Jesus - Wholly Man - Wholly God

Just to touch on a couple of things. The quotes you used from the OT were about the return of Yahweh. They were not messianic. Here is a wiki article that talks about Jewish belief about a messiah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah

The messiah was only believed to be a human who would lead the presumably in battle but would be the anointed one of God to do that. Jesus wove together the two Jewish ideas, a human messiah to lead them and the return of Yahweh into Himself. Of course He wasn't the messiah that the Jews expected or wanted, and they missed completely the time of Yahweh's visitation.

Faith writes: Of course as God He actually authored the scriptures, so He would simply have known them, they didn't even need to "come to Him" as they might to us.

Well, as you know I disagree with that. I don't believe at all that he authored them but I would have confidence that He had them memorized, but in the same way that other Jewish teachers of His day would have them memorized.

Faith writes: "Who can forgive sins but God" is what that passage says, it doesn't impute the forgiveness of sins to the Temple.

For the Jews to be forgiven sins they brought sacrifices to the Temple and asked God for forgiveness. Jesus forgave sins on the spot and said that He desired mercy and not sacrifice.

Faith writes: And of course referring to Himself as the visitation of God He is claiming to BE God, not just represent Him, also in the case of claiming to show the Father through His own Person -- can't accept your reducing that to a matter of showing God simply through His character.

We'll just disagree on that.

Faith writes: Then there was where He says how He had wanted to comfort Jerusalem but "you wouldn't come to Me" He's clearly saying He's God, not a representation of God.

Not at all. Jesus wanted to lead the Jews in a direction that was peaceful instead of the revolutionary road they were headed down. It would have avoided the slaughter of many thousand Jews as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

Just to touch on a couple of things. The quotes you used from the OT were about the return of Yahweh.

But the return of God IS the coming of the Messiah, the Messiah IS God.

They were not messianic. Here is a wiki article that talks about Jewish belief about a messiah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah The messiah was only believed to be a human who would lead the presumably in battle but would be the anointed one of God to do that.

The Jews were wrong about the Messiah, as Jesus makes amply clear. He criticizes the Pharisees endlessly, because they were wrong in their understanding of the scriptures in all the ways He says. As Christians we are to understand the Old Testament through the New Testament, we are not to follow the Jewish understanding. The appearance of the Messiah in Jesus was anticipated rightly only by very few of the Jews who read the scriptures rightly: Anna and Simeon in the temple were two of those. The vast majority got it wrong and had to learn the truth from Jesus Himself. They had the Book of Daniel to tell them when it would be so most got the timing rightish, which is why there were so many would-be Messiahs popping up around that period of time, but the character of the Messiah, no. That He was to be God Himself in human flesh, that's all in the OT but they missed it.

Jesus wove together the two Jewish ideas, a human messiah to lead them and the return of Yahweh into Himself.

Jesus didn't do any weaving of these things, He simply fulfills the prophecies as written, to be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah in His first advent, as He explained in the synagogue when He read from the first part of Isaiah 61, stopping right before the line about God's vengeance, and then on His second coming to be the conquering hero of that line He left out, but not against Rome, against all of God's enemies.

Of course He wasn't the messiah that the Jews expected or wanted, and they missed completely the time of Yahweh's visitation.

OK.

Well, as you know I disagree with that. I don't believe at all that he authored them but I would have confidence that He had them memorized, but in the same way that other Jewish teachers of His day would have them memorized.

Yes we disagree about that. Do you know that the Greek for "inspired" where the scriptures are described as inspired literally means "God-breathed?"

For the Jews to be forgiven sins they brought sacrifices to the Temple and asked God for forgiveness. Jesus forgave sins on the spot and said that He desired mercy and not sacrifice.

Which as God He could say, since He'd said it before in Hosea 6:6:

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

And also, of course, He was going to be THE sacrifice for all sins in His own body, ending the need for animal sacrifices and heralding the destruction of the temple which was the only place they could be performed.

Yes, we'll disagree about how Jesus shows the Father through Himself.

Then there was where He says how He had wanted to comfort Jerusalem but "you wouldn't come to Me" He's clearly saying He's God, not a representation of God. Not at all. Jesus wanted to lead the Jews in a direction that was peaceful instead of the revolutionary road they were headed down. It would have avoided the slaughter of many thousand Jews as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

Maybe I wasn't clear that I was referring to this passage:

Matt 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

When Jesus says this as directly as He did, how He Himself wanted to do this, He is clearly identifying Himself as God who wanted to gather Jerusalem to Himself to comfort them and they kept refusing Him.

