analogy is that when you and I suffer some terrible misfortune, injustice, grief, physical disability, then what does it mean? Is it something negative or positive, if I may use those modernist concepts, is it evil to suffer? Do we suffer because of evil, or for God to be manifest? Is it rational to demand life without suffering? For Christ to identify with our internal suffering, and vice versa, he had to suffer internally in some way. Orthodox Christian faith, as far as I see it and experience it, transforms suffering aesthetically. This is why we do not focus so much on the bloodiness of the Cross, but Christ glorified.

[Owen Jones]

This also directly impinges on what we mean by perfection. Christ's perfection must be attainable by us, otherwise it is meaningless.

[Anastasia Theodoridis]

Oh, my; it's quite difficult, isn't it, to find the right words to speak of Christ and sin. There truly is a sense in which He could have sinned and another sense in which He could not...

ISTM we have to affirm that He always had the option to sin; otherwise He wouldn't have been truly human. Otherwise what's so special about the fact that He didn't sin? And how does He save what He doesn't assume? And how is He the second Adam, passing the test Adam failed? What would be the point of the temptations in the wilderness; why would satan even bother? So surely we must affirm that sin was always available to Him.

But sin is always slavery to self, and Christ was pure love, pure giving with no thought for Himself. He was perfectly free and *perfect* freedom doesn't choose slavery. Perfect freedom *cannot* choose slavery and no, God cannot create a rock too heavy for Him to lift, either; the two ideas are exactly parallel. In each case, it cannot be--and "It cannot be" is not at all a statement about Christ's abilities or inabilities but only about logic, because both of these ideas are self-contradictory.

And then there's the one about the far-away island in which dwell two tribes. The members of one tribe always tell the truth and members of the other always lie. You ask one native to which tribe he belongs and he replies, "I never tell the truth. I always lie." He's either telling you the truth right now, in contradiction of his own words, or else he is lying right now, in which case it isn't so that he always lies; he must sometimes tell the truth. Either way, it doesn't work, it

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Anastasia,

St John of Damascus writes that Christ, "assumed the whole man and everything that is his, except sin- for this last is not natural and it was not implanted in us by the Creator. On the contrary, it grew up in our will from the oversowing of the devil, freely and not prevailing over us by force." In other words Christ adopted what was natural to man although He suffered the death which arose from our fall. For Christ to assume sin is for Him to assume death, to be prey to it which of course could not be since He is the Author of Life. So I would say that rather He triumphs over sin precisely because He is Life.

As St John of Damascus says, "He was put to the test and He conquered that He might gain for us the victory and to give to our nature the power to conquer the Adversary, so that through the very assaults by which the nature had been conquered of old it might conquer its former victor."

Could it be that what we are trying to say is that as an integral aspect of Christ's Incarnation He also endured the trial of sin & death? If so, this still does not mean He experiences or shares in sin & death in the same way that we do. Again as Life He destroys the death which comes to Him as were 'from the outside' (see above quote) while we- to use the same analogy, experience sin & death from 'the inside'. How Christ undergoes the trial of sin & death in the redemptive sense of 'sharing our experience' while not in being tainted by sin is of course a Mystery to us. But nevertheless the Mystery of Christ being without sin while being Incarnate is a corner-stone of salvation.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Anastasia Theodoridis]

Dear Fr. Raphael,

Something about that wording leaves me a bit uneasy. Maybe it doesn't quite seem to affirm both sides of the mystery adequately; I'm not sure.

I liked the quote you provided earlier about Christ having inherited all the *blameless* aspects of our fallenness. Providing that's what we mean, we could say He inherited our sin, or even that "He was made sin for us" but referring NOT to guilt or blame or to sin in any moral sense, only to the blameless effects of sin upon human nature, such as our susceptibility to hunger and thirst and so forth. Among those blameless consequences would be separation of soul from body (physical death), but not separation of soul and body from God (spiritual death). If I'm seeing it aright, that is...????

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Anastasia, Fr Raphael and others,

On this conversation of the humanity of Christ, St Cyril of Alexandria's second letter to Nestorius (http://www.monachos.net/patristics/christology/cyril_to_nestorius_2.shtml) would probably be of interest to you both.

