Was Jesus human like us or a different kind of human?

[Aaron]

The Incarnation is a mystery, but the one thing we can't leave the discussion with is mistaking our own corruptions as created human nature instead of human nature corrupted.

You call your lusts a temptation, but they aren't temptations. Neither are the objects of your lusts. It's your corruption.

You think your imperfect love for the Father is the love that is commanded, and you mistake the love your feel for your idols for temptations. The love for your idols aren't a temptation, and neither are your idols. It's your corruption.

Christ was not corrupted. To do the will of the Father was His food. To do the will of God was the one thing He hungered and thirsted for. And doing the will of the Father was the only thing that satisfied Him.

I don't think anyone here could say the same in truth, and I don't think anyone here has faced temptation anywhere near to the degree that our Savior did.

 

[1689Dave]

"kenosis" is a scripture word (Philippians 2:7) and NOT a "fabrication" and is also linked to the incarnation (John 1:14).

Jesus is the Second person of the Trinity (the Logos) come in the flesh.

i agree that he is perfect in every way both in his deity and humanity.

He IS a human being as well as almighty God.

Philippians 2
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

The doctrine based on it is a man made fabrication that says Jesus was less than God.

 

[1689Dave]

God's character cannot change, but God is living and can do whatever He wants to do. If you say that God cannot change, you are actually saying that God cannot act. He cannot make covenants with humankind, He cannot wait until a certain moment or situation and then treat a person or persons in a new way, in light of changed circumstances.


You are holding a very particular set of ideas from Greek philosophy that are quite unhelpful in talking about the God reveal in scripture. You have assigned a moral value to "perfection" and therefore cannot conceive of change in God because that would mean He was previously immoral or will be immoral.


You are defining God as a series of attributes, not as a Person. That's quite insulting to God. It is a belittling of the Person from whom everyone else derives their personhood.

To use a very crude illustration, if you were to set aside the ability to write with a pen and paper in favor of typing with a keyboard because many people had trouble interpreting your writing, does that change who you are? No. It simply means you are writing in a different way, potentially more suitable for your purposes of communication. But if I suddenly protested, "Wait, Dave can't easily draw little doodles at the sides of the pages with a simple keyboard. Therefore you are not Dave anymore." You would rightly think I was a fool. Of course you could draw doodles after you had finished working within the limitations of the keyboard. You had not lost that ability, but had set it aside for a while to communicate another way so that people could more easily understand you.


His glory was masked and His abilities (what you call attributes) were severely restricted to what a man could do. That does not mean that He was not God, but that He was simply using a different way to communicate. He came as one of us, except He was, and continued to be, without sin.


It is very clear that you think God's power/abilities makes God divine, not His Person/Nature or character.

Thanks for the lengthy reply. But if God is perfect, how can any change not be to imperfection?

 

[1689Dave]

Was the incarnate Jesus OMNIPRESENT?
It would seem He 'emptied' Himself of that attribute when he entered Time-space as a man.

Jesus was God, with two natures. One fully Divine (omniscient) and one fully human (limited). He spoke and acted in either mode depending on his will.

 

[Baptist Believer]

Thanks for the lengthy reply. But if God is perfect, how can any change not be to imperfection?

Because He is God. His character and Personhood does not change, but God can change if He wants to change. The Son became fully human according to the will of the Triune God.

Do you realize that you are effectively denying the incarnation? Luke tells us clearly that Jesus "grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). That is certainly change, but not a change in character or Personhood.

Exactly how does God pull this off? Mere humans do not know.

Jesus was God, with two natures. One fully Divine (omniscient) and one fully human (limited). He spoke and acted in either mode depending on his will.

Jesus is fully God and fully human, yet one substance/Person. He was not speaking and acting in "modes," but a fully integrated and inseparably united. He will be forever this way.

 

[HankD]

The doctrine based on it is a man made fabrication that says Jesus was less than God.

REPEAT the Kenosis does not have a commonly accepted and detailed definition but varies in systematic theologies.

I showed one example from a Systematic Theology textbook (The one used by my school - Calvary University - in the late 60's, early 70's).

Here it is again;

...any theory that supposes that God the Son could cease to be what He ever has been and ever will be is error of the first magnitude.

Systematic Theology, Lewis Sperry Chafer;Vail-Ballou Press,1971; Volume I, pg.374 (The Kenosis).

He opens the section with the following statement:

In this division of Christology, consideration must be given to one passage of Scripture which, due to the fact that unbelief has misinterpreted and magnified it all out of proportion, is more fully treated exegetically by scholars of past generations than almost any other in the word of God

Chafer then goes on to exegete the true orthodox meaning of the Kenosis (derived from the word kenoo in Philippians 2:7)

This was taken from the Chapter Section called "The Kenosis".

While it is true that Neo-Orthodoxy and perhaps some of New-Evangelicalism MAKES the Kenosis into a dogma stripping Jesus Christ of His deity it is not true of every modern Christian teaching body.

What you are saying can be confusing to people because "kenosis" is a word taken from scripture but with its true meaning (along with most by neo-orthodoxy) distorted by unbelief.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

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