Tag Archives: Trinity

St Cyril and the Incarnate Word

28 Tuesday Jun 2016

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Although it is often observed that St. Cyril does not use the word ‘theosis’ very often, the concept of our divinisation is central to his thought; indeed, set in the Alexandrian tradition, and soaked in the writings of St. Athanasius the Apostolic, it would have been amazing had that not been the case. St. Cyril expands our understanding of the famous Athansian saying that: ‘He was made man so that we might be made god.’ St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione 54.]

As relevant now, as then, was St. Cyril’s statement that someone who claimed to believe in God as a Christian must believe in God the Father, the Son who became Incarnate, and the Holy Spirit. [Farag, 78 for full references.]  The Holy Spirit is fully part of the Godhead, since ‘all things are by the Father, through the Son in the Spirit’; this characteristically Cyrilline formula is one he refers to again and again.

If we look at St. John 17.23: ‘I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one’, we see his conception of the ‘economy’ that has taken place for our salvation. The Word leaves His equality with God the Father, emptying Himself, as in Philippians 2, and taking upon Himself an earthly temple from the Virgin’s womb, He became one with us also, but He was still what He had always been: Christ is one and the Son is one. Even though the flesh is not of the nature of the Father and does not enjoy union with Him, it is still one with the Word and is thus in union with God. In no other way can man have union with God except through the Incarnate Word. The union with the Spirit, which was a union without confusion with God the Word and in an inexpressible way, sanctified the flesh; only this way can St. Athanasius’ saying be properly understood. Only through The Word’s own flesh can we come into contact with the Trinity; only through Eucharist, through the flesh of Christ, can we participate in His divinity. [Koen, p. 20.]

For St. Cyril, John 1.14 is especially relevant here: ‘he says not that the Word came into flesh, but that It was made Flesh, that you might not suppose that He came into it as in the case of the prophets or any other of the Saints by participation, but did Himself become actual Flesh, that is man’.  [In Jo. 1:14.]

This anti-docetic emphasis points us to the crux of his future disagreement with Nestorius, for it develops St. Athanasius’ soteriology; only through the Incarnate Word is God is able to lead humanity to deification. Both Saints are following the Pauline theme, developed in Philippians, of divine kenosis. Through the union of the divine and the human, He allows the sanctification and deification of humanity; through that we are united with the Father. Long before Nestorius preached, St, Cyril was teaching the truth expressed in St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ phrase: ‘what is not assumed cannot be healed.’ There are, as he shows us in his commentary on John 6:22, two stages in our sonship: the first, through the Incarnation, which is a sonship in general; the second comes in our personal participation in the divine nature through the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist.

For St. Cyril the renewal of mankind is not simply a return of man to his original state; like St. Irenaeus before him, he maintained that Christ ‘did not simply return man to his original state, but offers him gifts from God which were not in the possession of Adam.’  R.L. Wilken, Judaism and the Christian Mind (NY, 1971)]  Adam did not partake of the divine nature; only in Christ did man receive divine sonship. Through the ‘second Adam’ mankind gains far than it had lost in the Fall: ‘we became diseased through the disobedience of the first Adam and his curse, but we have become rich through the obedience of the second and his blessings.’  [Koen, p. 41, citing In Jo. 1:14.]  Mankind cannot grasp this blessing by its own efforts; only through the mediation of the Spirit, in the sacraments, can we become sons of God. It is in St. Cyril that concept of divinisation as taught by the earlier Fathers reaches full maturity.[Keating, Theology of St. Cyril, p. 149.[Keating, Theology of St. Cyril, p. 149.]  ‘God the Father therefore gives life to all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit’, [St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, part 1 (Oriental Orthodox Library, 2006),In Luc. 22:17-22 p. 569] .and the Son, by putting on our nature, refashions it to his own life. And he himself is also in us, for we have all become partakers of him, and have him in ourselves through the Spirit. For this reason, we have become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4), and are reckoned as sons, and so too have in ourselves the Father himself through the Son. [In Jo. 14.20]

Salvation is the work of the Trinity, not of one part of it.

The Road to Emmaus

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Salvation

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“They were going to a village named Emmaus, Jesus approached and began traveling with them; beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures Lk. 24:13-27.

