Featured Hypostatic union

John - your input would be appreciated.

 

YOU are the target - I was responding to your observation that -
"The KJV does ok with what they had, but the NASB gives that passage a clearer flow of the statement."

So I replied -

 

There is a scriptural foundation for the doctrine of the hypostatic union but it must ultimately be embraced by faith.

Who can fully understand the how (and the why) of God being made flesh (the Word was made flesh) a mortal man subject to death.

A death endured for His brethren.

HankD

 

I don't understand. Can you completely rewrite that, please?

 

I find the episode of our Lord stilling the storm to be particularly helpful (Mark 4:35-41 etc.).
The Lord Jesus comes on board the boat and goes to sleep on a pillow. Why? Because He is tired. He is a Man, Man as if He were not God (Isaiah 40:28).
But when the disciples come to Him in a panic and wake Him, He stills the storm completely with a word. 'And there was a great calm.' He did not pray to God to still the storm; He did it Himself. No wonder the disciples asked each other, 'Who can this be, that even the wind and wave obey Him?' He is God, that's who. God as if He were not Man. Two complete natures in one body.

So I do believe that the Lord Jesus may well have experienced blisters on His feet etc. because that's what happens to men and women when they walk long distances. 'Therefore in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God.......For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted ['tested'], He is able to aid those who are tempted' (Hebrews 2:17-18).

 

Not necessarily brother -

"For my son Jesus shall appear with those that be with him, and they that remain shall rejoice within four hundred years. After these same years shall my son Christ die, and all men that have life." (II Esdras 7:28 & 29)

"The date of II Esdras has been placed about 30 B.C."(Dickson - Holy Bible, New Analytical Indexed Edition, 1944, "From Malachi To Christ", page 1083 - subtitle - "The Date of These Writings".)

I see no problem with historic record here, (besides the name Emmanuel / Immanuel prophecy), and shows value to the supposed 'apocryphal' books.

 

Well, I posted Isaiah 40:28 so that might give you a small clue.

As God, for sure He knew what was going on (John 3:13, KJV, NKJV), but as Man He knew every pain and weakness to which the flesh is heir (Hebrews 2:17-18 again; 4:15).

I don't see how the Lord Jesus could be made 'in all things....like His brethren,' share in their flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14) and be tested in all points as we are if He bore no marks or scars. The physical perfections of the sacrificial animals find their counterpart in the moral and spiritual perfections of our Lord. In fact, He looked older than His earthly years. The Jews placed Him at nearly 50 when He was only 33 (John 8:57).

 

This is new to me -

The name Jesus (Joshua = LXX Jesus) was revealed in a Messianic context in Zechariah 3 & Zec. 6.

3:8 ‘Hear, O Joshua/Jesus, the high priest,
You and your companions who sit before you,
For they are a wondrous sign;
For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
9 For behold, the stone
That I have laid before Joshua/Jesus:
Upon the stone are seven eyes.
Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’
Says the Lord of hosts,
‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.

6:9 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 10 “Receive the gift from the captives—from Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have come from Babylon—and go the same day and enter the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah. 11 Take the silver and gold, make an elaborate crown, and set it on the head of Joshua/Jesus the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. 12 Then speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying:
“Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH!
From His place He shall branch out,
And He shall build the temple of the Lord;
13 Yes, He shall build the temple of the Lord.
He shall bear the glory,
And shall sit and rule on His throne;
So He shall be a priest on His throne,
And the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”’
​

 

Do you agree with that bolded part then?

 

A good post, Hank. Very informative and convenient to have these verses listed together.

The only caveat I would have is that the assumption seems to be that the nature of Christ in the Incarnation has to be the very same nature He has now; His missional purpose vs. His eternal essence. It was certainly necessary for Him to be in the flesh ("the days of His flesh", Heb. 5:7).

That is not necessary now. Essential humanity - what makes us us is not in the flesh, else we would be de-manned when we die.

 

Thanks Tom.

The futurist point of view is that the life force of Jesus body is not the same as when He walked the earth in the flesh post resurrection.

In His resurrection His body was not made alive after the animus of oxygenated blood but of the life giving force of the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

Futurist hold to a material resurrected body which presumably will not be subject to death or entropy.

Romans 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Many take the following passage as indicating we have a temporary intermediate body pre-resurrection:

2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,
3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.
4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

Jesus appeared in a material body post resurrection. He ate a meal with the apostles/disciples.

If He is not presently in possession of this body what happened to it? - what is the preterist explanation Tom?

HankD