God Begets And What Is It Is Beyond Human Conception Of The Son

In this passage Torrence explored the relation of the doctrine of the incarnation to questions of soteriology. Torrance explains, God’s “conception and birth of the Virgin Mary, apart from a human father, did not alter the fact that the birth of Jesus was truly of the flesh just like that of all other human beings.” Also on the grounds of Soteriology, Torrance explains that when the Son of God became man which effected our salvation through humanity, it was the ‘whole man.’ In this passage, Torrance shows the representation of a leading western theological to “evaluate and appropriate the emerging Christological consensus of the Greek patristic

moment they saw Jesus as he really was the Son of God talking with two

The new man, he affirms, is completely unlike the old man; he is a creature being transformed into something completely new. In order for people to better comprehend the Christian idea of a new man, the author says they should probably view it in connection with evolution. If we do this, however, he cautioned us that in this analogy the flow of evolution deviates tremendously from what we know it to be. Namely, unlike the “making” of man, the “begetting” of man comes from outside of nature rather than inside, and has nothing to do with sexual reproduction — it is voluntary. To the contrary, the Sons of God are “begotten” by what the author calls a good infection — everyone gets it by his personal contact with Christ. And, although the author spoke of this process as a future occurrence, he informs us here, that the “next step” of the Christian theme, which is a transformation from being creatures of God to being Sons of God, has already appeared. For example, the first instance of this process occurred about 2000 years ago in the form of Jesus

This discussion begins by placing its roots in their proper foundation, historic Christian orthodoxy. The reality of the incarnation informs and is informed by all of the core doctrines of the Christian faith. Without an orthodox understanding of any of these aspects, one cannot see the robust, beautiful and awe inspiring truth of the Gospel. Thus, the question surfaces, why have we in the modern church all but completely abandoned the discussion and teaching of the doctrine of the incarnation? The book delves into each of these areas of orthodoxy mentioned thus far, pulling out the intricacies that are brought to fullness in light of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Leithart begins this book by talking about the controversy surrounding the church in the 4th century. Athanasius, a young man brought up in a pagan household, was taught to fear the Lord from a man named Alexander from a young age. Athanasius’ main opponent during his lifetime was to discount Arianism, a heresy that tried to propose the “subordination of the Son to the Father,” a view that outright “denied the eternal generation of the Son,” making Jesus less than God. The Arians believed that “the Father exists prior to the Son, since the Son is not eternal, that is, not timelessly self-subsistent” to the Father. This is to say that the Father does not eternally generate the Son, but instead came into being at a certain point in history, a blatant heresy that was corrected by Athanasius and the Church council in the 4th century.

the augsburg confession it outlines the importance of God saying that he is “eternal, without

ideas of God the Father, Jesus the Son of God and the Holy Spirit in

Genesis is the first book of the Bible.  It begins with the story of God’s creation of the universe.    The Lord is the Almighty Creator of the world, skies, heavens, seas, animals, man, and woman.  He governs the universe and develops relationships with man.  Throughout Genesis, God acknowledges the fact that human beings make mistakes, and accepts their imperfection.  Throughout Genesis, God changes from one who does not tolerate disobedience, to one who shows clemency.  Early on in Genesis, God punishes Adam and Eve for disobedience.  After making the mistake of flooding the world, the Lord realizes that even He is not perfect, and does not allow Jacob’s deceit of his father to taint his future.

The Arian controversy caused a great uproar during early Christianity. The controversy argued that because God is divine and ontologically perfect, He cannot change because it would signal a defect in perfection. It also argues that If Jesus is the incarnation of the Word (Logos), and the Logos is divine, like the father, then God would have changed through the human life of Jesus. With this, Arians say that God would have had to suffer in Jesus, which is impossible. Now because of theses reasons, Jesus (Logos) could not be divine, but instead would be a great exalted creature. This creature would be higher, spiritually, than humans, but would be under God. Arians also argue, Jesus could not be human if we were divine and if Jesus would not be human then there was no way he could become salvific, meaning we cannot be saved or follow in Jesus’ examples. Another issue that the Arians argued was, if Jesus is the Son of God and is begotten, he must have had a beginning in time. It is God’s essence to be eternal so the Son of God/Jesus must be a form of a creature. There was no possible way that Jesus would be God. Finally they believed that the Trinity is three separate beings.

Before this, Christians simply believed God and Jesus Christ were one in the same. Most people belonging to the Christian faith believed Christ was identical to God. Arius suggested “The Son was not eternal, but came into being when the Father “begot” him; there was a time when he was not” (Placher). The word begot is past tense of beget meaning to be created or generated. This suggests that Jesus Christ was of similar substance (homoiousios) with the

When exploring the concept of ‘God the Son’, the incarnation and attributes of God as seen in Christ enter the picture. In order for human sin to be covered, a human sacrifice is all that could meet the requirement ordained by God, yet, they had to be sinless. Only the incarnate God could fulfill this role, exhibiting qualities of God Himself, such as selflessness, unconditional love, and purity. Another core trait was humbleness, although Jesus held the highest status in all the world, which shone brightly in His ministry, as He also served the children of God. Paul captured the essence of Jesus as God and the reality of the incarnation in these verses, “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God…made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7, NKJV).

Adolf Deissmann’s Die neutestamentliche Formel “in Christo Jesu” initiates scholarly interest in examining the phrase “in Christ” in Paul. Deissmann suggests that the 164 occurrences of “in Christ” in Paul have to be interpreted in the sense of Christ-mysticism. The phrase occurs so often that according to Deissmann, the formula “is really the characteristic expression of [St. Paul’s] Christianity.” He views the phrase as reflecting “a mystical concept of intimacy with Christ.” His interpretation of the phrase as locative is also exclusive, which means that the believer literally lives in the spiritual Christ. For him, “in Christ” is “the peculiarly Pauline expression of the most intimate possible fellowship of the Christian with the living spiritual Christ.” Deissmann argues that “in Christ” should be interpreted as a literal local dative of personal existence. Thus, he primarily emphasizes locative significance to the phrase. After an exhaustive examination in this monograph, he concludes that St. Paul’s construction of the formula ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησου is not that peculiar because it was already used in non religious language. He further states that the phrase pointed to the relation between

“One of the most profound mysteries of Christianity is the Incarnation, when ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.’ Something analogous to this mystery may be found in the birth of every child, when a spirit enclosed in flesh comes to live in the world.”

In the beginning of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, it is revealed to use in 1:26-27 that God has created man in his image. The text verbatim states “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” From this distinct text we can clearly conclude that when ad created man and woman, they were destined to be in God’s image and carry his image throughout his creation. Today we can see that many of us do not live in God’s image due to society becoming more secularized as it progresses through the years, however as Christians we can verse this by living in God’s image in our chosen vocations, churches, and even in the

However, the concept incarnation is at work in the New Testament. The Greek equivalent of incarnate is found in scripture. The Greek equivalent of incarnate is in carne (en sarki) meaning that God came in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16; 1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). Jesus took on the form of man so that he might bridge the gap between human creation and His father. God sent Jesus as a child to a lost and dying world. Jesus came to us as human. He did not lay down his divinity and pick up humanity. He came to us as both divine and human. Through this act God was revealed in a personal way to humankind, and therefore in a way which is more adequate for a personal God to interact with his creation. God now was an advocate to his people. He no longer had to communicate his words through prophets, lawgivers, or even wise men. It allowed God to be united with humanity, so that he might be able to bear their sins, and make atonement for them in one act of sacrifice and reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19 – 21). What humanity itself could not do was done in human beings by the Son of God (Romans 5:8) .