Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
Oh yea, I forgot!
Regards
Brother, I am not even going to touch this conversation with a 10 foot pole!
Merry Christmas
This discussion of Jesus' DNA is actually fascinating to me, because while Jesus can't be a clone of Mary (if He were, he would be a she!) we know that he assumed his flesh from Mary's flesh ---she was His true genetic as well as parturient mother --- and that he had bloodlines going all the way back to David, and beyond David, to Adam and Eve.
If you have any ideas on this. would you like to speculate why it says in Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed..." thus, oddly when you come to think of it, identifying the coming Messiah with the seed of the woman, and not with Adam?
Of course Jesus is Adam's natural descendant ("son of Adam still Thou art, Savior to our race") but doesn't God do something counter-intuitive there, taunting the Serpent to the effect that the woman's seed would defeat him?
Thoughts?
God does not stand and hold anyone back from Salvation. If someone goes to Hell, it is because they have rejected the message which God gave them and because they are a sinner.
However, nobody comes to the Father unless the Spirit draws him, and of all that the Father gives Christ he will lose nothing. The very faith to believe is a fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives, for our nature will give us an inclination to turn from God, not to Him.
We are much closer together on man's righteousness than one would imagine. But I am "Calvinistic" (non hyper-Cal) in my view of how man fits into the equation.
Your assertion that I was wrong and an actual correction or error are two different things. By my count, I've made one error in this conversation (not that I couldn't make more). If I make an error, I'm not above admitting it (as I just did). We have a theological disagreement. Your pointing out to me that you disagree with me and that the Roman Catholic church disagrees with me does NOT constitute showing me my "errors."
I read your reply and I fully agree. It is sad that some have to have a 'sceintific' reason to believe a miracle.
I did, P-Marlowe: I said "in his human nature." That answers all your questions.
His blood descent of David is through His Mother and that's not how the Law sees it. His descend of David through His adoptive male parent, St. Joseph, is one of adoption and not blood lineage.
However, more importantly, having been incarnated of a Jewish woman, He is related to Abraham in flesh, and to all humanity in nature.
We are in perfect agreement, P-Marlowe. You seem not to understand (regrettably).
Funny, considering that being "calendar challeneged" was good for the Orthodox Church for the past 1980 years (and still is for 85% of all Orthodox in this world), and that it was a heretical Greek Ecumencial Patriarch who, among other things, in 1923, unilaterally recognized Anglican communion and uniaterally proclaimed Orthodox-Anglican "union!"
Thank God for keeping us Calendar "challeneged!"
touche :)
[just kidding]
“and as such she is truly the Theotokos, the bearer of God,”
To be accurate, she was the bearer of the Logos, the Word, that became flesh, not God. It was not the triune God but the second person of the Trinity that assumed human nature, body and soul. His divine nature did not become flesh, it was perfect and complete and nothing could be added to it or taken from it. The incarnation was a “personal” act; the person of the Son of God became incarnate, not his divine nature. In speaking of the incarnation in distinction from the birth of the Logos, His active participation in this historical fact is stressed, and His pre-existence is assumed. It is impossible to speak of the incarnation of one who had no previous existence.
The Word becoming flesh does not mean He ceased to be what He was before. His essential being was exactly the same as before and after the incarnation. John 1:14, “the Word became flesh” does not mean that the Logos changed into flesh, and thus altered His essential nature, but simply that He took on that particular character, that He acquired an additional form, without in any way changing His original nature He remained the infinite and unchangeable Son of God.
The incarnation was an act of each of the divine persons, God, Matt. 1:20, Luke 1:35, John 1:14, Acts 2:20 Rom. 8:3, Gal. 4:4, Phil. 2:7. It was according to the eternal plan, the good pleasure of God in eternity past. The important element in connection with the birth of Jesus was the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, for it was only through this that the virgin birth was possible, Matt1:18-20, Luke 1:34-35, Heb. 10:5. Thus He, the Holy Spirit, was the efficient cause of what was conceived in the womb of Mary, and Jesus assumed His human nature from the substance of Mary, not merely resembling our nature but derived from the same stock as ours, and the person who was born was not a human person but the person of the Son of God, who as such was not included in the covenant of works and was in Himself free from the guilt of sin. The Holy Spirit sanctified the human nature of Jesus in its very inception, and thus kept it free from the pollution of sin, not only in its conception but throughout the life of Jesus. John 3:34, Heb. 9:14.
"Funny, considering that being "calendar challeneged" was good for the Orthodox Church for the past 1980 years (and still is for 85% of all Orthodox in this world), and that it was a heretical Greek Ecumencial Patriarch who, among other things, in 1923, unilaterally recognized Anglican communion and uniaterally proclaimed Orthodox-Anglican "union!""
Another example of the Orthodox Laity NOT saying "AXIOS"!
touche :)"
Τουτζε!
We do not know the mechanism of God's Incantation. We are only told that Christ used Mary's flesh to take on human nature. Incarnation is God's miracle, an enigma not ours to decipher by logic and science, not a "natural" phenomenon for sure.
The Protestant side further rationalizes that a haploid egg (ovum) could be made viable by some sort of "divine genetics" (providing the necessary genetic material for Christ's with a Y-chromosome [whose?????]), thus suggesting a demigod zygotic fusion, or that somehow a haploid cell can be viable with half the number of chromosomes, thus leading to even greater fantasy.
The suggestion that the Son of God became Incarnate by "natural" means, that Mary's conception and pregnancy, were the "usual" procreative events, and "deduce" that our Lord's Birth had to be "normal" is unknown in the 2,000 years of Christianity.
P-Marlowe, you just stated that Incarnate Logos is not God! Lord have mercy!
Advent blessings to you both!
-A8
Indeed. And knowing that the very same heretical EP, who proclaimed the non-existent Orthodox-Anglican union, by personally "recognizing" their ordinations, is the architect of the "new calendar," it is indeed surprising that his unholy legacy continues to dwell and divide Orthodox Christians.
An Orthodox abbot told me the other day that the current EP Bartholomew I promised him and others personally in 2003 that he would return the Church to the Calendar that served us 2,000 years, but apparently reneged on this promise.
I am not sure how much truth is in that rumor, but it is certainly something the EP should be doing.
-A8
P-Marlowe, my apologies for having mistaken you foir blue-duncan in 2936.
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