Did jesus Come In the "Likeness" Or "Exactness" of Human Flesh?

[JesusFan]

When the Bible states thast Jesus has come "in the flesh"...

What 'type" of flesh does it refer too?

identical to ours, sinless, or?

And does this mean that Virgin Birth MUST be held to as a Christian, cannot be "set aside?"

 

[revmwc]

Jesus came as fully human but without a sin nature. So he was in the form of created man with the ability to make choices, that is why the bible says he was tempted as we were but didn't give in to sin.

 

[glfredrick]

This was dealt with early on in the history of the church (Nicean Council, 325 ad) in order to set aside the first major heresy (that Jesus was only God) and the second major heresy (that Jesus was only man).

An annotated Nicean Creed is below:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten (γεννηθέντα), not made, being of one substance (ὁμοούσιον, consubstantialem) with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not (ἤν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν), or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion — all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.

Further, the discussion as to the substance of Christ -- homoousion
(ὁμοούσιον) -- is the most critical part of the actions of the Council.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc3.iii.xii.xi.html?scrBook=John&scrCh=14&scrV=10#highlight

Starting from the idea of God, Athanasius argues: The relation of Father is not accidental, arising in time; else God would be changeable;14061406 Orat. i. contra Arianos, c. 28 (p. 433): Διὰ τοῦτο ἀεὶ πατὴρ καὶ οὐκ ἐπιγέγονε (accidit) τῷ Θεῷ τὸ πατὴρ, ἳνα μὴ καὶ τρεπτὸς εἶναι νομισθῇ. Εἰ γὰρ καλὸν τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πατέρα, οὐκ ἀεὶ δὲ ἦν πατὴρ, οὐκ ἀεὶ ἄρα τὸ καλὸν ἦν αὐτῷ. Though to this it might be objected that by the incarnation of the Logos and the permanent reception of human nature into fellowship with the divine, a certain change has passed, after all, upon the deity. it belongs as necessarily to the essence and character of God as the attributes of eternity, wisdom, goodness, and holiness; consequently he must have been Father from eternity, and this gives the eternal generation of the Son.14071407 Orat. ii. c. Arianos, c. 1 sqq. (p. 469 sqq.); Orat. iii. c. 66 (p. 615), and elsewhere. The divine fatherhood and sonship is the prototype of all analagous relations on earth. As there is no Son without Father, no more is there Father without Son. An unfruitful Father were like a dark light, or a dry fountain, a self-contradiction. The non-existence of creatures, on the contrary, detracts nothing from the perfection of the Creator, since he always has the power to create when he will.14081408 This last argument, in the formally logical point of view, may not be perfectly valid; for there may as well be a distinction between an ideal and real fatherhood, as between an ideal and real creatorship; and, on the other hand, one might reason with as good right backwards from the notion of essential omnipotence to an eternal creation, and say with Hegel: Without the world God is not God. But from the speculative and ethical point of view a difference must unquestionably be admitted, and an element of truth be acknowledged in the argument of Athanasius. The Father needed the Son for his own self-consciousness, which is inconceivable without an object. God is essentially love, and this realizes itself in the relation of Father and Son, and in the fellowship of the Spirit: Ubi amor ibi trinitas. The Son is of the Father’s own interior essence, while the creature is exterior to God and dependent on the act of his will.14091409 Orat. i. c. 29 (p. 433): Τὸ ποίημα ἔξωθεν τοῦ ποιοῦντός ἐστιν ... ὁ δὲ υἱὸς ἴδιον τῆς οὐσίας γέννημά ἐστι· διὸ καὶ τὸ μὲν ποίημα οὐκ ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ εἶναι, ὅτε γὰρ βούλεται ὁ δημιουργὸς ἐργάζεται, τὸ δὲ γέννημα οὐ βουλήσει ὑπόκειται, ἀλλὰ τη̈̑́ς οὐσίας ἐστὶν ἰδιότης . God, furthermore, cannot be conceived without reason (ἄλογος), wisdom, power, and according to the Scriptures (as the Arians themselves concede) the Son is the Logos, the wisdom, the power, the Word of God, by which all things were made. As light rises from fire, and is inseparable from it, so the Word from God, the Wisdom from the Wise, and the Son from the Father.14101410 Comp. the 4th Oration against the Arians, cap. 1 sqq. (p. 617 sqq.) The Son, therefore, was in the beginning, that is, in the beginning of the eternal divine being, in the original beginning, or from eternity. He himself calls himself one with the Father, and Paul praises him as God blessed forever.14111411 The Θεόςin the well-known passage, Rom. ix. 6, is thus repeatedly by Athanasus, e.g., Orat. i. contra Arianos, c. 11; Orat. iv. c. 1, and by other fathers (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Chrysostom), as well as by the Reformers and most of the orthodox expositors, referred to Christ. This interpretation, too, is most suitable to the connection, and in perfect harmony with the Christology of Paul, who sets forth Christ as the image of God, the possessor of the fulness of the divine life and glory, the object of worship (Phil. ii. 6; Col. i. 15 ff.; ii. 9; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Eph. v. 5; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Tit. ii. 13); and who therefore, as well as John, i. 1, could call him in the predicative sense Θεός, i.e., of divine essence, in distinction from ὁ Θεόςwith the article.
Finally Christ cannot be a proper object of worship, as he is represented in Scripture and has always been regarded in the Church, without being strictly divine. To worship a creature is idolatry.

