Discuss about the Two Natures of Christ for Interpretation of Biblical Inspiration.
The question about the nature of Christ has remained a big question throughout the ages. Before the eighteenth century this was a living question but it was not that agitated as it done now. Every year brought out a new life of Christ. His nature was redefined in a new way. This is more evident by using the term, “Christology” (Taliaferro, Charles and Joshua Farris 2016 pp. 21-32). It is the coinage of the new generation. This indicates the fact that Jesus Christ had two natures. One was the human nature and the other was the divine nature. It indicates the fact that the study of the Christ’s person has become a science by itself. The New Testament of the Jesus who was the lord and the saviour grabs the attention of the maximum amount of readers across the entire world. The character of Christ is considered to be standard of all excellence, even by the confession of those who his enemies that is mentioned in the gospel. In the holy gospel he himself mentioned that the people will be judged according to their attitude towards him (Benz and Ernst 2018 pp. 22-40).
Christ is considered to be the son of the God as well as of the man. When Christ is said to be the child of man he is considered to be a normal human being without any divine powers. It means something beyond this. Jesus Christ is a simple man. The ancient docetic view held extremely strong divinity that it left no scope for the humanity. This is evident in the view that on the day of the incarnation the deity passed through the body of the virgin as water through reed by taking up into itself nothing of the human nature through which it passed (Tawney and Henry 2017 pp. 17-20). This was the contradiction of the scripture. On the other hand, the book of the New Testament contains the fact that Christ was the son of David and also of stock of Israel. The one thing that is of utmost importance is that he was the god’s son and the god’s son is always a man (Sj, Gerald O’Collins and Gerald O’Collins 2018 pp. 101-103). This creates respect for the reality of the human body of Christ. He had a human body and a human mind. This mind was subject to the ordinary laws of the development of human beings. It believed the fact that he grew up in wisdom and stature that was in favour with God as well as man. In the arms of his mother he was not the omniscient baby but that some have supposed. In his later years he suffered, being tempted, as he could not have suffered. This was the condition if all the things had been open to his gaze. Even to the last, it would seem that he was ignorant of the day of the end, for, “of that day”, he tells us, “knoweth no man, neither the angels of God, neither the father.”
The human beings that were using the human language were being made fit by the God in order to give the word. According to the historic Christians, the understanding of person of the Christ is that, he is the person who possess the two different natures as mentioned earlier, the divine and the human nature. Each nature retains the unique properties of its own. They remain distinct and inseparable united in the Christ (Taliaferro, Charles and Joshua Farris 2016 pp. 21-32). The historian considers the fact that according to the divine nature of Christ, God’s son is omnipotent, omniscient and so forth. The other view considers the fact that according to the human nature, incarnate Christ requires to eat the food in order to survive, in order to grow the knowledge and so forth. Some thinkers have also taught that Christ may and he did commit some amount of error in his life, after considering hypostatic union as rationale. This is the reason it is not possible to consider the scriptures as the authentic source. The scripture’s infallibility and inerrancy for few words of Christ might be an error and the words are found only in New Testament. These thinkers are totally based on the particular understanding of what it actually means to be a human being. It is a humanly matter to make error. Even Christ has committed crime therefore he is considered to be human. Making errors is entirely inherent to humans and some has even expressed the view that all the scriptures may contain errors. The bible is considered to be a holy scripture but it might contain errors. This is a holy product and therefore, it is a divine human product and it must contain some amount of errors as human beings unavoidably commit error (Christ and Carol 2016 pp. 104-107).
Ultimately these are the views, which totally reflect the poor understanding of what it actually means to be a human and what it means to make errors. At times it has been seen that Christ has made human limitations. This included his not knowing the identity of the woman who touched the clothes of the Christ. She did fit with the hope of being healed and it is however, considered that the lack of knowledge is not a crime. Therefore, it cannot be considered to be an error. Moreover, it also reflects that Jesus Christ was not omniscient according to his humanity. In addition to this, one might lack knowledge, but still he can always be truthful. People need to earn perfect grades and at times, while remaining fully human. Many people considered that Christ had a human nature and therefore he taught incorrect views and they taught something that was wrong in his ways. It is highly important to be deeply rooted in the understanding of Jesus Christ so that one can rightly assert both humanity and deity. It is a known fact that if Christ is not both truly a man and truly a God as he cannot save the com on people from their sins (Benz and Ernst 2018 pp. 22-40).