Jesus testified about all the OT scriptures concerning Himself John 5:39, Luke 24:13-27 teaching His disciples. He is the source of their teaching about Himself, what they learned about is what they taught them. With the Old Testament and the life of Jesus Paul and the others were equipped to write the New Testament revelation through the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 12:1-6 (A New Translation by J.N. Darby)

“In that day you shall say, ‘Jehovah, I will praise You; for though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You have comforted me.’ Behold, God is my salvation: I will trust, and not be afraid; for Jah, is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation. And with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall you say, ‘Give thanks to Jehovah, call upon His name, declare His deeds among the peoples, make mention that His Name is exalted. Sing psalms of Jehovah, for He hath done excellent things in all the earth.’ Cry out and shout, you inhabitants of Zion; for great is ‘The Holy One of Israel’ in the midst of you.”

This passage alone indicates that the resurrected Lord must have been with these two disciples for quite some time. It is remarkable for its brevity which encompasses ‘Five Names of God’ and reveals the relationship between these well-known Old Testament Names and the New Testament Name of Jesus who is both God and Man, our Lord Jesus Christ is clearly shown in this passage.

The Names of God are first listed 1) to 5) in order of frequency as they appear in the passage.

1) יְהוָה (YHVH) ‘The Tetragrammaton’.

The Old Testament personal Name of God occurring in 5,321 places. It is considered un-utterable in the synagogue where it is usually substituted with the Name Adonai (Lord) This Tetragrammaton is translated LORD in most translations and Jehovah in other translations. This Name is frequently pronounced incorrectly as “Jah-weigh”. The actual pronunciation is unknown.

2) אֵל (EL) God, god, mighty one.

The Old Testament use of the word either denotes the ordinary name “god” or “the God” of Israel.

3) יְשׁוּעָה (Yeshua) is the Hebrew name for Jesus.

Yeshua, (Jesus) the Son of God occurs 78 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. In the KJV this word is translated in the Old Testament as salvation 65 times. help 4 times, deliverance 3 times, health 3 times, and save, saving or welfare one time each. See some New Testament texts below:-

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: (Yeshua) for he shall save his people from their sins” Matthew 1:21. “To him give all the prophets witness, that through His Name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins” Acts 10:43.
“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on him. For whosoever will call on the name of the LORD will be saved Rom.10:12-13.”

The Tetragrammaton is not a Name that may be called upon for salvation, as it cannot be pronounced. Jesus, the Name which all men may believe upon for salvation, is easily uttered. What better Name for Him, ‘The Lamb of God’ who takes away the sin of the world than ‘Salvation’?

4) יְה (Jah) a contracted form of the Tetragrammaton:

Jah occurs 50 times in the Old Testament. It is sometimes rendered “LORD” in the KJV.

5) קְדוֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל (Kidosh Yisra’el):

‘Kidosh Yisra’el’ – ‘The Holy One of Israel’ occurs 37 times in the Old Testament.

Isaiah 12:1-6 (JND) is modified below by modernising personal pronouns and various terms and substituting the English names of God for the Hebrew Names and inserting transliterated forms in parentheses to indicate the Son of God, His incarnation, crucifixion and atonement, second coming and also the believer’s salvation through Him.

Isaiah 12:1 “And in that day you shall say, יְהוָה (YHVH / Yahweh), I will praise You; for though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You have comforted me.” – Here sin is atoned for and forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ is available. Rom.3:25, 1 Jn.4:10. For only in Christ can a man’s sin be forgiven and only in Christ may mankind find and know the comfort of God. 2Cor.1:3-4.

Isaiah 12:2 “Behold, אֵל (EL) is my יְשׁוּעָה (Yeshua): I will trust, and not be afraid; for יְה (Jah) יְהוָה (YHVH / Yahweh), is my strength and song, and He is become my יְשׁוּעָה (Yeshua).” – Here we see we see the God of Israel is one and the same as Yeshua and that His very Name means Salvation. We see the incarnation of Christ and His crucifixion, as He becomes the salvation of sinners. We read that for the believer trust displaces fear 2Tim.1:7, Rev.1:17 as the sinner owns Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. So with sins forgiven and knowing God as his strength and his song he goes rejoicing. In this we see the change and empowerment the Holy Spirit brings as the believer is baptized with reference to and for the Body of Christ 1Cor.12:13.