INXC, Matthew

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for the link. I find very powerful the following words of St. Cyril: "On this account we say that He [ie Christ] suffered and rose again; not as if God the Word suffered in his own nature stripes, or the piercing of the nails, or any other wounds, for the Divine nature is incapable of suffering, inasmuch as it is incorporeal, but since that which had become his own body suffered in this way, He is also said to suffer for us; for he who is in himself incapable of suffering was in a suffering body. In the same manner also we conceive respecting his dying; for the Word of God is by nature immortal and incorruptible, and life and life-giving; since, however, his own body did, as Paul says, by the grace of God taste death for every man, he himself is said to have suffered death for us, not as if he had any experience of death in his own nature (for it would be madness to say or think this), but because, as I have just said, his flesh tasted death. In like manner his flesh being raised again, it is spoken of as his resurrection, not as if He had fallen into corruption (God forbid), but because his own body was raised again."

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

Since the idea of an afterlife, of a bodily resurrection, even of a dying and rising God,is not unique to Christianity, what is the unique factor in our theology regarding Christ's Resurrection that makes the difference?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Christ God is Incarnate. In his Letters to Spiritual Children, Abbot Nikon writes: "If the Lord Himself had not become incarnate and suffered for us, we would never come to grasp the power of God's love for man. During intense sufferings (one's own or of those close to us) when one sees acute manifestations of evil or cruelty and deception in the world, one can somehow endure this, come to terms with it and not 'return one's ticket to the world' (as Ivan Karamazov put it), knowing that God Himself, the Creator of the whole world, suffered in order to eradicate evil and to attract man- without forcing him against his will- to the Kingdom of Kindness & Love."

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

So it is not simply the fact that Jesus is God, that he died and rose from the dead that counts, but the nature of his humanity and his suffering that makes the difference?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Owen,

It is not simply the fact that Jesus is God and as such died and rose from the dead that 'counts' for salvation: it is that Jesus who is God as man lived, died and rose from the dead. Only if he is God-made-man, one life that is truly the full reality of each of these (thus the God-man, the person in two natures), does the resurrection from the dead cease to be merely the demonstration of God's infinite power, and become transformatively the human race's conquering of death.

And in this, Christianity has no immediate parallel.

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

So, is it a different understanding of the nature of divinity itself, because of the identification with, not only our nature in a general sense, but that fact that He took on the lowliest of our nature? In another words, to ask a rhetorical question, isn't it the powerlessness of this God-man that explodes all other preconceptions about the nature of God, the true nobility of man, and the afterlife?

[Charalambos Andrew Geo]

By the way, if I am wrong pray for me,

I think this is what the Church through Her Saints teach in her love- Christ Incarnate, His life, death, and resurrection is a result of God's immeasurable love He has for the whole of man and creation.

To love as people, we choose either our way or God's way, God's way leading to true love. It was God's love for man that saved us, the greater the love, the greater the temptation and sufferings, from His love sin was conquered, only when we truly love God, and God's creation in a way that would please God, can we allow the Holy Spirit to transform us from mere fallen men into Saints. "Truly Human, Christ like" as God desires for each of us.

I pray that the Priest on this forum pray for enlightening of our hearts and minds to everyone's needs what this mystery is about through how ever God desires in His Saints, Holy and Most Blessed and Pure mother and ranks of Angels and all persons well pleasing to Him from all ages past, or maybe we should in some way leave it as that, what ever God desires, for it is a mystery.

with love in Christ
Charalambos

[Moses Anthony]

It would seem to me that the answer to Owen's question is; It is both! It's the same type situation, as those who propagate that salvation is by faith alone. The flesh borne of Mary was just, and purely that, flesh, "for since the brethren were of flesh and blood, He partook of the same, that He might become an effectual High Priest..., For the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us...."

