Church of the Holy City

So God and Man Is One Christ

So God and Man Is One Christ
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
April 29, 2012

Isaiah 53 John 10:11-18 Psalm 23

Last Sunday we speculated on how Jesus was conceived. This speculation involved a discussion of the relationship between the soul and the body. As controversial as it may be, I favored Swedenborg’s theory that the soul comes from the father and the body from the mother. He speaks to this point in several places in his writings. In True Christian Religion, we find a clear statement of the relationship between soul, body, and parents,
The soul which is from the father is the person himself, and the body which is from the mother is not the person in itself, but is from him. The body is only a covering of the soul, composed of such things as are of the natural world; but the soul is of such things as are in the spiritual world. Every person, after death, lays down the natural which he had from the mother, and retains the spiritual which he had from the father, together with a kind of border (limbus) from the purest things of nature, around it . . . for in the seed from which everyone is conceived, there is a graft or offset of the father’s soul, in its fullness, within a certain envelope of elements of nature. By these its body is formed in the womb of the mother, which may grow into a likeness of the father, or into the likeness of the mother (TCR 103).
We also saw that with Jesus we do not have the usual relationship between father and son that ordinary humans have. By that I mean that with Jesus, we do not have sperm and egg uniting to form a new person. In ordinary human birth, father and son are two distinct persons. But when we think of Jesus’ birth, we do not think of two distinct persons, but one person with a divine soul and a human body.
The Athanasian Creed affirms this understanding of Jesus’ nature. There are parts to the Athanasian Creed that we reject, but I have edited them out and cited those passages that affirm the unity of God and Man in Jesus Christ:
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father . . . and Man, of the Essence of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead . . . Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. . . . One altogether; not by confusion of Essence; but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ . . . .
In Jesus, as the Athanasian Creed says, God and Man are one even as soul and flesh, or soul and body are one. God lives in Jesus as our soul lives in our body. We have Jesus’ testimony to this in John 14. There, Jesus says to Philip,
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells within me does His works, Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me (10-11).
So when Jesus uses the language of Father and Son it does not mean Father and Son the way ordinary humans use the words. For us it is two different beings. For Jesus, it is a matter of inner and outer; of higher and lower; of internal and external; of essence and manifestation. When Jesus said that God is His Father, the Jews understood this to mean that He is One with the Father, not a different person from the Father. John tells us that calling God His Father made the Jews so angry that they plotted to kill Jesus. And they were angry because calling God His Father made Jesus equal with God. At least that is what John tells us,
This is why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he . . . called God his own Father, making Himself equal with God (5:18).
So when Jesus uses language of Father and Son, it is to be understood as a figure of speech meaning identity. That is, when Jesus calls God His Father, it is a figure of speech that means He is from God and He is God.
That is how we understand the divine aspect of Jesus. But there is also the human aspect to consider. Jesus received a humanity from His human mother, Mary. And Jesus made His humanity divine by a process similar to the way our souls are regenerated. I have talked in other sermons about the three “R’s”–repentance, reformation, and regeneration. This isn’t the place to review what the three “R’s” mean. Suffice it to say that we need to turn toward God of our own free will and to ask God into our lives. Jesus needed to do the same thing. The human Jesus needed to turn toward His origins and ask God into His life. So the Human approached God and God approached the Human.
We need to keep in mind how thoroughly human Jesus was. His human consciousness needed to prepare a place for God in Himself, just as we need to prepare a place for God in our souls. So in Jesus, the Human turned to God in the same way that we need to turn to God. God and Human could unite in Jesus only because Jesus asked God into His life and prepared the way for a full union of Human and Divine. So Jesus experienced two different states of consciousness. In one state He was fully Human and asked God into His life. In the other state God filled Jesus’ Humanity with Divine Power and God and Man were closely united. Christians have talked about these two states of consciousness in Jesus. Or at least Christians at the time of Swedenborg spoke of these two states. Swedenborg tells us,
That the Lord, while He was in the world, was in two states, which are called states of exinanition and of glorification, is known in the church; the former state . . . was the state of humiliation before the Father, for in it He prays to the Father and says that He does His will, and ascribes to the Father all that He has done or said. . . . Moreover, without this state He could not have been crucified (TCR 104).
Alternating between these two states, Jesus brought His Humanity to God and God came to dwell in Jesus’ Humanity. This is like our own process of regeneration. For us, we need to open our hearts to receive God’s love and wisdom. Then we need to bring that love and wisdom into our outer life. Our process is an alternation between inner and outer even as Jesus’ process was an alternation between God and Human.
The reason that the Lord had these two states of exinanition and glorification, was, that there is no other possible way of progressing to union, since it is according to the Divine order, which is unchangeable. The Divine order is, that man should dispose himself for the reception of God, and prepare himself as a receptacle and habitation into which God may enter and dwell as in His temple. . . . According to this order every person proceeds and must proceed, that from being natural he may become spiritual. In like manner the Lord, that He might make His natural human Divine . . . In like manner the Lord united Himself to His Father, and the Father united Himself to Him; in a word, the Lord glorified His Human, that is made it Divine, in the same manner in which He regenerates a person, that is, makes him spiritual (TCR 105).
This state of exinanition is when Jesus’ divinity is as if withdrawn. That is the time when Jesus’ Human nature seeks God. Even so, as we are regenerated, we need to freely seek God and make our lives a fit place in which God can live. Recall what God says in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Those simple words tell the whole story, “I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” The process is mutual–we come to God and God comes to us. There needs to be effort on our part, in order to complete the cycle. God comes to us only when we come to God. We need to push proprium out to the periphery of our consciousness and allow God’s Holy Spirit to fill our souls in its place. We need to transform proprium with good emotions called remains. So Jesus’ too, needed to expel the maternal humanity He received from Mary and put on the Divine Humanity in its place. This is why Jesus talks to God as to another sometimes. There were times in His life when He was in the humanity from His mother and that very humanity needed to turn to God just as we, too, need to turn to God.
There is one difference, though. Jesus’ soul was God. Our soul is the mortal and finite soul we receive from our parents. God’s Holy Spirit can enter our lives and transform us. But it can never make us one with God. Jesus was different. Since His soul was God, when Jesus’ Humanity was completely mature spiritually God was in His Human fully and completely. So it can hardly be put more clearly and more succinctly than those ancient words of the Athanasian Creed, “So God and Man is one Christ.”

PRAYER

Dear Lord, we are beset at times with a flood of worldly concerns. We can lose our trust in your divine guidance and we can become fretful and discontent with life. Help us to hold fast to confidence that no worldly concern is overwhelming, and that you are with us always and will lead us ever upward to you. Help us to see that inner good that lies within each of us as a gracious gift from you. Give us the confidence to let that innate goodness shine in all our affairs. let our lives bear witness to the truth that we are Christians and that we are yours.

Lord, we ask for your peace to descend upon this troubled world. Where there is conflict and war, let there be understanding and peace. Inspire our leaders, and the leaders of other nations to govern their people with compassion and with your Holy Love. Where there is famine and thirst send your generosity. Where there are natural disasters, may help come from good neighbors and from compassionate governments. Where there is want and unemployment, lend your patience and hope.

Dear Lord, we ask you to send your healing love to all suffering in body or soul. Lord, be with all who are in need of your healing presence and power.