Isaiah 12:3 “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of יְשׁוּעָה (Yeshua).” – Here we see the believer’s dependence on Christ for his very sustenance and the Christian’s joy as he draws from the Holy Spirit, who is seen in the water Jn.4:1, and who leads the believer in service of Christ His Lord Act.6:8.


Isaiah 12:4 “In that day shall you say, Give thanks to יְהוָה (YHVH / Yahweh), call on His Name, declare his deeds among the peoples, make mention that His Name is exalted.”

The four-fold works of the believer ‘in Christ’ are here:


    1) Giving thanks and praise to God for the ‘Matchless One’, and for every provision in every

       difficulty Eph.1:6; Php.1:11.

   2) He calls upon the Lord with prayers and supplications; Php.4:6.
    3) Being missions minded Act.13:2, declaring the glad-tidings of salvation, among the nations

       and calling them to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ 1Cor.15:1; Php.1:14; Titus 2:1.
    4) He teaches new believers to exalt our Lord Jesus at all times in everything they do Col. 1:28

       &3:16.

Isaiah 12:5 “Sing psalms of יְהוָה (YHVH / Yahweh), for He has done excellent things: this is known in all the earth.” – The believer worships ‘The Most High’ in words of highest praise.

Isaiah 12:6 “Cry out and shout, you inhabitants of Zion; for great is the קְדוֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל (Kidosh Yisra’el) in the midst of you.”

Here Jesus is returned to earth. In Rev.14:1 the faithful, those in the first resurrection Phil. 3:10-11 are with Him and behold His greatness. They sing together ‘The Song of Moses and the Lamb’ Rev. 15:3-6; Deut. 32:1-43 and participate in His Millennial reign Rev. 20:6; Matt. 24:45-47; Rom. 8:7&18; 1 Cor. 4:7-10; 2 Cor. 4:17; 2 Tim. 2:11-12; Heb. 11:25; Rev. 2:26; 3:21; 7:14.

For Geoffrey on topic http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols10-12/chs547.pdf

Tags: Salvation, Forgiveness / Atonement, Jesus Christ, Trinity, Suffering & Rewards.

Gospel for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity: Year A

15 Sunday Jun 2014

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St John 3:16-18

Chrysostom comments on the intensity revealed by the words ‘God so loved the world’. He who is Infinite, majestic and immortal, loves us, who are none of these things in our fallen state; the depth of the love is shown by the fact He sent not an angel or some other creature, but His Son. The Son laid down His life for us, showing the depth of His love. We dress ourselves in finery of all kind, but we neglect Our Lord who passes hungry and naked, even though He has given his life for our lives.

St Gregory Nazianzen reminds us that Jesus lost nothing of His divinity when he saved us. Like a good physician he stooped to bind our wounds. Though He was mortal man, He remained God. He was of the race of David, but Adam’s creator. He who had no body, clothed himself in flesh, and had a mother, though she remained a virgin; he who was without bonds, bound himself with the cords of our humanity; he who was high priest was at the same time the sacrificial lamb; he offered up his blood and yet cleansed the world thereby. Though he was lifted onto the cross, it was sin that was nailed to it; he became as one who was dead, but rose from the dead and killed death for all who believe. On the one hand was the majesty of his divinity, on the other the poverty of his human form. Do not let hat is human in the Son permit you, wrongfully, to detract from what is divine. For the sake of the divine, hold in the greatest honour the humanity which the Immortal Son took on himself – and all for the love of you and I.

St Isaac the Syrian reminds us that in saving us in the way he did, God sets out to show us the nature of love. he gives us the thing most dear to him; had he anything more precious than his son, he would have given it to us. Out of that great love he does not compel our love (though he could) he aims that we come close to him by our love. This is a point made also by Ephrem the Syrian, who comments that if God had sent just one of his servants then it would not have shown the depth of his love.

St Augustine points out that unless the Father had handed over life, we could never have had life; unless life itself was slain, then death could not have died. Bede adds that the one who, through the power of divinity had created man to enjoy eternal felicity, restores us through his sacrifice.

