The Feminization of Christ in the American Religion

Part II – The Two Natures of Christ

[Response to A Sentimental Journey - White Horse Inn broadcast the week of January the 15th, since I am trying to keep my post to about 500 words this response will be in more than one entry.]

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52 – ESV)

“Nathanael said to him, ‘How do you know me?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’” (John 1:48 – ESV)

Hypostatic Union is the theological term of the concept that I presented in my last post. What I like to do in this post is to examine the relationship of the two natures of Christ by looking at selected text in the Gospels accounts of his life and ministry.

It is an amazing concept when we stopped to think about the two natures of Christ. For example, in Luke 2:40 we read the following: “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him” (ESV). When we think of Jesus a child we should also think (in some respect but not exclusively) of a child that was no different than any other child (except sin!). It is an awesome realization to think about this child (who is God incarnate) as being totally dependant on the nurturing of Mary and Joseph. As a child growing up his basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, education, and nurturing environment had to be provided for by his family. He was divine but he humbled himself as a child that had to be cared for while he growing up to become a man.

I think that Jesus was very much like other typical children growing up (except sin!). He had to learn to how crawl, to walk, to be toilet trained, and learn to talk. Just like all of us when we were a child. As stated in the scripture, Jesus “grew and became strong.” What a thought! Jesus grew, matured, and experienced all of the experiences of growing up just as we have experienced (without committing sin!). To think that even Jesus had to go through puberty (more on that later)! As he matured he “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52 – ESV)

Since my Sunday school days as a boy I already had a basic understanding of the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union even if I didn’t know the technical term for this doctrine. As I got older I began to read the Gospel text for myself and some of the accounts seem to put holes in the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union. For example (there are numerous examples I could use but because space I will focus on a couple), in John 1:48 there is this interesting exchange between Jesus and Nathanael, “how do you know me?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you’” (ESV). No problem here because if Jesus is truly God in human flesh I would expect him to demonstrate omniscience. Another example would be Matthew 24:34 which read: “Jesus said to him, ‘Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’” (ESV) This is another incident of omniscience with some omnipotence. Again, I would expect that from a man who claimed to be divine. I am cool with that!

However, I would then read text in the Gospels where Jesus was asks about the day of his return and he would said, “I don’t know” (Matthew 24:36). I scratched my head. That doesn’t make sense! I read in Mark 5:30 where it says, “And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my garments’” (ESV)? Whoa? How can he not know? My doctrinal understanding of Jesus was beginning to become weak in its foundation. I asked myself this question, “How is it that Christ on one hand is omniscience and the other hand is not?”

I struggled this because it seems that these verses are illustrating contradictions in scripture, and this is a serious violation of Systematic Theology. It was R.C. Sproul who was instrumental in helping me get a better understanding of the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union. Sproul explained in one of his question and answer session during a conference that Jesus’ human nature did not know everything but his divine nature did. The example he gave was a rhetorical question that is often asked by critics, “Did Jesus knew that the world was round when he lived here on earth?” The answer given by R. C. was that Jesus’ human nature may not have known the shape of the world, but his divine nature did.

Why am I posting entries of this concept? Stay tune for my next post (Part III). I will be posting about the issue of Christ and his “maleness”. I wrote the first two parts of this post in the hopes that I will not be misunderstood with my next post, but I know there will be some who will misunderstand the points that I will be trying to make. Hope to get it posted soon!

Your Brother
Timotheus

PS – Click [HERE!] for a theological quiz to see if you are orthodox or a heretic? My source tells me that the quiz was created by Shane Rosenthal.