www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Eternally Both God and Man

Has Jesus Christ (God the Son) always been both fully man and fully God? It would seem so, since God stands outside of time, but I certainly wouldn't know.

The Christchild Is Born,
ChristTeen287

Dear ChristTeen287,

No. Christ is Eternally the Son of God but has not always been a man. He became man at a point in human history. This is referred to as the "two births" of the Son of God. He is eternally begotten of the Father from all eternity without a mother and begotten in time from a mother without a human father.

He is NOW eternally both God and Man, viz. he will never cease being a true Man as well as being trully divine (if that's what you meant).

Hope this helps,

IN Christ's Light,

Ghazar

Thanks, Ghazar, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

How can God's Nature change (i.e. before His conception, He was only God, but now He is both God and man)?

ChristTeen287

Hi:

No, no. God's nature cannot change. What is why the Byzantine Liturgy chants again and again that the Son of God "became man without change".

The Divine nature of the Son remains unchanging since before all ages and forever.

In one point of human history, the Son took a Human nature and made it His own, without mixing it with His divine nature and without discarding His divine nature either.

The eternal, infinite essence of God subsists in three distinct Persons: The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Each Person being also eternal and infinite.

The eternal, infinite Person of the Son is the subsistence of two essences: The divine and the human. The divine essence from all Eternity and the human essence from the moment of the Incarnation and forever.

Of course, how can both a temporal and an eternal reality co-exist in Jesus Christ is part of the mystery of the Incarnation. Perhaps we are not supposed to fully comprehend how this came to be.

Shalom,
Memo.

A small technical point here.

Usually when we say "eternal" we mean without beginning or end. So Christ is God eternally.

When we say "everlasting" we are speaking of something with a beginning but no end. There was a time when each of us were not. So we have a beginning at our conception. But we have no end once we are resurrected. So man is given "life everlasting" at the resurrection.

In Christ.

A key to understanding, or rather accepting theological ideas such as this is that it is a mystery, something that our limited human intellect can never understand. We also need to keep in mind that the great sin of our forefather and foremother, Adam and Eve, was the desire to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge so they KNOW everything, just as God did. This temptation to want to know and understand everything continues with us down to this day. Don

Thanks, Memo...and good point Dan!

ChristTeen287

CT287, my name is DON...Dan is someone else.
DON

Surely you can understand my mistake, DON!

ChristTeen287

The Holy Trinity does not change. When God the Son assumed a human nature, God did NOT change. Rather humanity (and by extension, all creation) was changed. At least this is what the Fathers teach. This is why Christ is "all and all" and St Paul says that all creation growns for the final redemption at the eschaton.

Through the Incarnation within the All-Holy Theotokos, all creation has been brought into the divine life of God. Those who say "yes" to this divine life and receive the remission of sins, enjoy eternal beatification. This is Heaven. Those who say "no" and resist God's purposes in and through Christ suffer shame in God's unending flame of divine love. This is Hell.

Christ is born!
Marshall

Good point Andrew. "Everlasting" is the correct word for Christ's humanity.

Trusting in Christ's Eternal Light,

Wm. Der-Ghazarian

You are certainly an intelligent one and deserve an intelligent answer.

In the context of - time - Jesus Christ has always been fully God because God-nature is not dependent on time (a thing of human experience in a created world) - while his human nature had a birth, a beginning, in a context of our human expereince of historical time.

And you are exactly ! in the context of eternity (the presence of all time).

That is: that in the resurrection of his human body - time - had no more meaning (as such). That focused event within time (his resurrection) became the �gateway� into eternity for his humanity. In the way of eternity (the presence of all time) that means his humanity was also fully present and fully human from the beginning of time - and at every present moment - to the end of time. All time.

His humanity in its resurrection was (is) present from the foundation of the world. And that is about all we can understand of it because of our habitual tendency to think of all things in a context of - time - so trusting in our senses are we.

In a way, you can picture it like this (and this is the way St. John pictures it) - the foundation of the world - IS - the event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the vocabulary of the church and theology - the foundation or 'beginning of the world' is not a time-thing but rather it is always the foundation (inner reason and pourpose) of the ever present moment which is 'now'.

All historical events of creation that took place before the death/resurrection of Jesus �look forward� to that event that would take place within historical time. All past events coming before it - are patterned on and exist because of that defining event. And all historical events of creation that took or take place after the death/resurrection of Jesus Christ �look back� on that one focused event where time and eternity - touched.

And so we can understand John when he has Christ say of himself that he is �He who IS (present tense) Was (past tense) and Shall Be (future tense)� - all rolled up into one.