Chrysostom warns us against the idea of reading these lines as though they mean that that there is no hell and no future punishment. There are, we should remember, two advents: the first was not to judge us but to pardon us; the second coming will be to judge us not to pardon us. He came, as He told us, to save the world; but He has told us that when He comes again in glory, the quick and the dead will be raised and judged; if He had judged first, none would have been spared; this is His great mercy, that he has given to all of us the chance to be saved. Those who do not believe condemn themselves, and when they rise, it will be to torment and not felicity. As Pope St Gregory the Great tells us, the day of judgment will not try those whose unbelief has already banished them from the sight of God. Then those who have believed will be tried.

Irenaeus writes that separation from God is death, just as separation from the light is to be plunged into the dark. We should repent and seek his face whilst it is still to be found. All too soon it will be too late.

Discussing the Trinity

01 Sunday Jun 2014

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Yesterday’s post on the Visitation produced, as does any discussion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the usual response from Bosco to the effect that she was ‘just a woman’ and that her son was ‘just a man’; no one claimed more than the first, but the latter is heresy. Bosco, as ever, quoted the usual verses about Jesus being the ‘Son of Man’, and between us, Servus Fidelis, myself and Bosco, went through a karaoke version of the Arian crisis. It was, therefore, refreshing to find that our relatively new commentator, Theophiletos, had managed, in the middle of moving house, to find access to the internet to post a comment which deserves rescuing from the comments section and setting out in full here. This is what he wrote:

“The fact that Jesus did not stop being God when he became incarnate is proven by Paul’s statement, “in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9), and is implied by Jesus’s own statement that “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt 12:8). After all, who has authority over the Sabbath but God who instituted the Sabbath? Jesus also said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), which, while not precise, probably should be understood to imply that Jesus is still God. Again, Jesus said, “Just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26), which expressly states that a divine attribute held by God the Father is also held by Jesus as the Son of God. The opponents of Jesus understood him to be claiming to be God (John 5:18). The logic of John 1:14 presumes that the Word of God (who was God and with God, according to John 1:1) dwelt among humanity (i.e. became incarnate) while still possessing the “glory as of the only begotten from the Father.” And the prayer of Jesus in John 17 states not only that the Father is in Jesus, but also that Jesus is in the Father, and Jesus prayed that during the time between his birth and his crucifixion. (There’s also a textual variant at John 3:13, where the reading that I suspect is correct (for various technical reasons) states that Jesus while incarnate is in fact still present in heaven.) True, Jesus did not go around saying, “I am God,” but had he done so he would simply have been misunderstood by those around him. Instead, he taught (and the Bible teaches) that he is God even while incarnate. (By the way, the incarnation didn’t stop with the crucifixion and burial; Jesus was raised bodily from the dead. So if Jesus is God and incarnate as a person now, there is no reason he couldn’t be both God and human from his birth.)

Some people say that Jesus stopped using his divine powers during his incarnation (or, as I have seen a few people state it crudely, that Jesus stopped being God), usually citing Philippians 2:6-8, that Jesus “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself.” The question is what he “emptied himself” of. It’s parallel to Paul’s phrase in the next verse that “he humbled himself,” and is explained in its own verse by “taking the form of a slave, and being made in the likeness of men.” In other words, Paul is talking about Jesus choosing to give up his divine glory and the divine prerogative of commanding worship, in order to become what we are. The paradox here is that Jesus “emptied himself” not by giving up what he had, but by taking on himself our own nature, which was empty and lacking in any virtue.

Your king analogy works better than you think. The king doesn’t cease to be the king when he takes off his crown; he just ceases to be recognizable as the king to those who do not know him. So Jesus, when he was born, did not cease to be God, but was not recognizable as God by those who did not know God.”

This seems to me as good a summary of the orthodox position as I have read in short compass, and it is a pleasure to share it with others here who wonder about how Our Lady can be the ‘Mother of God’, and want to know why it matters. It is, as St Cyril of Alexandria said long ago, the key to understanding that the Son is God and Man simultaneously, not sequentially.

Gospel 6th Sunday of Easter, year A

25 Sunday May 2014

Posted by in Bible, Easter, Faith, Homilies, St John

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John 14:15-21

At all times, Chrysostom tells us, it is works and actions that we need, not simply a show of words; promising is easy; doing is not as easy; to love Jesus is to obey His commandments, not just to repeat them. St Cyril comments that having told us that the enjoyment of the heavenly blessings is die to those who love him. Christ goes on to describe the power of love; because it is in the acting, not the speaking that we show our love for Him; if we live by His commands, we do just that. A Christian life is one which is ‘radiant’ with ‘good works’; we are not saved by works, but our faith is in vain if ut does not lead to them. We must understand, St Augustine writes, that he who loves already has the Holy Spirit, because Jesus tells the disciples to love Him and to keep His commandments before they have received him; but they did not yet have him in full measure. If we love him in a way which proves the genuineness of our love by our obedience, He will ask the Father, who will send the Paraclete; Christ continues to petition the Father on our behalf.