Your answer seems to be addressing something else but I'm not sure:

Not at all. Jesus wanted to lead the Jews in a direction that was peaceful instead of the revolutionary road they were headed down. It would have avoided the slaughter of many thousand Jews as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

I don't think I quite get your meaning here. Certainly He saw their revolutionary fervor as completely missing the boat, missing who He was and why He came, but you have a way of putting these things together that I'm not getting here.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry I answered anything you said.

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Faith writes: But the return of God IS the coming of the Messiah, the Messiah IS God.

No. The messiah was to be the one human anointed by God to lead the Jews. The return of Yahweh was a different matter but Jesus combined the two strands of Jewish belief.

Faith writes: The Jews were wrong about the Messiah, as Jesus makes amply clear. He criticizes the Pharisees endlessly, because they were wrong in their understanding of the scriptures in all the ways He says. As Christians we are to understand the Old Testament through the New Testament, we are not to follow the Jewish understanding. The appearance of the Messiah in Jesus was anticipated rightly only by very few of the Jews who read the scriptures rightly: Anna and Simeon in the temple were two of those. The vast majority got it wrong and had to learn the truth from Jesus Himself. They had the Book of Daniel to tell them when it would be so most got the timing rightish, which is why there were so many would-be Messiahs popping up around that period of time, but the character of the Messiah, no. That He was to be God Himself in human flesh, that's all in the OT but they missed it.

I don't see anything in Luke's account of Simeon and Anna that indicate that they thought the messiah was a deity. They certainly believed Him to be the messiah and that He would bring a renewal to the Israelites, but as the human messiah annointed by God. Even the term Son of God was essentially a messianic term and it was quite a bit later that the early Christians denoted and understood that the term meant more than simply being anointed by God but to actually claim Jesus as part of the godhead.

Faith writes: Jesus didn't do any weaving of these things, He simply fulfills the prophecies as written, to be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah in His first advent, as He explained in the synagogue when He read from the first part of Isaiah 61, stopping right before the line about God's vengeance, and then on His second coming to be the conquering hero of that line He left out, but not against Rome, against all of God's enemies.

Yes, but that was Jesus' understanding and not the understanding held by the Jews in general. I agree that it wasn't just about Rome but the broader problem of evil itself.

Faith writes: Yes we disagree about that. Do you know that the Greek for "inspired" where the scriptures are described as inspired literally means "God-breathed?"

Yes, just as I believe that Lewis, Wright and numerous others have been inspired to write what they do. That doesn't impute inerrancy to what they write.

Faith writes: When Jesus says this as directly as He did, how He Himself wanted to do this, He is clearly identifying Himself as God who wanted to gather Jerusalem to Himself to comfort them and they kept refusing Him.

But you didn’t finish the quote. You need the verses following.

quote:

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37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

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It is about the one who “comes in the name of the Lord”, which is quite different from how you understood it when you left off the final verses of the passage. He is speaking on behalf of the Father. He is likely also referring back to Psalm 118 vs 26 where it is clearly about humans who come “in the name of the Lord”.

Faith writes: Then there was where He says how He had wanted to comfort Jerusalem but "you wouldn't come to Me" He's clearly saying He's God, not a representation of God.

(I’ll try to do a better job of answering this. )
Not at all. Why couldn’t He comfort Jerusalem as God’s representative as you put it. He they had believed He was God’s anointed one it would seem reasonable that He could have comforted Jerusalem.

What sort of "return of Yahweh" could there be apart from the Messiah? What are you anticipating? When is it to happen, or has it happened?

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't see anything in Luke's account of Simeon and Anna that indicate that they thought the messiah was a deity. They certainly believed Him to be the messiah and that He would bring a renewal to the Israelites, but as the human messiah annointed by God. Even the term Son of God was essentially a messianic term and it was quite a bit later that the early Christians denoted and understood that the term meant more than simply being anointed by God but to actually claim Jesus as part of the godhead.