When we attentively peruse the warm, vigorous, eloquent, and discriminating controversial writings of Athanasius and his co-laborers, and compare with them the vague, barren, almost entirely negative assertions and superficial arguments of their opponents, we cannot escape the impression that, with all their exegetical and dialectical defects in particulars, they have on their side an overwhelming preponderance of positive truth, the authority of holy Scripture, the profounder speculations of reason, and the prevailing traditional faith of the early church.14121412 We say the prevailing faith; not denying that the theological knowledge and statement of the doctrine of the trinity had hitherto been in many respects indefinite and wavering. The learned bishop Bull, indeed, endeavored to prove, in opposition to the Jesuit Petavius, that the ante-Nicene fathers taught concerning the deity of the Son the very same things as the Nicene. Comp. the Preface to his Defensio fidei Nicaenae, ed. Burton, Oxf. 1827, vol. v. Pars. 1, p. ix.: “De summa rei, quam aliis persuadere volo, plane ipse, neque id temere, persuasus sum, nempe, quod de Filii divinitate contra Arium, idem re ipsa (quanquam aliis fortasse nonnunquam verbis, alioque loquendi modo) docuisse Patres ac doctores ecclesiae probatos ad unum omnes, qui ante tempora synodi Nicaenae, ab ipsa usque apostolorum aetate, floruerunt.” But this assertion can be maintained only by an artificial and forced interpretation of many passages, and goes upon a mechanical and lifeless view of history. Comp. also the observations of W. Cunningham, Historical Theology, vol. i. p. 269 ff.
The spirit and tendency of the Nicene doctrine is edifying; it magnifies Christ and Christianity. The Arian error is cold and heartless, degrades Christ to the sphere of the creature, and endeavors to substitute a heathen deification of the creature for the true worship of God. For this reason also the faith in the true and essential deity of Christ has to this day an inexhaustible vitality, while the irrational Arian fiction of a half-deity, creating the world and yet himself created, long ago entirely outlived itself.14131413 Dorner, l.c. i. p. 883, justly says: “Not only to the mind of our time, but to all sound reason, does it seem absurd, nay, superstitious, that an under-god, a finite, created being, should be the creator.”

 

[percho]

When the Bible states thast Jesus has come "in the flesh"...

What 'type" of flesh does it refer too?

identical to ours, sinless, or?

