Christology: Part 1: Accuracy & Precision In Language

God is a triune spirit with no material substance, who is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable, in being, wisdom, power, justice, holiness, goodness, & truth.  

As to his human nature, Yeshua has a rational human soul (ie spirit) & a body.  In the Incarnation, the Son unites to Yeshua’s soul — not to His body.  A human soul is assigned & united to a human body.    

God the Son is not united to an assigned human body in the manner of a human soul.  If that was the case, then a Christological formulation might be understood to mean that God & Yeshua constitute 2 pneumatic components united that are both assigned & united to Christ’s corporeal body.  

 

God the Son did not have fleshly body in a literal sense.  Why?  Because that necessitates a change in the fundamental nature of God the Son as a hypostasis & God as a being.   The idea that God has or had a body is a thoroughly pagan concept.  

The Son took on the **likeness** of a man.   That does not entail an assigning union to Yeshua’s body.  It entails a union emanating from the Son to Yeshua’s pneuma (pneumatic component, ie soul & his soul — not God the Son -  is assigned and united to a corporeal matrix (body).  

If by “The Son took on a fleshly human body,” a critic means that the Son united to Yeshua so that it can be said that the Son now has a body in a literal sense, then that is heresy.  It necessitates a change in the essence & attributes of both the Son as an individual Person & God as a singular Being. 

If the critic means that God the Son united to Yeshua’s human nature via uniting to Yeshua’s rational human soul in a manner in which it can, at most be said that He **figuratively** has a body (ie the Son paracleted Yeshua so closely in the hypostatic union that it can be said that it was/is as if He had a human body), that is a Christologically orthodox understanding of the hypostatic union & how theandric ontology functions.  

How so?   God creates a human’s soul (Zech 12:1) & assigns and unites that soul to a corporeal body.   The Son unites to Christ’s soul which is assigned & united to his body & as only in that derivative sense “The Son has a body,” which entails no conversion, composition, or confusion as to the to the 2 natures (WCF 8.2)

When we talk about the theandric ontology of Christ, it is important that we use accurate, precise language.    When we use sloppy, contradictory language like “God became human just like you & me” & “In the Incarnation, neither God’s nature nor Christ’s human nature was changed,” we are using language that is easily misunderstood & is obviously inaccurate. 

On the one hand, in this example, there is no substantive change in the essence & attributes of Christ’s human nature & his divine nature.  On the other, “God became human just like you & me.”   

If the latter statement is true, then: 

• To uphold the appearance of orthodoxy in a debate, the person using this language will soon have to begin the process of death by 1000 equivocations.    
• By definition, a human being is finite, created, & mutable.    Therefore, if the second statement is true, then the nature of God is either demoted by way of taking on finitude, createdness, & mutability or Christ’s human nature might have been promoted or made promotable. 
• Humans have sexual characteristics.  If God became human just like any one of us, then it can be said that God  became male in the Incarnation.
• But God has no sexual characteristics.  
• Romans 1:18 - 32 precludes this.   The purpose of the created order is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority.   If we can engineer sexual ethics via using an allegedly sex/gender/sexual orientation/preference embedded in the human image, then we can reverse engineer worship ethics & Theology Proper from the human image.    That is depicted as a thoroughly pagan enterprise in the Bible.   God has no sexual characteristics, etc., so “natural” cannot refer to an embedded teleological principle in the human body/psyche/image.  
• When applied to Christology, if God literally took on a human body in a non-derivative sense by taking on human nature “just like you & me,” then God “maled” Himself, etc.   

Did God die in any literal sense?  No! 

Did God learn?  No! 

Did God become finite?  No! 

To quote RC Sproul:  

We believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. We also believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross. If we say that God died on the cross, and if by that we mean that the divine nature perished, we have stepped over the edge into serious heresy. In fact, two such heresies related to this problem arose in the early centuries of the church: theopassianism and patripassianism. The first of these, theopassianism, teaches that God Himself suffered death on the cross. 

Patripassianism indicates that the Father suffered vicariously through the suffering of His Son. Both of these heresies were roundly rejected by the church for the very reason that they categorically deny the very character and nature of God, including His immutability. There is no change in the substantive nature or character of God at any time.

It’s the God-man Who dies, but death is something that is experienced only by the human nature, because the divine nature isn’t capable of experiencing death.  

Likewise God did not assign Himself & unite to Yeshua’s body.   The union is with Yeshua’s soul/spirit.     At best, language like “God died,” ought to be used (if at all) as a figurative term that means that although Christ died, He only did so as to His human nature.   God cannot die — to do so necessitates a substantive change in God’s essence & attributes.  However, God did so closely paraclete Yeshua that it can be said, at most, that God knew Yeshua’s suffering & death just as He knew that of the Israelites in Egypt or even more closely.   

Likewise, to say that “God became human” has a very specific meaning that ought to accurately & precisely articulated, especially in light of heretical pseudotheologians like Francesca Stavrakopoulou who seek to beguile people into believing that God, if God exists, may well have a body.