Right Divider
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A human nature, but without sin.
Our Moral God
- Thread starter Clete
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Derf
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Right, but what do you count as "human nature"?
Right Divider
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Do you really not know what a human nature is?
Derf
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I don't think everybody that says "human nature" is talking about the same thing, so I'd like to know what you mean when you say it. It isn't that easy a question, is it?
Right Divider
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Jesus took on a human nature. He was a man, like all men... yet without sin.
1Tim 2:5 (AKJV/PCE)
(2:5) For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
Derf
Well-known member
Don't be afraid. Just spell it out. What do you mean by "human nature"?
Jesus got hungry, tired, thirsty and had the same sexual drives we do, but without our sinful flesh. You ever been tempted to turn stones into bread when hungry? Jesus was after not eating for 40 days but yet was tempted in all points like as we are. So what is our common point of temptation with Jesus? To live the Christian life in our own power. Jesus had that inherent ability. We don't. That's why we sin so often. We are trying to live the Christian life without God's power. If Jesus had ever used His own divinity to not sin for Him it would have been a sin. That's why His life here on earth is an example for us of how to live by faith.
Right Divider
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I just did. Are you being dense again?
Derf
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I'm not the one who keeps using the word I'm defining in the definition.
Right Divider
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Jesus became a man. What is your problem?
Jesus didn't take on a human nature. He took on the human nature as there is only one human nature and Jeremiah tells us what that nature is like.
Jeremiah 17: 9 ¶ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
I get the humor in your comment but the meaning of "death" isn't nearly as obvious as the meaning of the word "mortal", right? "mortal" is sort of a yes or a no issue. One can either die or not. What does it mean to die, that's a completely different ball game. Maybe that's where Gary's confusion is at.No, our disagreement was based solely on the completely obvious meaning of the single word "death", which is hardly anything like "mortal".
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I've heard this my whole life and never really understood what it meant. I'm pretty sure that I've never seen anyone establish it biblically.
It seems to me that God the Son became a man and died and rose from the dead - period. He is now both God and a human. His nature changed, to be sure, but I see no evidence that He has TWO separate natures but rather He is now One unified "theánthropos" - God-man.
Right Divider
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I am not claiming "two separate natures". Jesus took on a SECOND nature without "giving up" any of His nature as God. Did God the Son have a human nature before the incarnation? Does He have one now? Is the human nature identical to His nature as deity?
You cannot have it both ways (i.e., taking on a second nature that is not a second nature).
Right Divider
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This sound like blaspheme.
What does that mean, "took on a SECOND nature"? He does not have two natures, so far as I can see. He has One totally divine, totally righteous, totally perfect nature that now includes being a man.
No.
Yes.
Wrong question. The question, as posed, presupposes the idea that this human nature is separate and apart from His deity, which is the question at hand.
You might as well ask me whether an hour hand is identical in nature to being a clock. The question doesn't make sense. The hour hand is part of an integrated whole that we call a "clock". Put another way, just as you own body is part of make you, you. God the Son's humanity is part of what makes Him, Him!
God the Son is now Jesus the Man. It doesn't take away anything from His deity, nor does His deity subtract from Him being a man. His is both.
I see no, "second" nature. It is merely a change in His nature (singular). God the Son isn't a bifurcated being nor are there four members of the Trinity, right?
Right Divider
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It means that Jesus did not have a human nature (which includes a human body) before He took on a human nature (which includes a human body).
Jesus did not have a human body before He took one on. Is having a human body part of having a human nature? (Yes, it is).
As God, could Jesus die? After He took on a human body, He could die. Are these not two natures?
Indeed, but at one time He did NOT have "part of what makes Him, Him"; His human body.
I hope you know that I do not argue against that.
BOTH is TWO things. Separate only in the sense that they are TWO THINGS.
You seem to be covering your eyes.
Perhaps we are simply battling semantics here. The ONE person Jesus is BOTH (ie., two) things. He is God and man. They are not "separate" in the sense that they are the SAME Jesus.
I seem to remember Bob Enyart debating James White about this. Bob argued that Jesus took on a second nature (since He was, at one time, not a man).
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Derf
Well-known member
Good! Now let's go back to how this part of the conversation got started:
I said:
And you responded:
You said above that Jesus became a man. Here's a definition of "mortal" from Merriam-Webster:
Human
Obviously that doesn't mean that all mortal creatures are human, but it does mean that all men are mortal creatures, and that mortality is so much of part of human-ness, or human nature, that the two are synonyms, at least when talking about human creatures.
So, while I agree that he took on a second nature, and that second nature is human, He so took on that second nature that He became "a mortal", which means He became a man, with the possibility that He could die.
Next, you disagreed with this:
as here:
So, I would like to reassert that if the Son was at one time immortal, meaning that He could never die, and that was an eternally-held characteristic, then when He became mortal, a man, then He did indeed lay aside at least one of His eternally-held characteristics. This is in keeping with the passage that "He emptied Himself"
I'll reply to some other posts on this, as the conversation is continuing (and is a good conversation to have).
Derf
Well-known member
It seems that if God (even putting aside the trinity part of the equation for now) became something else while still remaining God, then He must have added something, in this case "man-ness" or "human nature".
I'm not completely sure that you can say "It doesn't take anything from His deity," since there was the "emptying" of Himself.
[Phl 2:6 KJV] [Christ Jesus,] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[Phl 2:7 KJV] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Alternate translation on that last verse:
[Phl 2:7 ESV] but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Somehow that "form of a servant"/"likeness of men" must carry with it some lessening of His greatness/glory in some way:
[Jhn 17:5 ESV] And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
and
[Jhn 17:24 ESV] Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
And finally, the transfiguration shows us that the disciples at least weren't seeing His glory as much as we will.
[Mat 17:2 ESV] And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
[Jhn 1:14 KJV] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Derf
Well-known member
Yes!
Yes!
Not to derail, but aren't these conflicting things? 1. That He was immortal (could not die), and 2. That He was mortal (He could die).
And after He took on flesh, His human body, He had something that made Him different than He was before, His mortality.
Yep. Two things that apply to the same person, whereas previously one of those things did not apply to Him.
Which was an important point about immutability...if God never changes in any way, then how could He now have a second nature that he didn't have before.