And does this mean that Virgin Birth MUST be held to as a Christian, cannot be "set aside?"

He came exactly as we are a living soul which is sinful flesh. However. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: And he was was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin.
Now the sin of the first man Adam brought death to all men even when sin is not imputed they still died for they were sinful flesh derived from the first man Adam, who was the figure of him that was to come. The Word made flesh. Jesus, the Word made made in the likeness of sinful flesh, a living soul
Phil. 2:7 but emptied himself. Emptied himself of what? How about life in himself? Eternal life? balance of Phil. 7,8 and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Heb. 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. You cannot die if you have eternal life. Rom. 5:8 Christ died for us. John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Is this glory eternal life, life in oneself and the Holy Spirit? John 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; John 5:21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth 1 Cor. 15:46 Howbeit that [was] not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural;(the first Adam the figure and Jesus) and afterward (after the resurrection)that which is spiritual. V:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit. Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit, It was the Word made in the likeness of sinful flesh that died that was regenerated and given the Holy Spirit, renewed to his former glory. And it is by the washing of his regeneration that we shall be saved. Rom. 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death (washed in his blood) of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.(His regenerated life)

 

[webdog]

Jesus was 100% human as we are yet without sin.

 

[Winman]

Jesus was 100% human as we are yet without sin.

I agree, which provides two possibilities.

#1 If we were born with a sin nature, then so was Jesus.

#2 If Jesus was not born with a sin nature, then neither are we.

Take your pick, it must be one or the other.

 

[webdog]

I agree, which provides two possibilities.

#1 If we were born with a sin nature, then so was Jesus.

#2 If Jesus was not born with a sin nature, then neither are we.

Take your pick, it must be one or the other.

As someone who doesn't believe sin nature = spiritual death, I tend to gravitate towards #1. As someone who is in Christ possessing a sin nature and not spiritually dead there is no contradiction.

 

[revmwc]

I agree, which provides two possibilities.

#1 If we were born with a sin nature, then so was Jesus.

#2 If Jesus was not born with a sin nature, then neither are we.

Take your pick, it must be one or the other.

#1 is a false assumption. We have a human earthly Father who passes the sin nature down to His children. Jesus Father was not earthly but God a Spirit so the passing of the nature was bypassed.
You may ask why would Mary not pass it down, Eve was decieved by Satan and willing Partook, Adam was the head of the family and therefore responsible for the family. Every responsibility for the family was Adams, it is the Father who is the head of the family so through the father is passed the nature of sin. Therefore God could provide His Son through human means by the woman and bypass the need for an earthly Father so the nature to sin would not be passed down. That is exactly what God did. This also shows why #2 is also a false assumption.

 

[webdog]

#1 is a false assumption. We have a human earthly Father who passes the sin nature down to His children. Jesus Father was not earthly but God a Spirit so the passing of the nature was bypassed.
You may ask why would Mary not pass it down, Eve was decieved by Satan and willing Partook, Adam was the head of the family and therefore responsible for the family. Every responsibility for the family was Adams, it is the Father who is the head of the family so through the father is passed the nature of sin. Therefore God could provide His Son through human means by the woman and bypass the need for an earthly Father so the nature to sin would not be passed down. That is exactly what God did. This also shows why #2 is also a false assumption.

This view limit's His humanness. If He is like us in every manner we are...yet...without sin, His humanity must be exactly like ours. The difference is we don't have the ability to resist our human nature prior to being in Christ, and since Christ was conceived "in Christ", He did not have that issue.

 

[revmwc]

This view limit's His humanness. If He is like us in every manner we are...yet...without sin, His humanity must be exactly like ours. The difference is we don't have the ability to resist our human nature prior to being in Christ, and since Christ was conceived "in Christ", He did not have that issue.