In making this promise Jesus shows, Chrysostom comments, the depth of his compassion, because, knowing they would be desolated, He calms their fears by promising that He would petition the Father to send them the Comforter; the Spirit could not come down until the sacrifice made by Christ was complete. The Spirit came, as St Gregory Nazianzus writes, so that we would not lack a Comforter; but this is ‘another’ Comforter, not Christ Himself, but the Holy Spirit, who is equal with the Father and the Son. Christ is, of course, our Comfort and our Advocate, but He and the Spirit are consubstantial, not identical. Both, St Augustine reminds us, are Divine. The Spirit lightens the load of the afflicted. He, the Son and the Father are consubstantial and coeternal, and the Trinity is the fullness of the Godhead.

St Athanasius writes that in the Paraclete, the Word makes glorious the creation, and by bestowing on it divine life and sonship, draws us to the Father. But that which joins creation to the Word cannot beong to the rank of the creatures, and that which bestows Sonship upon the creation cannot be alien from the Son. The Spirit is coeternal and consubstantial. Only the Spirit can adequately glorify the Lord, St Basil comments, and He does so as the Spirit of truth, since he, himself, is the truth shining brightly – he reflects the glory and goodness of the Father from whom he proceeded. He gives those who love and follow Christ the power to see He is the Son; just as no one knows the Father except the Son, no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Spirit. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship on Spirit and truth in His light do we see light, and through the illumination of the Holy Spirit ‘the true light enlightens every one who comes into the world.’

The ‘world’, Bede reminds us, are the inhabitants of this world who are given over to its lusts; but the saints are those on fire for heavenly things. So, anyone searching for consolation in the things of this world is not capable of being reformed inwardly by the favour of divine consolation; he who searches for the low things of this world flees from the Spirit of Truth, who flees from the hearts of those subject to this world and its vanities. Without the Spirit, Augustine tells us, we can neither love God nor keep his commandments. Whosoever has love already has the Spirit, and by that becomes worthy of having Him in even greater measure; and the more of the Spirit he has, the more does he love.

So Jesus is, Augustine writes, like a father to orphans; he will not leave them without aid and comfort. It is impossible, St Cyril remarks, for one’s soul to accomplish anything good, ot to have power over its own passions or to escape the great subtlety of the devil’s snare if the soul is not fortified by the Grace of the Holy Spirit and has Christ Himself – He will be with those who believe, even after the Ascension. The Paraclete inflames all those He fills with a passion for the things of God, those invisible things which the wisdom of this world cannot conceive. Those who love evil in this world will go down to hades, Cyril reminds us, and be banished from the presence of Christ. But the lovers of virtue, who have kept the Spirit inviolate, will dwell with Him in the house of God forever. All will rise at the last, but some to eternal punishment, and others to life with eternal felicity.

Revealing God: a reflection in Lent

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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‘No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him’, St John tells us. Here is the essential difference between the Old and the New Testaments. In the one God is seen through theophanies, in the other, we see Him Incarnate in the flesh. St John stresses ‘that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ’ 

Jesus reveals to us all we need to know about God. He reveals to us the ‘Father’ who is His father and our father. He reveals, too, that he is the Son, but that the Son is one with the Father, which some who take no care to pray and study Scripture, interpret as meaning that He is the Father; He is ‘one’ with Him, not Him. In asking how this can be so, we ask what it means to ‘be one’, and in doing that we enter on the road to the understanding that God is One and Three.

