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"So, I restate that "God the Word has no flesh, no form, nor shape, no humanity." He assumed the form in His human nature which He took from Mary's flesh at Incarnation."

It seems pretty clear that what John is describing is that Jesus, the Word, did not "assume" flesh but was an actual living breathing person (flesh) just as we are with all the limitations of humanity including death. If He "assumed" flesh (life), then He "assumed" death and where does that leave our hope?

John 1:14, "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."

1Jo 1:1, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen [it], and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship [is] with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

1Jo 1:4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full."

The Word (i.e. the Second Person of the Trinity) was always living. At the incarnation He did assume flesh. He did not then become a person; He was, and is, and always will be a Person, i.e. the Second Person of the Trinity. He became an enfleshed person at the annunciation, even though He has always been a living person. He became a *breathing* person on Christmas day, even though He has always been a living person.

Life and death are not on a par; the latter is a privation of the former. Christ assumed not life (which He already had, being Life itself), but flesh. In assuming flesh, he assumed mortality, i.e. the susceptibility to death. And in fact, He (the Second Person of the Trinity) died, through His human nature. But He remains Life itself, and death cannot defeat Him.

-A8

If He "assumed" flesh (life), then He "assumed" death and where does that leave our hope?

Well, Philippians 2 pretty much says so, no?

6 Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. 8 He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.

Without getting too technical, how is "taking the form", "being made in the likeness" and "found in habit like" differ from "assumed"? It is not a trick question, and perhaps you elaborate later, but as a read the thread your objection stands out as arguing over words. Do you dispute that it was the will of Christ to redeem us with His death? If you elaborate below, I apologize, I only read so far today.

Merry Christmas.

It seems pretty clear that what John is describing is that Jesus, the Word, did not "assume" flesh but was an actual living breathing person (flesh) just as we are with all the limitations of humanity including death. If He "assumed" flesh (life), then He "assumed" death and where does that leave our hope?

Please forgive me for jumping in at this point without having read the whole 3,700 posts of context. !!! And if I'm just repeating what others have said (sigh) again I ask you, forgive me.

It seems there's an unnecessary hangup here about the word "assumed."

What's confusing is that, in some contexts, "assumed" means merely to take on an appearance, even for the purpose of deceit, e.g. "he assumed an expression of indifference" "he had a disguise and an assumed name." But in a Christological context, "assume" means "to take up" or "to take upon oneself," "to adopt," or, even better, "to take as one's own."

So that when we say that the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, "assumed" flesh or "assumed a human nature," we mean that He, the Son, a living Person from all eternity, co-eternal with the Father, took on as his own a human nature, becoming true Man, becoming what we are, including smallness, weakness, growth and development, hunger and thirst, real desires and real hurts, real pain and real death.

To use a good phrase of the Catholic Conciliar document Gaudium et Spes (para 22), "For by his incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart."

You know, I was just thinking this today. The Gospels are written in Greek, but Jesus spoke Aramaic; so we have very few of his ipsissima verbi, His exact precise words as he said them. Our earliest manuscripts are, themselves, translations of His verbal preaching and teaching.

But offhand, I can think of two places where we do have the unvarnished Jesus-Aramaic: where he says "Abba" (Father) --- expressing his intimate relationship with the Father; and where He says "Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani--- My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me?" --- his utter abjection as a man in torment and anguish, his utter bereavement.

It's just inconceivable -- isn't it? --- inconceivable, what He did for us.

P.S. Let no one deny that Mary was Jesus' genetic mother. I mean, we don't, can't, know the details about Jesus' human genome, but we do know that Mary was His true genetic link to his human line of descent going all the way back to Adam and Eve. That is beyond debate. Jesus is absolutely, dogmatically, the son (descendant) of Adam according to the flesh.