You miss the point Christ was fully Human as Adam was created with the ability to give into temptation that is why Satan tried so hard, but Jesus didn't succumb to temptation. As in other threads and especially the one on Carnallity those of us who have been debating the carnality issue have provided scripture after scripture and also posted several well known bible teachers view on the Old Sin Nature.
Christ was born as man was created with a Body, Soul and Spirit. We are born Spiritually dead, but as Adam was given a choice to sin or not too he chose to sin, Christ being tempted as we did not give into sin. When Adam sinned that Nature to sin begin to be passed from father to children from that point on and that is the difference.

 

[webdog]

You miss the point Christ was fully Human as Adam was created with the ability to give into temptation that is why Satan tried so hard, but Jesus didn't succumb to temptation. As in other threads and especially the one on Carnallity those of us who have been debating the carnality issue have provided scripture after scripture and also posted several well known bible teachers view on the Old Sin Nature.
Christ was born as man was created with a Body, Soul and Spirit. We are born Spiritually dead, but as Adam was given a choice to sin or not too he chose to sin, Christ being tempted as we did not give into sin. When Adam sinned that Nature to sin begin to be passed from father to children from that point on and that is the difference.

Christ is the Second Adam, not to be taken as having been molded in the first Adam's fashion. We don't share the relation to the first Adam, but we are told in Scripture we do with Christ as He was human in every manner we are. We are not told Adam was human in every manner we are.

Also, there was no curse in the World when the first Adam was created, but Christ was born under the curse as we are.

In addition, I deny that man is tripartite.

 

[revmwc]

Do you know who DR. Wallvoord is? He is a past Professor and I believe Chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary. You probably know several of it's graduates and one was at one point I believe the President, that being Chuck Swindoll. Other mpoted graduates from DTS are Tony Evans and David Jeremiah. Dr. Ryrie was dean of doctoral studies until his retirement in 1983. Here is Dr. Wallvoords teaching on the Old Sin Nature.

John Wallvoord,

"Man’s Inadequacy
Those who become Christians by faith in Christ soon discover that being born again does not automatically solve all their spiritual problems. Satan, who has done everything he can to keep a person from becoming a Christian, now changes his tactics to keeping a Christian from achieving a real testimony for Christ.

1. The Christian is faced with a world system that is contrary to serving the Lord. The world’s standards, its values, its immorality, and its materialism constitute a formidable opposition to a Christian who wants to serve the Lord effectively.

2. Satan also will do all he can to keep a Christian from fulfilling God’s plan for his life. Christians, accordingly, are exhorted to “be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings” (1 Peter 5:8-9).

3. In addition to satanic opposition, which can be very real in a Christian’s life, we still have a sin nature. Even though we are born again and have a new nature in Christ, the sin nature resists the desires and goals of the new nature. What we were before we were saved tends to draw us back into the old life, which does not honor Christ. This is not a peculiar problem for some Christians; it is a problem for all Christians. The apostle Paul speaks of this when he states, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (Rom. 7:18-20). After further discussion of this problem, Paul concludes “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24-25).

The answer to this inadequacy of human beings to solve their own problems, even after they are saved, is found in God’s provision for power over sin and the power to have victory in Christ. To accomplish the purpose of a Christian leading a holy life, God has made rich provision."

 

[Winman]

This view limit's His humanness. If He is like us in every manner we are...yet...without sin, His humanity must be exactly like ours. The difference is we don't have the ability to resist our human nature prior to being in Christ, and since Christ was conceived "in Christ", He did not have that issue.

I like what you said here Webdog. There is one difference between Christ and us, we are created souls and spirit, while Jesus was not created and has existed for eternity.
My view is that God cannot create himself, because he was not created. Therefore, any creation must necessarily be inferior to Jesus who is the Creator. As God cannot lie, he also cannot create anything as good as himself, as he is the pinnacle of perfection.

But having the capacity to be tempted does not prove a sin nature, as Adam and Eve were created without a sin nature, yet they could be tempted (and were), and could sin (and did).