Jesus came among us, the Spirit moves among us, and we are guided, through Grace, to be one with God; but that does not mean we will be God – there is not some strange absorption of ourselves into some Borg-like creature; there is an eternal felicity the nature of which is not revealed to us; we are told what is needful for our salvation. So we should be distrustful of any who say to us there is a new revelation. From the coming of the Spirit to the second coming of the Lord, we have been equipped with what is needed for salvation.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter proclaimed to the crowd, showing them how what was said in the Hebrew Scriptures had come to pass in the Lord Jesus. When they asked what they should do, Peter was clear:

“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Those who were ‘saved’ became the church, those called out from among the unbelievers; as it was then, so is it now, and so will it be until He comes again. We have, through Jesus, been given insights into the deep mysteries of the universe – we are told God is One and God is Three, and he who claims to understand the fullness of that would be a brave fellow. We are told God is love, and yet we see the evil of hatred in ourselves, and yet we are made in His image. We see the prospect of salvation and fear the fires of hell. In the tension between these things, we strive, in fear and trembling, to work our salvation with the help of the Spirit and our fellow Christians.

The joy of the Gospel

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

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One of the marks of the early Church was the joy its members gained from the knowledge of salvation offered by the sacrifice Jesus made for us. There was, it is true, the early attempt by the ‘men from James’ to import the Pharisaic attitude into the Church, using the excuse of the dietary laws, but that one got sent packing. Our Lord Himself commented often enough on the tendency in Second Temple Judaism to know the letter of every law and forget the spirit of it.

One reason I find myself out of sympathy with the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is that I think they have been infected with too large an element of this legalism. I was having a discussion with an Orthodox friend the other day, and he was, to my amazement, sincerely arguing that his fellow Orthodox who had accepted the Gregorian calendar were heretics. I pointed out that the Julian calendar, which he uses, was not the one Christ had, but that didn’t matter, it was older than the Gregorian, and the latter had, he assured me, been introduced by a ‘Pseudo-Pope’. I gave up and got on with eating lunch. I was a bit amazed that he was having lunch with such a blatant heretic; there must, I thought, be some rule against it.

Talking with my fellow elders later, we got into a not dissimilar situation, where some American evangelist of whom I had scarcely heard, was being taken to task because he had been recommending ‘centering prayer’ which was, one elder averred, ‘close to Papism’. Rome, he assured us all, had never changed its ways and was still bent on subverting the ‘real’ Gospel. I did put this website to him and invited him to make the acquaintance of at least one of the bloggers here whose complaint was the exact opposite.

Talking with such people gives me the impression that they see Christianity as a set of rules which, if followed, will save them; this misses the point by such a wide margin that it doesn’t seem possible; yet it happens so often. I am not sure what is going on with such defensiveness. Yes, Christianity has a dogmatic content, but once one has accepted Nicaea – and done so because it tells us who this Jesus is with whom we have a relationship – I simply don’t see why sets of man-made rules, designed to preserve the power of some elite or other, should supervene between the individual and God.

I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe that unless you had a hand put on your head by someone who claims to have had a hand put on his head going all the way back to an Apostle, you can’t be a Christian teacher, or indeed, a Christian. If you do believe that, Google ‘episcopi vagantes’ and prepare to enter the strange world of people who do, and find in that a justification for all sorts of odd, unorthodox stuff.

If the basic Nicene orthodoxy is there, then you are a Christian; that’s the dogma taken care of. What then? Is there joy in your heart? Does that spill over into the rest of your life? Given a choice between spending time with a Christian full of the love that joy brings, and one telling me that a Canon of 1015 means that someone is going to hell, then I am with the former – and wish the latter would pipe down and stop putting other folk off.

Is Jesus the Father? (2)

09 Sunday Feb 2014

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It is easy for the unwary to fall into the trap Bosco blunders around in, insisting that Jesus is the Father, and that the words can be used interchangeably – as though ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are the same thing. How very odd for a literalist to think the two words are the same. That is not to say that those not paying attention to anything save their own interpretation cannot read such verses in that way:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 I and My Father are one.”

But if, as Bosco (and some Pentecostalists, and I suspect Bosco is a ‘oneness pentecostalist’ whether he knows it or not) maintain, Jesus is the Father and the two are interchangeable, precisely what does John 14:28 mean:

You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.

So, Jesus is ‘greater than himself’?  What can this mean? Hebrews 2:9 helps, as it tells us that Jesus ‘was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death’. As Paul told the Philippians:

Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

There were some in the early church (perhaps early Bosco-ites?) who read this as meaning that Jesus only appeared to be a man – a heresy known as Docetism. But they were as wrong as Bosco is in insisting Jesus ‘is the Father’.  It was in trying to understand these statements that the early Church developed the doctrine of the Trinity.