When Thomas is permitted by Jesus to touch His wounds after the resurrection he says "My Lord and my God" showing that His deity was known at least by that time. It's all through the Old Testament as I've learned from many different teachers, so those who got it right even in the early days did know that.

ABE: There is also that passage in Philippians where Jesus is described as "being in the form of God" and that's scripture, that's not a long time after.

Referring to Jesus' claiming of His first advent to be for comfort, leaving out the later coming in vengeance:

Yes, but that was Jesus' understanding and not the understanding held by the Jews in general.

Yes of course, but what is the point you are making? Jesus is the one we are to listen to, the Jews kept getting it all wrong.

"God-breathed" means authored by God, it is not the same kind of "inspiration" you are talking about.

The Messiah being both God and Man can come in the name of the Lord without having to be ONLY Man as you are implying.

I have learned the traditional understanding of all this which has come down the centuries through many theologians, and makes perfect sense, and all the new theology like Wright's is just a lot of human hot air to me. I think I've probably run out of anything more to say on this thread, or I'll just be repeating myself from now on.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: What sort of "return of Yahweh" could there be apart from the Messiah? What are you anticipating? When is it to happen, or has it happened?

The Jews weren't really sure of how it would look with the return of Yahweh. They looked back to the Exodus out of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea, and anticipated something like that. At the same time they also hoped for a Jewish messiah. Here is material from a wiki site.

quote:

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In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ‎, romanized: māšîaḥ; Greek: μεσσίας, romanized: messías, Arabic: مسيح‎, romanized: masîḥ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of moshiach, messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism,[1][2] and in the Hebrew Bible; a moshiach (messiah) is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil. Messiahs were not exclusively Jewish: the Book of Isaiah refers to Cyrus the Great, king of the Achaemenid Empire, as a messiah[3] for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.

Ha mashiach (המשיח, 'the Messiah', 'the anointed one'),[4][a] often referred to as melekh mashiach (מלך המשיח 'King Messiah'),[6] is to be a human leader, physically descended from the paternal Davidic line through King David and King Solomon. He is thought to accomplish predetermined things in only one future arrival, including the unification of the tribes of Israel,[7] the gathering of all Jews to Eretz Israel, the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, the ushering in of a Messianic Age[8] of global universal peace, and the annunciation of the world to come.

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The messiah, as I've said, was to be the one anointed by God to lead them, but very human. They were two different strands of Jewish thought.

Jesus through prayer and through His Scriptural knowledge combined the two strands together into His own life. He would also have experienced God the Father working through Him in ways that were unique to Him.

So yes, Jesus did embody Yahweh's return but as a very human messiah. The "Word" became flesh, with the "Word" representing God's nature and His message for mankind.

I wonder if you have considered this Faith. It seems to me that the views that you have expressed of Jesus’ divine knowledge actually diminishes what He was as a man, and what He did as a man. How many Christians, (and non-Christians for that matter), have over the centuries sacrificed their lives out of love for others. These people gave up their lives simply on the faith that this was the human, or the right thing to do.
If Jesus had the kind of supernatural knowledge that I think you believe He had, then He would have knowledge of His resurrection, which diminishes His sacrifice on the cross. However if,( as I believe and also contend is consistent with the NT accounts), with faith and belief, not knowledge, that His Father was somehow going to redeem His torturous humiliating death, then it takes on a whole new and far more relevant meaning.

I have no problem with "very human," GDR, what I have a problem with is what often sounds like you are saying "MERELY human" and completely ignoring His deity. And the idea that He had no consciousness of His deity during His earthly life is saying just about the same thing anyway.

I also can't take seriously anything written about "Abrahamic religions." That's a red flag that the writer is an unbeliever with a merely human focus. "Two strands of Jewish thought" is utterly meaningless to describe the Messiah who was promised by God and sent by God and IS God in human flesh. You reduce this supernatural phenomenon to the merely human and THAT's what I object to. Yes He's human, completely human, and acted only from His humanness while on Earth, but that's not the same thing as reducing Him the way your sources do to "merely" human as if He chose to unite some strands of Jewish thought. I guess you can't understand why I find this so offensively out of synch with Christianity.