I believe the scriptures teach we are made or created upright, and that at conception have done neither good or evil.

Ecc 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man UPRIGHT, but THEY have sought out many inventions.

I believe the word "they" shows this is speaking of all men, and not just Adam.

Rom 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, NEITHER HAVING DONE ANY GOOD OR EVIL, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; )

Esau and Jacob were quite alive when this was spoken, although still in Rebecca's womb, but the scripture says they had done neither good or evil. I believe this argues against being born with a sin nature.

No, we are flesh, and Jesus said the flesh is weak. Adam and Eve were flesh, and were easily tempted to sin, yet neither had a sin nature.

 

[revmwc]

Christ is the Second Adam, not to be taken as having been molded in the first Adam's fashion. We don't share the relation to the first Adam, but we are told in Scripture we do with Christ as He was human in every manner we are. We are not told Adam was human in every manner we are.

Also, there was no curse in the World when the first Adam was created, but Christ was born under the curse as we are.

In addition, I deny that man is tripartite.

Define the curse you speak of.

 

[webdog]

Define the curse you speak of.

Death, and the material and immaterial change to all creation throughout the universe.

 

[revmwc]

In addition, I deny that man is tripartite.

So don't deny your Spiritual birth? Interesting, how can you be a Christian and not be tripartite?
I was born wih a Body and soul as a dicotomus being, but when I received Christ I became complete a trichotomus, triparite being, because I became Spiritually alive with the Holy Spirit in my Human Spirit.

 

[webdog]

So don't deny your Spiritual birth? Interesting, how can you be a Christian and not be tripartite?
I was born wih a Body and soul as a dicotomus being, but when I received Christ I became complete a trichotomus, triparite being, because I became Spiritually alive with the Holy Spirit in my Human Spirit.

Non sequitur as Scripture uses spirit and soul interchangeably. I believe man is material and immaterial. The new birth has nothing to do with whether you view man as being tripartite, as it is immaterial (as told to Nicodemus). This probably needs it's own thread, but there have been many good ones in my time here that deal with both views in great detail.

 

[revmwc]

Non sequitur as Scripture uses spirit and soul interchangeably. I believe man is material and immaterial. The new birth has nothing to do with whether you view man as being tripartite, as it is immaterial (as told to Nicodemus). This probably needs it's own thread, but there have been many good ones in my time here that deal with both views in great detail.

So you deny scripture yet again. When Moses wrote in Genesis 1: 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

That man was created in the image of God and if God is one in essence but three in persons then man was created as a triparite, body, soul and spirit. Then upon sin the children were born spiritually dead thus in need of Spiritual life. Otherwise if man is a two part being then you deny the trinity of God. So which one do you not believe?

 

[Aaron]

I can't believe the claptrap belched in this thread in the guise of theology!

1) Christ was every bit human, but incorruptible. He did NOT have a sin nature. To assert otherwise is heretical. We are born corrupt and under the reign of death. Christ was not.

2) He was not born under the curse, He was made under the Law, which brings a curse to the disobedient. Christ kept the whole law.

3) He was made to be sin and a curse for us upon the cross, died and was made subject to the pains of death, which is more than the physical trauma of the crucifixion. But the pains of death could not hold Him because of His divinity.

webdog and Winman should be poster children for old Catholicism which forbad anyone but the clergy to read and interpret the Bible, but, alas, their violence to the Scriptures is but the cost of our liberty.

 

[webdog]

So you deny scripture yet again. When Moses wrote in Genesis 1: 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Sigh...I deny YOUR understanding of Scripture. You are not immutable truth. You read an awful lot into that passage in Genesis 1. That is called eisegesis.

The image of God is material and immaterial. There are also places in Scripture that state man is heart, mind, soul, strength. Why are you only tripartite since Scripture is so clear man is 5 or more parts? Do you deny Scripture?

Like I said, start a new thread on this if you like...don't derail this one.