[Note: This is the first post of a multi-part essay on the Incarnation.]
Introduction
It all starts with the Incarnation. Take away the Incarnation and all of Christian theology falls apart. Christianity is utterly unique—whatever similarities it shares with other faiths—on this one point alone: it teaches as non-negotiable dogma that Jesus is God-made-flesh. Take that away and the doctrine of the Trinity falls apart, as does the promise inherent in Jesus' bodily Resurrection from the dead, and of union with God in Christ. So, too, does the doctrine of the Church and her Sacraments, as well as the proper understanding of Mary. All of these uniquely Christian doctrines, these ways of life, are emptied of any reality if the Incarnation is taken away.
This is why insistence on absolute fidelity to the Christian teaching and way of life on the Incarnation is crucial. Everything uniquely Christian about our faith depends on it. If you go wrong on the Incarnation, you cannot go right on any other doctrine. In terms of the standard on Christian teaching on the Incarnation, one must look to the definition given at the council of Chalcedon (here):
Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.
Simply put: in Jesus' one Person are two natures and two wills, human and divine, operating in perfect union and harmony, providing for us in his Person a bridge to the Father, and not a bridge only but the single means of union with God, of a partaking of the divine nature.
Posted by Clifton at September 13, 2004 06:30 AM | TrackBack