Jesus: Two Millennia of Truth and Alternatives

John the Baptist identified Jesus as the Lamb of God, so quite a few churches display pictures of a young sheep with a halo. That's a visual metaphor, though. WiseGEEK has a fairly painless discussion of visual metaphor, and I'm drifting off-topic.

I don't worship a lamb, of course. Jesus is human, which is how my Lord is often portrayed. Details vary with time and place.

Jesus, All Over the World

The artist's image Jesus I've seen most often looks very European, hardly surprising since my native culture is rooted in Europe.

Folks in other parts of the world often show Jesus and Saints as nice, normal people from that region.

We don't know what Jesus looked like, at least not before the Resurrection. My guess is that my Lord's appearance was Middle-Eastern, but that's just an educated guess.

Tradition tells us that Mary is a descendant of David, and Joseph, husband of Mary and foster-father of Jesus, is "of the house of David." That makes Jesus a descendant of David: legally and by ancestry. (Luke 1:26-27; Catholic Encyclopedia, Genealogy of Christ)

Anyway, my Lord gave tacit approval to being called the son of David. (Matthew 21:8-16) He also pointed out that the Almighty is — all-mighty: "...God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones...." (Matthew 3:9; Luke 3:8)

True God and True Man: Really

Jesus is human on his mother's side.

I wouldn't worship a fellow-creature, and I don't: Jesus isn't just human. His father is God. (Luke 1:26-38)

For two millennia, the Church has said that Jesus is true God and true man; fully human and divine. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 464-469)

"...Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother...." (Catechism, 469)

In some circles, that went over about as well as "eat my flesh." (John 6:53-60)

Some folks who had no trouble believing that Jesus is divine balked at accepting my Lord's humanity. They claimed that Jesus is:

• Created by God
  • And therefore subordinate to God
  (Arianism)
• Not human
  • His apparent humanity was an illusion
  (Docetism)
• Human and divine
  • Not at the same time
    • Was human first
    • Then became divine
    (Monophysitism)
  • At the same time
    
    • But the divine and human natures didn't mix
    (Nestorianism)

I think some of the trouble is a distaste for the physical world that's endemic to Western civilization. (March 5, 2012)

Another objection to the mysterious union of God and man may be that the crucifixion is undignified, to say the least.

I don't like the idea that God voluntarily became one of us, and was nailed to a cross: I'm too aware of my unworthiness. But as a Christian I must embrace the Cross and my Savior who died and rose from the dead. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 595-618)

For my Lord's death to mean anything, Jesus must be the Son of God and Son of man: fully human, fully divine. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 456-478)

"Before Abraham Came to be, I AM."

Jesus said, in no uncertain terms, "I am God."

"So the Jews said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?' ²³

"²⁴ Jesus said to them, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.' "
(John 8:57-58)

---

"Philip said to him, 'Master, show us the Father, ⁷ and that will be enough for us.'

"Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"?

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.

"Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves."
(John 14:8-11)

Jesus looked and acted like one of us. He was in a particular time and place, learned to speak, and grew up: just like we do. (January 16, 2013)

I'd like to think that I could believe that Jesus is God with nothing to go on but my Lord's word. Happily, I can also "believe because of the works themselves." After twenty centuries, going on twenty one, we've got quite an accumulation of works: that's yet another topic.


(From AnonMoos/Sumudu Fernando, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

Related posts:

• Jesus
  • "Jesus, Knowledge, and Stories From Egypt"
    (January 16, 2013)
  • "Jesus: Human; Really Human"
    (January 9, 2013)
    Particularly
    • Jesus: Human and Divine
    • "...Believe me ... or ... believe because of the works..."
  • " 'But who do you say that I am?' "
    (October 10, 2012)
  • "The Man Who Wouldn't Stay Dead"
    (March 11, 2012)
  • "Just Who is This Jesus Person, and Who Does He Think He is?"
    (January 17, 2010)
• Hope and joy
  • "The Eighth Day: Two Millennia and Counting"
    (April 20, 2014)
  • "Seeing the Horizon"
    (May 19, 2013)
  • "Fasting, Penance: and Infinite Depths of Joy"
    (June 3, 2012)
  • "A Little Look at the Big Picture"
    (February 13, 2012)
  • "We Won: Quite a While Ago"
    (January 13, 2011)

Jesus, Knowledge, and Stories From Egypt

Folks often use words like "infinite" and "almighty" when trying to describe God.¹ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 268-271)

The idea of God being immeasurably vast, all-powerful, and all-knowing, isn't too difficult to believe.

Believing that Jesus is God: not so much. Folks have had trouble believing that from the start, even when Jesus was right there, talking to them:

"So the Jews said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?' ²³

"²⁴ Jesus said to them, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.' "
(John 8:57-58)

---

"Philip said to him, 'Master, show us the Father, ⁷ and that will be enough for us.'

"Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"? "
(John 14:8-9)

Maybe believing was hard because God was right there, quite visible, taking up a specific amount of space, speaking literally face-to-face. Later, after Jesus stopped being dead - - - and that's another topic. (March 11, 2012)

Metaphysical Knots and Pondering the Infinite

Folks have tied themselves in metaphysical knots, trying to explain how God Almighty could fit 'inside' one human being: or explain that God didn't.