By the way, the Hebrew word John uses (the current manuscripts are Koin Greek translations from the original Hebrew) is a name of God often used by the prophets. All that St. John speaks about in the Apocalypse � originally called The Restoration (of All Things) - indicates that all things and all events of history are restored to their proper context by, and within, the central historical event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The idea that the Apocalypse predicts geo-political events taking place now or in the future - has been condemned by the church as false - because the sole focus and central pivot of that book is - the historical event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That resurrection IS the center of all human time.

In a way - you can picture God sitting outside of historical time events - and being able to reach into the past, and the future, as well as the present - and do what he wants. God is not subject to the �rules� of time as we know them. This would tend to imply that the past and the future - are really dependent on and flow from - the present. Let us skip over that.

Therefore the church tells us that all revelation that took place before the historic event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ - spoke of that death and resurrection - - - and all events after that death and resurrection look back to that event and speak of it. When this is understood then all historical events of creation (past, present and future - meaning even the events which take place today) are only properly known in thier reality and God's true purpose - when held in context to the one historical event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So also, the church tells us that with the event of the death and resurrection - all preceeding revelation was fulfilled - meaning not so much that what they predicted came true (meaning they were first and the resurrection second) but rather that the resurrection was FIRST and these propehies were secondary to it.

To our limited human expereince - our skewed view of reality and its events - we would think that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ followed upon these prophecies - but the reality is that these prophcies FLOWED from it.

As an example: in the time of the Jews before the historical event of Jesus Christ - all their prophetic stuff (including the form of their services etc..) were prophetic (symbolically patterned after, or �copies�) of the original (of the event of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection). The services of the Temple (based upon the promise to Abraham and the seal of that promise in the events of Genesis relating the sacrifice - death and resurrection - of Isaac.
In the context of human history - these prophetic things (oracles, items surrounding the Temple, historic events that happened to Israel, etc..) which were a progressive revelation OF Jesus Christ and the coming historical event of his death and resurrection, and which were proper to the Jewish church before the event of Christ - all became secondary when Christ himself came, died and resurrected. As secondary as Xerox copies are to the orginal.

When the church says that these prophetic things were �fulfilled in Christ� what it means (in context) is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is - the original - and these other things are copies of that original.

This is also why the church has made the historical event of Jesus Christ - the focus and center of all historical time. In a way, Christ �split time� - he blew time up - he exploded time - he turned our concepts of time up-side-down - when eternity and time touched and mingled in the resurrected humanity of Jesus Christ.

All created events taking place in - time - flow from that one event of his death and resurrection. The Chritian concenpt of historical time is split into �Before Christ� (B.C.) and 'After Christ" (A.D. from the Latin anno=year Dom=Lord indication 'year of the Lord'). Note that the year of Christ's death and resurrection (not his birth) is designated as gound zero and B.C. is counted back from that and A.D. is counted forward from that.

To sum it up in a simple way (it may be too late for that!) - the historical event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ - is - at the same eternal moment and historical moment - also the foundation, reason, and purpose, and the pattern for all creation in its events.

So while WE humans experience a historical point in which Jesus came to be human (his birth into our expereince of history) his being fully God and fully man (human) - always is, was, and shall be.... imaged (as it were) as spreading out into the past and the future from the one moment of his death and resurrection.

What was intuited to you - is profound and correct. (�always been both fully man and fully God? It would seem so, since God stands outside of time,�) I have only clarified the context for you.

Keep up your prayers in which ever manner you are doing them (do not change the way) let prayer time be a time of attentivness but at the same time mental (spiritual) rest where you drop all anxiety. Live day by day according to your conscience in whatever daily events God places you, that is how you cooperate with Him, and be patient for God to futher enlighten you. Believe that all is well and going just as it should even if you are not aware of it.

Be very brave and very bold. Have courage to believe that God is real and you can attain him.

Later on, you will come to know why certain things have happened to you. God is forming you and you need not know the what and why of it now.

I am not often here at this board, but I trust the angels to remind me to look for your posts the next time I am here.

Dear RayK,

Wow. I find this to be a rather bizarre post. When you say:

"His humanity in its resurrection was (is) present from the foundation of the world. And that is about all we can understand of it because of our habitual tendency to think of all things in a context of - time - so trusting in our senses are we."

Could you site the Holy Fathers who taught this? To the best of my limited knowledge, I don't think this is the faith of the Church (or at least of the Church I belong to). We believe in the "two births" of the Son of God. The first birth is from God without a mother. The second birth was from Mary without a human Father. The first birth is eternal the second took place in time.

Trusting in Christ's Light,

Wm. Der-Ghazarian

Thank you, Ray, for your lengthy explanation. I will have to take time and digest this, as Trinitarian dogma is BY FAR my weakest point in knowledge/understanding of the Catholic Faith.

ChristTeen287

Yes, I think Christteen287 is right. Thank you too Ray for your post. I too need to spend more time reading it to try to understand its meaning.