There's a lot more to what we (seemingly) so thoughtlessly say, He became what we are, in order that we might become what He is.

the sinful and unworthy servant

[Charalambos Andrew Geo]

I asked my spiritual fr about something relating to this, he said, He experienced temptation as we experience but He did not sin. i have probably repeated someone else

Pray for me
with love in Christ
Charalambos

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Christ became man of the Virgin Mary. Whereas we are conceived in sin, Christ's conception was sinless. The flesh He took on was therefore also sinless and "new" - He is the Second Adam. Like Adam, He could be tempted, and was tempted, but unlike Adam, he resisted temptation, thereby "cancelling" the ancestral sin, setting mankind back on track; and though he was immortal even in the flesh, like Adam before the fall was immortal(but if Adam was immortal before the Fall, what is the significance of the Tree of Life in the Eden narrative?), He voluntarily chose to suffer death, thereby giving mortals the opportunity to become immortal again.

Is this line of thinking doctrinally correct? Or am I going wrong somewhere? My question remains: if He suffered temptation in the same way as the prelapsarian Adam, but chose not to sin, then how does this save us who suffer temptation very much after the Fall? Or, put another way, if He was the same as us in all except sin, how could He save us who are sinners?

I'm sure I must be getting something wrong here, but I don't know what...

in Christ,
Byron

[Owen Jones]

The Christian doctrine of sin goes beyond the notion of individual bad choice. It says that something akin to a malignant cancer has entered into nature and corrupted it. This doctrine does not negate the need for individual repentance, however, it does not reduce the issue of salvation to individual actions. Christ had to change the very fabric of nature in order to free all of manking, and nature, from the malignancy of sin. Ironically, this places a much greater burden on the individual than ever before because we no longer have Adam to blame for our sin. This is why Christian doctrine is based on a transformation of the personality so that the will is replaced with God's will, the mind is replaced with God's mind, so that it is God doing the work, not us.

But in its broader sense, the Christian doctrine of sin and salvation is so mysterious that it can only be stated mythically, not scientifically or in terms of specific doctrine. There is no formal Christian doctrine of salvation, apart from the Creed. It does not explain in detail the how of it. It's inner meaning is revealed to us individually and as a body only as we are transformed into His image and likeness.

[Owen Jones]

Dear Father V.,

Regarding your above post of some time back, the best thing I have seen on this from a contemporary is in a collection of sermons and addresses by Mathew the Poor. He says that Christ suffered for no good reason, not as punishment for anything. Since it is obvious that suffering has not ceased, it must be that we now suffer the same way that Christ suffered, not as a punishment for anything, but as a means for God's Grace to be manifest. One thinks, of course, of the story of the man who is born blind and the Pharisees who wish to know who it was who sinned.

Christianity is unique, it seems to me, in terms of its understanding of the nature, meaning, purpose of suffering, which Christ did not banish, but transformed. The closest thing I can think of to Orthodoxy in this regard is Buddhism, but in Buddhism, according to my liimited understanding, there is a sense that suffering is really an illusion of the ego. In Christianity, suffering is very real. Protestantism cannot account for suffering, which is why psychotherapy was invented. The RC Church transformed suffering into a kind of blood cult.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Thank you, Owen Jones. So, if I understand correctly, in Orthodoxy I can identify that there is a general connection between sin, suffering and presumably death, one which Christ's suffering and resurrection has miraculously, cosmically extinguished; but I can no more point to what particular human sin causes which particular suffering (as in, for example, telling an ill person that they are suffering for their sins?), than I can demonstrate doctrinally how precisely God saves. Is that right?

In Christ,

Byron

[Owen Jones]

Yes. Another point in response to yours above, my understanding is that Christ does not turn mortals into immortals.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Gaist,

You wrote:


Is this line of thinking doctrinally correct? Or am I going wrong somewhere? My question remains: if He suffered temptation in the same way as the prelapsarian Adam, but chose not to sin, then how does this save us who suffer temptation very much after the Fall? Or, put another way, if He was the same as us in all except sin, how could He save us who are sinners?

This is where the matters of 'Christology' become overwhelmingly tied up in matters of 'anthropology'. What is 'prelapsarian Adam'? Is he of a different category of existence, a different 'ontological structure' than 'post-lapsarian' Adam?