I like to understand things, but have long since had to admit that God's God, and I'm not. I'm a finite creature, using a few pounds of neural circuitry to ponder the infinite and eternal.

The Incarnation

That brings up an interesting point. God is almighty. A human being is not. How could Jesus, the Son of God, possibly be God and human: and keep all that infinite power?

He didn't. As Paul put it, Jesus "emptied himself" to become one of us. (Phillipians 2:7)

I'd better back up a little. Jesus is human. Jesus is God. How, I don't know: and I don't need to. I accept the Incarnation as the least-complicated explanation for what's happened. Occam's razor, and all that.

Some folks balk at the idea that God would really become human. Maybe it doesn't seem 'spiritual' enough. They've said that Jesus is:

• Is not really human (Gnosticism)
  • Catechism, 465
• Is human, with a God implant (Nestorianism)
  • Catechism, 466
• Started human, then became purely divine (Monophysitism)
  
  • Catechism, 467
  (December 26, 2012)

Then there's the currently-fashionable notion that God isn't involved, and that's yet another topic.

A Human Soul

A decade or so back, I ran across a discussion of the stories and parables Jesus told. Apparently they're a lot like stories folks told in Egypt around that time. That's hardly surprising. Jesus spent time in Egypt. He or his parents could easily have picked up a few stories while there. (Matthew 2:14-21)

I think it's a mistake to imagine Jesus as merely a wise man - who said "before Abraham came to be, I AM"?! I also think it's a mistake to imagine Jesus as purely 'spiritual,' someone who was just pretending to be human.

Jesus has a human soul: and had human, limited, knowledge. He was born in a particular time and place, learned to speak, and grew up: just as we all do. (Catechism, 472)

"And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man."
(Luke 2:52)

---

"He asked them, 'How many loaves do you have? Go and see.' And when they had found out they said, 'Five loaves and two fish.' "
(Mark 6:38)

---

"⁶ Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that I am?' "
(Mark 8:27)

---

"When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed ⁷ and deeply troubled,

"and said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Sir, come and see.'"
(John 11:33-34)

---

About questions like "Who do people say that I am," I suppose Jesus could have been using the Socratic method: asking questions to elicit answers. It's a pretty good method for getting students to think about a subject, rather than just record what an instructor says: and that's yet again another topic.

Some commentary on the fifth chapter of Mark focuses on belief that physical contact and faith in Jesus' saving power. I'm also interested in this brief glimpse of my Lord's awareness:

"Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who has touched my clothes?'

"But his disciples said to him, 'You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, "Who touched me?" '

"And he looked around to see who had done it."
(Mark 5:30-32)

Jesus not knowing everything doesn't make my Lord seem 'too human,' as far as I'm concerned. If the Son of God wasn't human, Christ's death on Golgotha would have been an interesting bit divine play-acting. And that's still another topic.

More:

• "Jesus Christ Emptied Himself"
  John Paul II, General Audience (February 17, 1988)
  (from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19880217en.html (January 15, 2013))
• "God the Almighty Father"
  John Paul II, General Audience (September 18, 1985)
  (from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19850918en.html (January 15, 2013))
• "The 'Praembula Fidei' and the New Apologetics"
  Proceedings of the VIII Plenary Session, (June 20-22, 2008
  (from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/san-tommaso/publications/dc10.pdf (January 15, 2013))

Related posts:

• Jesus
  • "Jesus: Human; Really Human"
    (January 9, 2013)
  • "Jesus '...Made His Dwelling Among Us....' "
    (January 2, 2013)
  • "Jesus, God, and What St. Augustine Said"
    (December 26, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Sidestepping the Incarnation
  • " 'He Emptied Himself' "
    (December 4, 2012)
  • " 'But who do you say that I am?' "
    (October 10, 2012)
• God
  • " '...Wanting to Make Us Sharers in His Divinity...' "
    (November 28, 2012)
  • "Response to an Ancient Offense"
    (September 5, 2012)
  • " 'Understand God?' Ha!"
    (September 9, 2011)
  • "How Could God Floss His Teeth?"
    (July 2, 2011)
  • "I Don't Understand the Trinity: No Surprise There"
    (May 6, 2011)
• Souls
  • "Honoring the Body, Within Reason"
    (April 25, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Matter and Spirit: One Nature
  • "Angels, Theology, and Gilligan's Island"
    (February 22, 2012)
    Particularly
    • I'm Human: Soul and Body
  • "Humans are Animals: But Not Just Animals"
    (August 31, 2011)
  • "Rambling About What 'Spirit' Means"
    (February 22, 2011)
  • " 'My Flesh is Afraid, But I am Not' "
    (December 4, 2009)

---

¹ Titles of God include:

• Almighty
  (Catechism, 268)
• Father
  (Catechism, 233, 238-40, 2779-85, 2794-96, 2802)
  
