Does Jesus intercede?

[Aaron Wake]

Hello all.

I was wondering if someone could help me understand this.

We ask the Saints to intercede for us and pray to the Lord.

Is it also appropriate to ask intecessory prayers of Jesus? I ask this because it is my understanding that since the Word became flesh, He now has two natures from now on, both God and human.

And if so, is Jesus both God and a Saint? Is it right to ask Jesus to pray to God? I am a little confused about this. Can anyone help me with this one?

Peace

[Peter Farrington]

Perhaps one of the Chalcedonian members of the forum could answer this question as you belong to a Chalcedonian Church.

Peter

[Antonios]

Dear Peter,

As we await for an answer from a learned Chalcedonian member (of which I am not- learned, that is), I was hoping you may help Aaron and offer an Oriental Orthodox response to this question.

Antonios

[Kris]

Hello all.

I was wondering if someone could help me understand this.

We ask the Saints to intercede for us and pray to the Lord.

Is it also appropriate to ask intecessory prayers of Jesus? I ask this because it is my understanding that since the Word became flesh, He now has two natures from now on, both God and human.

And if so, is Jesus both God and a Saint? Is it right to ask Jesus to pray to God? I am a little confused about this. Can anyone help me with this one?

Peace

Peace,

Whilst Christ is both God and man, we must remember that these two natures are inseperably united in a hypostatic union. Christ is not two persons, but one single hypostasis of the Logos Incarnate. We do not speak of Christ as only divine, nor as just man, but always as the Theanthropos (God-man).

As such, it seems to me, it would not be appropriate to ask Christ to interceed for us as we do the Saints.

Of course, St. Paul does speak of Christ being the "Mediator" between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), by virtue of the fact that divinity and humanity are hypostatically united in Christ. However, that must be understood in light of what I said above.

Perhaps one of the reverend priests on the forum would be able to offer a slightly more educated response than the one I've given.

In XC,
Kris

[Peter Farrington]

Hiya

Perhaps I will add a few words from the Oriental Orthodox pov.

One of the reasons we tended not to use the terminology of 'in two natures' was exactly because some did take it to mean that we should understand Christ to be two beings or individuals, a human and one of the Holy Trinity.

Nature has the meaning, among others, of an individual, that is an instance of human nature, a human individual.

But Christ is not a human individual in the sense of a complete human person, rather he is the eternal Word of God who has become incarnate.

So we only recognise one person or being in Christ, God the Word, who has Himself become man. He is not A man, but God made man.

So when folk touched Christ, they touched God. Not His divine being which cannot be touched, but the humanity which he united to Himself from His Mother, and truly became man.

If they were not touching God, the WHO were they touching?

WHAT they were touching was the humanity of the Word become incarnate. WHO they were touching was God the Word Himself.

But further, we should not think of the humanity of Christ being 'over there' and the Divinity 'over here' as if they were two THINGS. Rather they are two ways of being which are united without confusing. He is God and man TOGETHER.

Here is a passage that explains it in a way I like.

our Lord Jesus Christ must be confessed to be very God and very man, one of the holy and consubstantial and life-giving Trinity, perfect in Deity and perfect in humanity, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and human body subsisting; consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before all ages according to his Godhead, but in these last days for us men and for our salvation made man of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, strictly and properly the Mother of God according to the flesh; one and the same Christ our Lord the only-begotten Son of two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, inseparably indivisibly to be recognized, the peculiarities of neither nature being lost by the union but rather the proprieties of each nature being preserved, concurring in one Person and in one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons but one and the same only-begotten Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, according as the Prophets of old have taught us and as our Lord Jesus Christ himself hath instructed us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers hath delivered to us;

and

his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: “I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!” where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature, so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: “His will [i.e., the Saviour’s] is not contrary to God but altogether deified.”

So we cannot even conceive of recognising the humanity of Christ as separate from His Divinity. The humanity is the humanity of the Word of God incarnate, not anyone elses. So there is no human person to worship or to ask to intercede, rather both the humanity and the divinity are of the Word whom we worship.

The humanity is not diminished by this union, but rather glorified. The divinity is that of the Word by nature, the humanity becomes his own by grace and love, and is really and completely his own and no other's. He Himself becomes man without ceasing to be what He always is. Without change or confusion, but equally without the division or separation that your initial thoughts would imply.

This is in fact one of the reasons why the 'in two natures' language was problematic. It led some to describe Christ in the terms suggested innocently in this thread.

In short when we ask the question WHO do we see in Christ, there is only one answer, we see the eternal Word of God incarnate, 'one incarnate nature of the Word' in St Cyril's language, where nature stands for individual or being.

When we ask WHAT, then we understand with careful thought that there is humanity and Divinity, unconfused but in an ineffable union, but never apart, never separate. There is never God and a man, only God the Word incarnate or made flesh.

In Christ

Peter

[Antonios]

Thank you Peter and Kris for your replies. If found both answers informative and helpful.

[Kusanagi]

Hello all.

I was wondering if someone could help me understand this.

We ask the Saints to intercede for us and pray to the Lord.

Is it also appropriate to ask intecessory prayers of Jesus? I ask this because it is my understanding that since the Word became flesh, He now has two natures from now on, both God and human.

And if so, is Jesus both God and a Saint? Is it right to ask Jesus to pray to God? I am a little confused about this. Can anyone help me with this one?

Peace

I do not see why not asking intercessory prayers to Jesus as He became God and Man so he knows our weaknesses not to say the Father and the Holy Spirit doesn't, its because the Son became man, for our salvation so it makes sense to ask Him for help. God is the origin of sainthood as mentioned somewhere in the bible and don't you find it odd to ask Jesus to pray to Himself?