If so, we have problems with our vision of Christ in his humanity, and in his function as Saviour, of precisely the sort that you intimate.

But 'whence cometh this idea?'

INXC, Matthew

[Nathan McClelland]

What is the Orthodox doctrine on the peccability of Jesus?

(If you know of any good on-line resources, please post a link if you can.)

[tony smith]

why theotokos....if jesus was god as a man. why would mary somehow be a mother of god? she was mother of the man jesus. and if jesus was god in man form why can you draw him as a man. and if a man is what god is as jesus then he was a man and mary was the mother of that MAN. not that god.

[George Geo]

Dear Tony,

Your post would have to hold the record for the most number of historically debunked and rejected erroneous teachings (heresies) in one sentence!

Firstly, what you are saying is that Christ is two distinct Persons- a "divine Person" and a "human Person." Orthodoxy holds that Christ is One Person in Two Natures. The erroneous teaching that Christ is two Persons (one Human and one Divine) is called "Nestorianism" -a heresy was debunked by the Church one thousand and seven hundred years ago. Try doing a google search on the word "Nestorianism".

Secondly, you seem to think that Christ's Humanity is not compatable with His Divinity. This error is called "Docetism"- do a google search on that as well.

Thirdly, you seem to think that because Christ is depictable in holy Icons, then He cannot be Divine. This error is called "Arianism"- do a google on that also. And if you think that Christ should not be depicted in Icons because He is Divine, then this error is called "Iconoclasm"- google that too.

Christ is our God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who took flesh from the Theotokos by the Power of the Holy Spirit. The Theotokos is truly the Birth-giver of God.

George

[Kosmas Damianides]

Dear Tony,

George correctly explained that we Orhtodox do call the Virgin Mary "Mother of God" (Mitera tou Theou) in the Orthodox Church, highlighting the fact that Jesus was truly God. However, on closer examination the Greek term used "Theotokos" means "Birth-giver of God" (not mother of God) which points us to and brings us to the point and reason of why we should also call Mary the Mother of God since she did not only give Birth to Jesus's humanity but to the united human-God (Theanthropos) man-God (Theandric) Jesus Christ and after birth she was not only the mother of the one human nature of the person called Christ, but of one single person with two natures (Godly and human = Theos kai anthropos).

So Tony Smith now, I shall give you an example in order for you to understand this more clearly and correctly. Say for example you have a special job of reading a passage of Holy Scripture in the Church are you the Reader of human words of the divne Book or the Reader of the Holy Word of God? Obviously you cannot simply be called the Reader of words alone, but of God's Word. Just as a sword which has been in the fire is not "born" out of the fire as a simple sword, but a flaming sword, possessing both the nature of fire to burn and the nature of the blade to cut.

Similarly, we cannot only call Mary "the mother of Jesus" the "Christo-tokos" (ie Nestorianism) or the "mother of God in the form of man", she is more than these, Mary is the birth-giver (tekousa/tokos) and mother (mitera) of the Holy Incarnate Word of God (Logos Theou) - therefore she should according to Scripture also be called the "Mother of God", "The mother of Emmanuel" (ie. Emmanuel=God with us -- Matthew 1:23) .

God did not change modes of existence, He was not God and them suddenly become human. He the (Son and Word of God) became incarnate after being sent by the Father,(ensarkomenos) not having the Hindu meaning of incarnation but the fuller Orthodox Christian meaning of being united to the human nature or physis:

"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit : and these three are One." (KJV 1John 5:7).

Yours in christ
Kosmas

[Leandros]

Dear tony smith,

You follow a reasonable path that contradicts the dogma of Theotokos being the Mother of God. You follow the path of “like to like”:

Christ is a man -> His mother is mother of man
Christ is god -> you can not drew him as man
Christ is god before time and became man at the specific time -> His mother is a mother of His manhood at the specific time. She is not the mother of His Divine being before time.

This path is wrong because it follows the though that human generation is a multiplication of "one to many" - from mother to mother and her son. Well, it is not.