Clearly Jesus is saying He is God, and as St John tells us, in words which condemned the docetists:

2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that[a] Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

But Jesus is also a made man, so in that sense He is lower than God; He is also not the Father, although the Father is God. Now, had Bosco taken the trouble to read, instead of mock, St Cyril of Alexandria, then he would not only not make claims which Jesus never made (He never says ‘I am the Father’), he would begin to know who Jesus is and be able to have a relationship with Him rather than whatever evil spirit has entered him.

St Cyril explained the relationship by what he called the ‘hypostatic union’, which Bosco will no doubt not try to understand, but which, unlike his own ruminations, is based upon what is in the Bible, not what someone wants to be in there. To quote a summary so good that I cannot see how it could better put:

This is the union of the two natures (Divine and human) in the person of Jesus. Jesus is God in flesh (John 1:1,14; 10:30-33; 20:28; Phil. 2:5-8; Heb. 1:8). He is fully God and fully man (Col. 2:9); thus, he has two natures: God and man. He is not half God and half man. He is 100% God and 100% man. He never lost his divinity.  He continued to exist as God when he became a man and added human nature to Himself (Phil. 2:5-11). Therefore, there is a “union in one person of a full human nature and a full divine nature.” Right now in heaven there is a man, Jesus, who is our Mediator between us and God the Father (1 Tim. 2:5). 

This is the answer to what Jesus means when He tells us that He who has seen Him has seen the Father, and that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. It explains who Jesus is praying to, and how the Father can be greater than Him and yet Jesus is God. As the Trinitarian diagram as the top puts it: ‘The Father is God, the Son is God – the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father.’

If Bosco’s spirit, whatever it is, would stop driving him to criticise everyone else, and leave him free to follow the early Christians, it might be that he could enter into a real relationship with the real Jesus; but I am fearful that the spirit that is in Bosco is, having tried it by various tests, not a good or a holy one. Because I want Bosco to come to Jesus, I can end only with the warning St Peter offers:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour

 

The Son

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Salvation

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jesus weeps

The Son was with God in the beginning, and He is God; anyone who has seen the Son has seen the Father. How hard is this for us?  The God whom the Hebrews of old would not say the name of, the God hid in the burning bush, or on Mt Sinai, someone whom the eyes of sinful man may not see, became Incarnate in a human woman, was born as a baby, grew in wisdom, carried on a ministry, was subject to arrest and the travesty of a trial, crucified and buried. This, itself, has been enough of a claim to lead men to this day to say that it could not be so. Jewish monotheism we are told, could not have produced this concept; yet it is there in the New Testament. As St Paul put it in Hebrews:

5 For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”? And again: “I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son”?

6 But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.”

It was this revelation, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, which gave rise to the Christological arguments which we so often cover here, but in this post, I want to go somewhere else.

Jesus provides us with the best example we shall ever get of what God is like, what He requires of us, and of what it means to be a Christian.

There is, as He knew full well, in us, not least in the religious among us, a tendency to need to stick to the rules. It is one way we deal with our self-knowledge of sin. Here, we think, here are the rules by which a good person should live, let us follow them.  In itself there is nothing wrong with this, it is the effect of our own sin on this which creates the problem: it can lead us to be judgmental and to think ourselves somehow better than that sinner over there; it can lead us to compound for the sins we commit by urgent denunciations of those sins to which we are not inclined; it can lead us to follow the letter whilst forgetting the spirit which inspires the law of God. That, Jesus reminds us is summed up thus:

 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’There is no other commandment greater than these.”

God is love, and Jesus is its personification.

This is a love which reaches its fulfilment in self-sacrifice of the most extreme sort. It is an emptying of self in the interests of those who would seem to many of us ‘not worth it’. Jesus is a reminder that we are all ‘worth it’. We all stand before Him, empty and broken, full of a pride which would resist even the love that will redeem us – if we will but listen and open our heart, then even if our heart is cold as ice, from it will He draw forth the love that will redeem us and the whole world. Maran atha.

The Trinity and Fatherhood of God

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bible, Faith

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imageMusing and contemplating the trinity is something I find myself often engaged in. I search out fresh thoughts in the scriptures and add the findings to my ever-growing notes from which I drew the following comment which relate to this post.