• God of the living
  (Catechism, 993)
• Good
  (Catechism, 339, 385, 2052)
• Holy
  (Catechism, 208, 1352)
• Ineffable mystery
  (Catechism, 230)
• Living
  (Catechism, 205, 2112, 2575)
• Love
  (Catechism, 214, 218-21, 257, 342)
• Merciful
  (Catechism, 210-11)
• Pure Spirit
  (Catechism, 370)
• Righteous
  (Catechism, 62, 215, 271, 2577)
• Source of every good and of all love
  (Catechism, 1723, 1955, 2465)
• Source of prayer
  (Catechism, 2639)
• Truth
  (Catechism, 214-17)

Jesus, God, and What St. Augustine Said

God's decision to become fully human, Jesus the Christ, doesn't make sense. Not to me, not if by "make sense" I mean fully understanding the Almighty's motives and methods.

As I've said before, God's God, I'm not: and there are some things I probably can't understand. Not with the few pounds of neural circuitry that's between my ears.

I like to understand things, but think St. Augustine was right:

"If you understood him, it would not be God"
(St. Augustine)
(Quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 230)

I have decided to follow the Word made Flesh, Jesus who in the beginning was with God, and is God. (John 1:1-14)

Sidestepping the Incarnation

Having trouble with the idea that Jesus is God and human isn't new. Neither is someone coming up with an alternative to that pivotal reality.

Two ways to sidestep the Incarnation showed up fairly early; three, counting a sort of 'compromise.'

Folks have said that Jesus:

• Is not really human (Gnosticism)
  • Catechism, 465
• Is human, with a God implant (Nestorianism)
  • Catechism, 466
• Started human, then became purely divine (Monophysitism)
  
  • Catechism, 467

My guess is that variations on Gnosticism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism, will continue to pop up. I wrote about the first two earlier this month. (December 18, 2012; December 12, 2012)

A new wrinkle is to take the Nestorian idea that Jesus started human; and wasn't divine at all. Pretending that God doesn't matter, or doesn't exist, has been been very 'in.' (August 8, 2012)

Faith, Philosophy, and History

Saying that Jesus was human, and nothing more, is probably still a good way to be considered 'intelligent' in some circles.

But sometimes it's prudent to ask 'do I really want their approval?'

I've decided to follow the man who wouldn't stay dead; whose outfit has been riding out the rise and fall of empires and civilizations for two millennia.

There's full-bore dualism, too, and that's another topic. (August 31, 2011)

Monophysitism: Having it Both Ways

Monophysitism comes from two Greek words that mean "one" and "nature." It's the idea that Jesus was human, and divine: but not at the same time. I'm oversimplifying the concept, but that seems to be the gist of it.

I'll grant that it may be easier to believe that God couldn't - or didn't - become one of us, human, with a divine nature and a human nature. But my Lord didn't promise us "easy:" and, yep, that's yet another topic.

The fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, said that Jesus is God and man. Again.

They said that Jesus Christ is:

• Perfect in
  • Divinity
  • Humanity
• Truly God and truly man
  • Composed of
    • Rational soul
    • And body
  • Having the same substance or essence as
    • God the Father
      • Being divine
    • You and me
      • Being human
  (from Catechism, 467)

"Two Natures Without ... Separation"

Discussions of Who, and What, Jesus is can get quite technical: using terms like consubstantial, hypostasis, and πρόσωπον (prosopon). Here's part of what the Council of Chalcedon said, translated into my native language:

"...We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.⁹²"
(Catechism, 467)

Jesus grew and learned, like we do; and was tempted, as we are: but did not sin. (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 4:15)

When my Lord was executed, a very real human life ended. What happened after that is - what else? - another topic.

Related posts:

• The Word became flesh
  • "Christmas: a Miniature Helicopter; Joy; and Hope"
    (December 25, 2012)
  • "Jesus, Mary, and Occam's Razor"
    (December 18, 2012)
  • "Son of Man, Yes: Flower Child, No"
    (December 12, 2012)
  • " 'He Emptied Himself' "
    (December 4, 2012)
  • "Christmas: Mything the Point"
    (December 18, 2011)
• Lacking omniscience
  
  • "Taking Life a Thousand Years at a Time"
    (June 10, 2012)
  • "Science isn't a Four-Letter Word"
    (January 29, 2012)
    Particularly
    • God's God, I'm Not
  • "God the Almighty, Providence, and Some Guy in Minnesota"
    (February 1, 2012)
  • "I'm Human: No Excuse, Just a Fact"
    (September 17, 2011)
  • "To 'Make Men Gods' "
    (January 10, 2011)
• Marching through time
  • "Battling Sin, Living in Hope"
    (July 25, 2012)
  • The Man Who Wouldn't Stay Dead"
    (March 11, 2012)
  • "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
    (September 13, 2011)
    Particularly
    • The Golgotha Incident
    • The Future Looks Pretty Good - - -
    • - - - And We Have Work to Do
  • "We Won: Quite a While Ago"
    (January 13, 2011)
    Particularly
    • Wildly Improbable Survival
  • " 'Going My Way,' and Why Anti-Catholicism is a Good Sign"
    (November 18, 2010)