Let’s see the generation in a human mode: You are the son of your mother <u>and</u> the son of your father. If your father’s name is “Smith”(spear side- the name of male line of your family) then you are son of Smith. If your mother’s name is “Johnson” (spindle side- the name of female side in descent) then you are Son of Johnson. In reality you are the son of Smith and the son of Johnson at the same time, your name is Smith-Johnson. Your mother, being herself a daughter of Johnson, she gave birth both to a son of Johnson who is a true son of Smith. If you were just a product of your mothers multiplication (by pregnancy and birth), then you would not have a father and you would have been only son of "johnson".But of course, at the time of your conception as an embryo you were formed in the first place by the union of both maternal and paternal genetic “stuff”. That makes you a son of two names by origin, but you are one person. And your mother gave birth to a “stranger” as long as your name is son of “Smith” but at the same time this “stranger” is her own son originated by her own flesh and blood and genetic “stuff”, a true son of “Jonhson”.

Jesus Christ was conceived in a way that we can not understand, neither we can comprehend: in His mother’s womb He was conceived without human seed (without any seed whatsoever because there is no divine seed at all) in the way that the Angel have explained to Virgin: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%201:35;&version=9;)

For that, His mother was Virgin during the conception, she remained Virgin at the time of the conception, she remained Virgin at the time of the pregnancy and she remained Virgin even at the time and after after His birth. For that, we call her Virgin Theotokos. Christ’s conception, pregnancy and birth, all are mysteries in their natural way of operation. Do not ask or think of any ways because reality of Christ’s conception, gestation and birth is beyond comprehension.

Christ was conceived in Virgin’s womb, as God "for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us'" (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%201:20-23;&version=9;), although His mother was human.

Just like, what was conceived in your mother’s womb was “Smith”,for that which is conceived in her is of Smith(your father), although she was “Johnson”.

Human generation is not an act of multiplication of “one”, it is the unification of “two” in one. The result of generation is not a replication of neither of the “two”, but a new “one” - a young Child, predestinated for eternity by Grace of God.

Kontakion of the Nativity, Tone 3
Today the virgin giveth birth to Him Who is above all being, and the earth offereth a cave to Him Whom no man can approach. Angels with shepherds give glory, and magi journey with a star. For our sake is born a Young Child, the Pre-eternal God!

A Hymn of the Nativity
How is He contained in a womb, whom nothing can contain?
And how can He who is in the bosom of the Father
be held in the arms of His Mother?
This is according to His good pleasure,
as He knows and wishes.
For being without flesh,
of His own will has He been made flesh;
and He Who Is,
for our sakes has become that which He was not.
Without departing from His own nature
He has shared in our substance.
Desiring to fill the world on high with citizens,
Christ has undergone a twofold birth.

Praises (Lauds) of Nativity Matins, Tone 4 (by Andrew of Jerusalem)

Make glad, O ye righteous; greatly rejoice, O ye heavens; ye mountains, dance for joy. Christ is born, and like the cherubim the Virgin makes a throne, carrying at her bosom God the Word made flesh. Shepherds glorify the new-born Child, magi offer the Master gifts. Angels sing praises, saying: 'O Lord past understanding, glory to Thee!'

It was the good pleasure of the Father: the Word became flesh, and the Virgin bore God made man. A star spreads abroad the tidings: the Magi worship, the shepherds stand amazed, and the creation is filled with mighty joy.

O Mother of God, Virgin who hast borne the Saviour, thou hast overthrown the ancient curse of Eve. For thou hast become the Mother of Him in whom the Father was well pleased, and has carried at thy bosom God the incarnate Word. We cannot fathom this mystery: but by faith alone we all glorify it, crying with thee and saying: O Lord past all interpretation, glory to Thee!

O come, let us sing the praises of the Mother of the Saviour, who after bearing child still remained Virgin. Rejoice, thou Living City of God the King, in which Christ has dwelt, bringing to pass our salvation. With Gabriel we sing thy praises; with the shepherds we glorify thee, crying: O Mother of God, intercede for our salvation with Him who took flesh from thee!

For that, His Virgin mother is named Theotokos: Mother of God and at the same time mother of Man.