“if they were simply different modes in which the one God appears, then such an act of communion would not be possible.”

The understanding of the trinity that the church has come to harmonizes the diverse revelation of scripture. However God is then often described with a number of terms that are incomprehensible to the man in the street. In an attempt to communicate more simply I found a simple definition helps.

“There is one God perfectly united and existing in three eternal and personal modes”.

The difference between ‘appears’ and ‘existing’ is the difference between heterodox and orthodox.

Of course we need to go on to explain the manner of God’s unity as it is expressed in Trinitarian doctrine but the above seems to give easier access to those explanations.

“The Father alone is the one true God.”

This seems to impute deity only to the Father. As Jess said the phrase ‘startles’ and we might wonder where the room is left for Christ and the Holy Spirit – clearly things are explained as you move on but that phrase still sticks and I can’t swallow it easily. However you cut it seems to say that the Father alone (As in Father, Son and Holy Spirit is “Alone The One True God’)

Surly this ‘form of words’ cannot be precisely true or uphold the deity of the ‘The Son’ and ‘The Spirit’.

I shall have to consider how reference to ‘an article’ apply only to ‘The Father’ is to be understood but as of now am happier with the following:-

“The one true God is Our Father”

This attributes both deity and Fatherhood to the Trinity.

The way in which ‘an article’ maybe being applied to the Father (alone) might be in the contexts of the Fatherhood of the ‘Triune God’, this will require a survey through the scriptures I had not noticed before that ‘an article’ was used exclusively in this way.

‘The Son’ is begotten of ‘The Father’ and ‘The Spirit’ proceeds from the Father through the Son – which indicates a Father relationship within the trinity towards ‘The Son’ and Holy Spirit. Several texts teach that the Spirit proceeds from the Father is the correct understanding in relation to the Holy Spirit e.g. Luke 11:13; Jn.14:16 & 26; Acts 1:4, 2:33 & 38.

The term Father must be understood differently in terms of the FSS interrelationships within the Godhead than it is understood in relation to us and God as our Father.

Jesus foretelling His death said “I go to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God”. He did not say “I go to our Father etc”. Although that is how he taught us to pray.

Christians have a common relationship to the Father, Son and Spirit who gave us existence and through who we become a new creation and sons of God. Jesus eternal and un-created relationship to the Father is one of an entirely different order.

The Trinitarian God is our Father:
a) The Father is our Father Matt. 6:9;
b) The Son is a Father to us Isaiah 9:6;
c) The Holy Spirit is a Father Spirit, in Jn. 14:18.

Jesus speaking of the Holy Spirit in Jn. 14:16-17, is speaking in the context of Philip’s request to see the Father Jn. 14:8, and states:

“I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you”.

So in the Spirit’s coming Christ comes to us and in the Spirits coming we are no longer ‘orphans’ – we are no longer Fatherless. In this way Jesus applies Fatherhood to both Himself and the Holy Spirit. These passages are breathtaking clear in establishing the unity and trinity of God.

Additionally many experience a unique relationship with each of the persons of the trinity. No wonder even God’s transport is ‘Wheels within wheels’.

I think Christians often speak too glibly mixing up references to God and the Father e.g. Jesus’ statements:-

“No man comes to the Father except by me”

I’ve heard this quoted as “No one comes to God except ….” In evangelism this presents a barrier and causes un-necessary objections and was certainly untrue of Cornelius’ approach to God which was accepted and prompted the Lord’s response Acts 10:1-2 & 4. However no one comes into the intimacy of relationship with God as Father except through Jesus, while it is also true that all those reconciled to God will be reconciled through His blood.

Then again our Lord’s cry of dereliction from the cross:-

“My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”

I have heard it said the Father forsook Christ on the cross turning away from the sin He bore. What happened at the cross is the greatest mystery. I believe Fr. John would confirm it is an Orthodox saying “He reigns from the cross”. Whatever went on I do not think the trinity could have been torn asunder at the cross. The trinity created the cosmos and continually upholds it. How could ‘the stuff of the universe’ continue with a disassembled trinity?

Was it Jesus in his perfect humanity that was torn apart and God forsaken or was it His sense of God’s abandonment. This must surely be the deepest mystery of the trinity for us to comprehend but the depth of love so demonstrated is deeper.

Just my meditation – I’m interested in how those with knowledge of creeds and councils consider this.