Yes "Messiah" simply means "anointed one," and there are lots of anointed ones in the scripture, but that's just a way to distract from the main point that there is a Savior Messiah God promised from all the way back in Eden, to "save His people from their sins," which means He can't be merely human, He HAS to be God incarnate, and that particular Messiah can be traced up through the scriptures from era to era through many defining hints and references, up to Jesus. \\

So yes, Jesus did embody Yahweh's return but as a very human messiah. The "Word" became flesh, with the "Word" representing God's nature and His message for mankind.

This trivializes the gospels, shrivels them up into nothing really. Yes of course Jesus was human, always human, seen as human, acted as human, never stopped being human, and He is still human as He sits at the side of God the Father interceding for us, but He is not MERELY human and never was merely human.

And when you reduce His mission to "representing" God's nature plus bringing a "message to mankind" I guess you have no idea how paltry a definition that is. Pick any other great philosopher and leader, say Gandhi, you make Jesus no greater than they. You present a shriveled up little remnant of a grand truth. I can't even find words. You seem to have NO idea of the amazing transformation of human life Jesus promises believers, a transformation that reverses the Fall and creates a new universe in which demonic forces of evil are vanquished by a redeemed humanity; you'd roll your eyes at its supernatural implications I'm sure.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I wonder if you have considered this Faith. It seems to me that the views that you have expressed of Jesus’ divine knowledge actually diminishes what He was as a man, and what He did as a man. How many Christians, (and non-Christians for that matter), have over the centuries sacrificed their lives out of love for others. These people gave up their lives simply on the faith that this was the human, or the right thing to do.

I see that this is what concerns you but I think you are just stopping short of grasping that He "emptied Himself" of His divinity for that very purpose, so that He could live a fully human life as all the rest of us He came to redeem. He "put it aside," He refrained from using it apart from the direct guidance of God the Father and then only rarely. He showed it when He told the woman at the well about all her husbands and lovers for instance, and certainly showed His divinity during the incident called the Transfiguration. He did the miracles, however, according to the commentary I quoted, through God the Father's power rather than His own.

In all these things He was acting as a believing human being could act, which was His task. If He hadn't lived fully as a human being He couldn't qualify to be our Savior, our Mediator, our representative, He couldn't have died in our place to save us: so He HAD to be fully man and living the life of a man. And of course He went to the cross as a man. He COULD have called on "legions of angels" to spare Him but He didn't, He died the real death of a man and there is nothing in anything I've said that diminishes that. I think in a way it may enhance it to know that He chose to do all this without any dependence on His divine powers although they were always available. I can't even keep from sinning for five minutes but He had the moral and spiritual strength to resist the use of His powers.

If Jesus had the kind of supernatural knowledge that I think you believe He had, then He would have knowledge of His resurrection, which diminishes His sacrifice on the cross. However if,( as I believe and also contend is consistent with the NT accounts), with faith and belief, not knowledge, that His Father was somehow going to redeem His torturous humiliating death, then it takes on a whole new and far more relevant meaning.

Two things: He could have kept such khowledge suppressed along with all the rest of His powers, but also I expect to die knowing I'll wake up in Jesus' presence and yet I may die in great pain for all I know, and He died in far greater pain. Knowledge of what is to be the result in the end isn't going to change that. And He also had to experience being abandoned by God during His suffering on the cross ("Why have You forsaken Me?") which would have been an immense suffering for one who had never been so deprived before. He had to go through it for us.

Yes He did endure it all as a human being would, through faith. I see no diminishing of His sacrifice in anything I've said. You are failing to grasp what it meant that He really did put aside His powers in order to live a fully human life. You think He would have to have been totally deprived of them. But scripture doesn't say that, it says He put them aside. And yet we know He died a completely human death. There is no diminishing of His sacrifice at all.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

HI Faith

I don't know if you read the whole talk that I started off this thread with or not. I'll quote the last pert of it that deal with what we are discussing.

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To best understand Jesus as wholly man we can turn to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew that He was walking into a hornet’s nest by going into Jerusalem in the manner in which He did. He would ride in on a donkey making a messianic statement as per the book of Jeremiah. There would be palm branches signifying the cleansing of the Temple drawn from the Maccabean revolt. He would do this knowing that all the powers of darkness stood against Him. There was essentially no doubt that He would be painfully executed on a cross, a death reserved for societal outcasts and others who the Romans wanted to make an example of. As a point of interest a Roman citizen could not be crucified. Crucifixion involved not only as excruciating a death as we can imagine, but one as humiliating as we can imagine. It involved death by being roped or nailed to a cross, stark naked with people throwing taunts and stones at the victim. It was a death that was designed by the Romans to essentially dehumanize the victim as much as possible as an example to others.