There is another school of belief that determines the fact that the most basic explanation includes that Christ was both perfectly human and perfectly divine. The Athanasian Creed recognized the doctrine and affirmed the importance of the same. It further was believed that Jesus Christ is considered as the most essential being existing ever since he is the saviour and the God who had the flesh of human. On the other hand it cannot be denied that he was that being who was considered to be the God and he was also with God and was made flesh (John 1:1, 14). This also stated that Jesus Christ has the divine nature, human nature that is human and God. This meant that divine nature did not change the nature of man (John 1:1, 14). Subsequently, he was associated with humanity (Col. 2:9). The divinity of Jesus did not change. This should be taken note that Jesus was not the only man who was considered as God too. The other important fact is that he is not considered as that being who expressed that principles of God. He is considered to be the God in a human being and trinity’s second person. The son is the radiance of the grace of the glory of the God and the representation of his own self by sustaining all things by his powerful word. The two natures of Jesus have not been accumulated and they are not even united into the nature of God and man. They does not seem to be similar and separate and yet they perform as the single unit in Jesus. This is said to be the hypostatic union (Kadar et al. 2015 pp. 29-34).
The most common mistake made by the people in this case is that they mix both the natures of Jesus. As per an example, the focus of the witness of the Jehovah on the mortality of Jesus and they ignore his divine nature. They reiterate the quotes and the verses that deals with Jesus as a human being and they try to fix them against the scriptures which shows the divine nature of Jesus. On another part the opposite is being done by the Christian scientists. They pay attention on those Scriptures that show the divine nature of Jesus to that extent of not agreeing with the truth of the human nature. For knowing the Jesus better and the other policies that are related to him, both his natures should be known properly and they must be properly defined. It is very clear that he is that being who carries two natures. This is the reason he would grow up in stature and wisdom (Luke 2:52). He is the divine being that turned into flesh (John 1:1, 14). However The Bible does not clearly explains the question whether Jesus Christ has two natures or he has only one nature. As explained in the theological studies, this aspect of Jesus’s nature is the most controversial matter. The issue came to a head in church history as theologians in the Church tried to grapple with and codify the information that the New Testament provides about Jesus (McGrath and Alister 2016 pp. 18-22). The New Testament presents the view that Christ was actually a man born into a human race yet he was fully a God. There are some groups who have tried to explain the nature of Christ by saying that the divine “Christ spirit” came upon the man Jesus. It was assumed that the spirit of God came upon Jesus while he was baptised and left him at the crucifixion. In this context it can be said that Jesus had two natures. However on doing a closer observation it can be said that this might not be the case. The people identified the man a Jesus could actually be two persons sharing one single body. Each and every person would have only one nature. In this situation God only appears to enter into the human race. However he actually does not do the same (Kantorowicz and Ernst 2017 pp. 17)
The other way of trying to explain the data in the New Testament is to say that Jesus Christ was only one person and that He only had one singe nature. There is a difficulty with this explanation. The nature of Jesus would be something of an amalgamation of divine and human. He fully would not be human as the divine nature. He would not be fully human as the divine nature has mixed with the human nature, making Him something more than a human. It was not possible for him to become fully God as he had some amount of human nature mixed in him (Leith and John 2017 pp 60-65). This made him something less than divine. There is a parallel concept of this that exists in the Greek and the Roman mythology which opines the fact that a God has a child with a human woman. The offspring is more than human and less than a God- a super human or a demi-god. The only way to explain the biblical data is to say that Christ is one Person who has two different natures. He is both God as well as Man. The two natures of him are inseparable. The man lived on Earth, he died on the cross and he rose again and this is the reason he was of human race. At the same time he was God. He willingly stayed in the most humble manner. He is a man who is also God, and He is God who became a Man (Kennedy and Hugh 2015 pp 33)
References
Benz, Ernst. The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life. pp 22-40. Routledge, 2017.
Christ, Carol. She who changes: Re-imagining the divine in the world. Pp 104-107. Springer, 2016.
Kadar, Jill L., Allie B. Scott, Kathleen Hipp, Timothy G. Belavich, Eric M. Butfer, Mark S. Rye, Brenda Cole, Kenneth I. Pargament, and Brian J. Zinnbauer. “Religion and spirituality: Unfuzzying the fuzzy.” In Sociology of Religion, pp. 29-34. Routledge, 2015.
Kantorowicz, Ernst. The king’s two bodies: a study in medieval political theology. Vol. 22, p. 17,2017
Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the age of the Caliphates: the Islamic Near East from the sixth to the eleventh century. Pp. 33, Routledge, 2015.
Leith, John H. Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present. pp 60-65, Routledge, 2017.
McGrath, Alister E. Christian theology: An introduction. pp. 18-22 John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
Sj, Gerald O’Collins, and Gerald O’Collins. Inspiration: Towards a Christian Interpretation of Biblical Inspiration. pp. 101-103 Oxford University Press, 2018.
Taliaferro, Charles, and Joshua R. Farris. “Introduction.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, pp. 21-32. Routledge, 2016.
Tawney, Richard Henry. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. pp. 17-20 Routledge, 2017.
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