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onethousandunfufilleddreams
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Name: Jonathan
Birthday: 10/9/1987
Gender: Male
Interests: myself...yea myself.
Expertise: nothing
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
5/31/2005
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| Lately, I've heard some talk of protestants being Nestorians. At first I laughed but, admittedly, I was a little unsetteled because, though I was sure this accusation was grossly exaggerated, I didn't know why. so the had been kicking around my head for a few weeks when I heard this sermon by RC Sproul, one of my persona heroes, a well-know and respected reformed theologian. He, in this passage, is addressing the real persence of Christ in the sacraments but discusses the very accusation that I had been considering. Here he is:
We believe that historically that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures. He has a divine nature and a human nature. The human nature includes his body, which can only be in one place at one time, it is subject to the normal limitations of physical forms, there is an outline to his body. There is a certain sense in which Jesus, touching his human nature, as the reformed confessions tell us, is no longer with us; he's no longer present. Jesus told his disciples, before he departed by way of the ascension, "Yet a little while and you will see me no more, I am going away." So, He talked about his departure, his leaving, of the removal of his physical presence from their midst, and the church ever since his removal has looked forward to the day of his bodily return, wherein his human nature will appear again manifestly and every eye will see him. And yet, at the same time Jesus talked about leaving and then later returning he said, "nevertheless, I am with you always, even till the end of the age."
Now how can one person be present and absent at the same time? Well a person, in this case, can be present and absent at the same time but not in the same relationship. Thus the reformed confession goes like this: "touching his human nature Jesus is no longer present with us. Touching His divine nature He is never absent from us." The person has the divine power of omnipresence so that Jesus can be in Alaska and South America and Pennsylvania and in Eastern Europe and in East Asia and Africa all at the same time, touching his divine nature. His body can't be all these places at the same time because that's part of his human nature, but his divine nature can be. And the divine nature is real. So that when Christ is present in his divine nature he is really present, that was the point that Calvin was insisting upon.
Well, my Lutheran friends listen to me at this point and they say, "Well, are you saying that there's a place where the divine nature is present but the human nature isn't? Aren't you dividing and separating the two natures? Aren't you doing the very thing that Chalcedon condemned Nestorius in the fifth century for doing?" I say, no, lets listen to what Calvin says:
"Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God. And this person contains two natures, a human nature and the divine nature, those two natures can be distinguished from each other, but they must not be separated. They must not be divided from each other, but they are distinguished."
And there's a big difference between distinguishing between the two natures and dividing the two natures. As I said, I can distinguish your body and your soul and do you no harm, if I divide them I've just killed you. So there's a big difference between dividing and distinguishing.
Now we have one person, Jesus Christ, his human nature, given its humanity, is localized, it's at the right hand of God, it's in heaven, wherever that is, and it can't be five different places at the same time. But now, this person, touching his divine nature, is not contained within the physical, or geographical limits, of the human nature. If that were the case, during the incarnation God would have been limited to the body of Jesus and would have been nowhere else. God, in the incarnation, never stops being eternal, never stops being spiritual, never stops being immutable, never stops being omnipresent. So the divine nature of Christ can be in Paris or in London and in Orlando all at the same time.
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| Reading this more than a year later is kind of funny. I, like before, have just finished a major paper. I go to moody and just turned 19. I attend Moody and am studying to be a theologian, so I guess i didn't really "give up" on anything. it's funny how much you can change in a year and never even know it until you look at a picture of yourself from eariler. that waht this is. | | |
| well. i am finally done with my systo paper. i learned hoe be breif during the section on anthropology. it's a page and a half... heres the second sentance:
This section on man will be very short because there’s not much to say other than we are completely depraved and in desperate need of a saviour.
my paper is about 19 pages long, it would have longer but after Theology proper (circa. 3am) I suddenly lost the will to continue writing, and living.
its time for sleep now, if i barely look alive tomorrow, ill be doing better than i am right now. | | |
| while doing my systo paper i came across a cool quote and i thought i'd post it, since i havent posted much in a while.
"God is the uncaused, who exists by the necessity of His own Being, and therefore necessarily"
that quote is by Louis Berkhof, an old school Reformed theologian from the early 1900's. i like it because it is so succint, and it just sounds cool.
well, that is all.... im gonna be up late tonight | | |
| so i think it is time for one of these newfangled updates.
not gonna be much of one though... im going to Moody tommorrow for a little visit.
ill be 18 in well, i guess its 2 days now. Wow.
i need to grow up.
but whatever, good night. | | |
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