So in Gethsemane, with this understanding of what was going to happen to Him, he prayed to the father that He wouldn’t have to go through with it. He sweated blood out of pure human fear. Yet, at the end of the day the man Jesus, through prayer and through His total knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, rode the donkey into Jerusalem, overturned the tables of those He denounced as having turned the Temple into a den of thieves, and then suffered through a sacrificial death as a result. He did this with the faith, built on prayer and His understanding of the Scriptures, that this was His vocation, and that God would vindicate His actions. It was the greatest act of faith in human history.

So again, we can only really understand Jesus as wholly man by understanding Him in the context of His own era and culture. Having done that we can gain a clearer picture of how Jesus fits into the entire Biblical narrative. We don’t just see Jesus as wholly man but also as wholly God. I want to conclude by connecting the dots between Jesus as man and Jesus as God.

The Jews believed that Yahweh’s dwelling place on Earth was in the “Holy of Holies” in the Temple. The Gospel of John Chap 1, tells us that that the Word of God that existed beyond time had become flesh. Jesus embodied that Word, the Logos or the wisdom of God. Jesus says that “you who have seen Me have seen the Father. Jesus was the place where God’s heavenly dimension and our earthly dimensions overlapped. Jesus was the true Temple of God. Jesus is where they could go to meet Yahweh and seek forgiveness. This still holds true for us today.

Also, first century Jews were very much influenced by the book of Daniel. There was much debate of what Daniel’s message was for them. When Jesus referred to Himself as the “Son of Man” He clearly saw Himself as being the fulfillment of the prophesy in Daniel 7. In Daniel 7 we are told that one like a “Son of Man” would be brought to the “Ancient of Days”. Then Daniel says this: “14 He, the Son of Man, was given authority, glory and sovereign power - all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (end of quote) On the 1st Easter an enthroned, vindicated, and resurrected Jesus returned to His followers, as the “Son of Man”, having been presented to the “Ancient of Days” and having been given dominion over the kingdom, for then, now, and into eternity. So yes, we worship the man Jesus as the “Son of God” but we can really only understand His message and His life if we understand the world He lived in, and the very human challenges He faced.

For me this is Jesus, wholly man and wholly God, given dominion over all nations, and the first born of the everlasting Kingdom. This is Jesus, who I worship and serve as the second person of the Trinity.

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I also want to comment on this statement.

Faith writes: And He also had to experience being abandoned by God during His suffering on the cross ("Why have You forsaken Me?") which would have been an immense suffering for one who had never been so deprived before.

The quote that you used is from Psalm 22. This was Jesus calling out to His fellow Jews. He is near death on the cross. He is not going to recite the whole psalm so he draws people's attention to what He believed to be happening. He was, by speaking out the first line, drawing their attention to the entire psalm. How does the psalm end?

quote:

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24 For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. 25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows. 26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise him— may your hearts live forever! 27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the LORDand he rules over the nations. 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive. 30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. 31 They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

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He is actually saying that although what is happening to Him looks as if God has deserted Him, but He is saying no, that isn't the case., as it says in verse 24 specifically.

I'm about to take a break so I may have to come back to this later, but I have a few coments:

You have the timing of Gethsemane wrong. He had already ridden into Jerusalem on the donkey the week before, He did not go there from Gethsemane which is what you seem to be saying, and He'd already dealt with the moneychangers in the Temple too. Gethsemane follows the Last Supper, Judas has gone to get the authorities and they come to Gethsemane to arrest Him and crucify Him.

God DID forsake Him briefly on the cross, or He wouldn't have said that. This must mean that the Father withdrew His presence from Him for that period of time. It must have been a feeling of unimaginable desolation. He had to be forsaken to fulfill His mission as our Savior, we being the ones who deserve it and He taking our place. That's a messianic psalm, He was crying out to God, which is what the words actually say... MY GOD MY GOD... He's not crying out to the Jews but to God.

Most of what you say is no problem for me or other "fundamentalists" and I don't know why you think it is. We have just as strong a view of Jesus as human as you do, possibly even stronger, since you often sound rather iffy about His dying in our place for our salvation from our sins, or at least you treat it as a small thing you relegate to a sort of footnote. But we know it took God becoming a man to be able to do it for us and that in itself is an enormous sacrifice, just becoming human for our sake. You seem to think doing good works is far more important. But all religions teach good works, big deal. Only Jesus Christ came to die for us.

But I object strongly to such terms as "vocation" to describe Jesus, as if it's just a role He decided to take in life. Ho hum. It's like the intellectualizing idea that He somehow decided to embody "two strands of Jewish thought." Jesus could not care less about Jewish thought, that's a job for academicians not the Son of God.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: You have the timing of Gethsemane wrong. He had already ridden into Jerusalem on the donkey the week before, He did not go there from Gethsemane which is what you seem to be saying, and He'd already dealt with the moneychangers in the Temple too. Gethsemane follows the Last Supper, Judas has gone to get the authorities and they come to Gethsemane to arrest Him and crucify Him.

That's correct and I guess I wasn't clear but the point was that they were all tied together and that Jesus would know how all of it would wind up in the end.

Faith writes: God DID forsake Him briefly on the cross, or He wouldn't have said that. This must mean that the Father withdrew His presence from Him for that period of time. It must have been a feeling of unimaginable desolation. He had to be forsaken to fulfill His mission as our Savior, we being the ones who deserve it and He taking our place. That's a messianic psalm, He was crying out to God, which is what the words actually say... MY GOD MY GOD... He's not crying out to the Jews but to God.

That is obviously a quote from Psalm 22. It is quoted exactly in order to draw attention to the whole psalm. He is saying that in spite of appearances He has not been abandoned.

Faith writes: becoming human for our sake

Jesus had a human birth. What was He prior to that, and if you say that prior to that He was God then I have to ask who it was that He prayed to, and why would He even need to pray?

Faith writes: But I object strongly to such terms as "vocation" to describe Jesus, as if it's just a role He decided to take in life. Ho hum. It's like the intellectualizing idea that He somehow decided to embody "two strands of Jewish thought." Jesus could not care less about Jewish thought, that's a job for academicians not the Son of God.

It was a vocation which He believed He was called to and had it vindicated by the resurrection. It wasn't about Jewish thought but about Jesus' understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus cries out to GOD in Psalm 22, not to the Jews. Of course He wasn't permanently abandoned but He would not have cried out that way if it wasn't true.

Jesus had a human birth. What was He prior to that, and if you say that prior to that He was God then I have to ask who it was that He prayed to, and why would He even need to pray?

Do you deny the virgin birth, that God begot Him, not Joseph? If you say He is both wholly God and wholly man how COULD you say that and yet it sounds like that is what you are saying. He said "Before Abraham was, I AM," That's a direct claim to have existed before Abraham, and He uses the name of God for Himself. He also says He "came down from heaven." So yes of course prior to being born human He was God, and He stayed God throughout His human life though He did not live by His divine powers, He lived a human life as we all do, and He is still God AND man, glorified man, the firstborn from the dead unto the Kingdom of God and the new creation, which He opened to us by His life and death as a human being.

And again I can't understand how you could ask the question who He prayed to. He prayed AS A MAN, GDR, He did EVERYTHING as a man, and men pray to God. Even if He prayed as the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, it would make good enough sense, but He didn't, He prayed as a man, just as He lived as a man, just as He died as a man. He needed to pray the same way He needed to do everything else human beings do, He came to live the life of a human being. He had put aside His divine powers in order to live as a man.

It was a vocation which He believed He was called to and had it vindicated by the resurrection. It wasn't about Jewish thought but about Jesus' understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

He was a man, He was wholly and fully man, but He wasn't MERELY man, He KNEW He was God and that He was called to live the human life for us and to die for us.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You've many times said that the traditionalist/fundamentalist emphasis on our salvation is "selfish" while you think the "message" is far more important: to have a loving heart. You haven't said that yet here but I suppose eventually you will.

So apparently you think He came just to deliver this message to humanity, and I guess embody it as well.

So it seems you really have no explanation whatever for His incarnation. Why would such a messenger need to be God at all? Someone like Paul could have done the job, a mere human being strongly taught in the scriptures and living a blameless life as a Jewish teacher.

Is there any need at all for Jesus to have been "Wholly God" in your way of thinking?

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.