Primacy of Jesus Christ, Alpha and Omega (sin or no sin)

Christianity Today ^ | January, 2008 | Philip Yancey

[koinonia]

More than two centuries before the Reformation, a theological debate broke out that pitted theologian Thomas Aquinas against an upstart from Britain, John Duns Scotus. In essence, the debate circled around the question, "Would Christmas have occurred if humanity had not sinned?"

Whereas Aquinas viewed the Incarnation as God's remedy for a fallen planet, his contemporary saw much more at stake. For Duns Scotus, the Word becoming flesh as described in the prologue to John's Gospel must surely represent the Creator's primary design, not some kind of afterthought or Plan B. Aquinas pointed to passages emphasizing the Cross as God's redemptive response to a broken relationship. Duns Scotus cited passages from Ephesians and Colossians on the cosmic Christ, in whom all things have their origin, hold together, and move toward consummation.

Did Jesus visit this planet as an accommodation to human failure or as the center point of all creation? Duns Scotus and his school suggested that Incarnation was the underlying motive for Creation, not merely a correction to it. Perhaps God spun off this vast universe for the singular purpose of sharing life and love, intending all along to join its very substance. "Eternity is in love with the inventions of time," wrote the poet William Blake...

[koinonia]

Returning to the subject of this post, Ad Orientem has an excellent presentation on the primary motive of the Incarnation by Archpriest G. Florovsky.

Click on the icon of the Incarnation to see it. It’s worth the read.

From my limited knowledge (hence the ping to Kolokotronis, if he's around) it seems that the Divine Liturgy and the Sacred Icons of Christ in the Orthodox Churches more focused on Christ’s glory and man’s elevation in Christ rather than on atonement from sin. (No Christian, I would assume, denies man's need after the fall to be redeemed from sin).

I was also under the impression that “theosis” or deification in Christ according to Saints like St. Gregory of Nazianzen and St. Gregory of Palamas was more central to the Orthodox spirituality rooted in the Incarnation which obviously lends itself to the so-called “absolute primacy of Christ”—absolute because God’s immutable decree was the Incarnation (sin or no sin) and our "theosis" in Him—as opposed to a “relative primacy of Christ”—relative to man’s need for redemption from sin--Aquinas' position that without sin there would never have been Christ the King of Glory: no sin, no Incarnation, therefore not an absolute primacy.

CHRISTE ELEISON!

[kosta50]

Actually the Hebrew has "mincha," which was a grain sacrifice, and not "zevach," which meant animal sacrifice

Mal 1:9 talks about "zabah" (obviously referirng to animal sacrifice). That's why I said in context.

"Minchah" means any offering, including meat offering as well as grain offering.

[GCC Catholic]

The real problem, if not outright tragedy, is that most Catholics don't even remember what the Catholic Church was like from her inception in the 1st century until 1964, that is when your church leaders changed everything into something hitherto unknown, semi-Protestant and even outright unrecognizable.

Yes, that is a huge problem. I was scandalized the first time I really understood what was changed in the 1960s (I'm 23, so all that happened was well before my time. So many Catholics are completely ignorant of it though. So many others don't mind that the Roman Rite was deformed (yes, I'll use that word) into something that was unrecognizable as such... because it was easier.

Also, the CNS article is not completely accurate; As I said earlier, a small number of feasts did have readings from the OT. One such feast is the Immaculate Conception, which had a lesson from Prov. 8. Admittedly, the OT readings are few and far between in the Extraordinary Form, though they do come up as Introit and Communion verses (which unfortunately would not have been re-read in the vernacular).

Thank you also for you explanations in 38; that gives me something to chew at for awhile.

[maryz]

Well, my source said grain offering.

Mal 1:9 talks about "zabah" (obviously referirng to animal sacrifice).

Do you mean Mal 1:9? I don't see it:

ט וְעַתָּה חַלּוּ-נָא פְנֵי-אֵל, וִיחָנֵּנוּ; מִיֶּדְכֶם, הָיְתָה זֹּאת--הֲיִשָּׂא מִכֶּם פָּנִים, אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת.

[kosta50]

Kolo is probably enjoying his summer vacation, possibly even in Greece, but hopefully we will hear from him sooner than later. :)

Orthodoxy is completely focused on the resurrection. This is the pinnacle of his becoming a man. He defeats death by dying for all of us. One just wonders why did God choose to become man so he can die, and in dying (in his human nature) defeat death (by his divine nature).

Couldn't God simply defeat death without all that? Of course he could, but there is a little element that exists in humanity and it's called freedom, which was given to man by his Creator, along with all the consequences that result from it.

To the western mind, God is the author of evil as well as good (Reformed theology), and God devised the whole thing, made sure Adam would fall so that he can send his only-begotten Son (who is one and the same God) to suffer and die to satisfy some sort of "divine justice." As professor Alexander Kalomiros observed, in the western mindset, being saved means being spared God's wrath, being saved from God!

The western theology of redemption, especially Reformed Protestant theology of redemption, is grounded in the concept of human justice attributed to God, and is rather grotesque from an Orthodox point of view.

In Orthodox theology, we are saved by being restored to the original created state (of communion with God) through a spiritual struggle (in Slavonic podvig), through a process known as theosis. In other words, we become reunited with God.

It's very simple and free of any legalistic mumbo-jumbo: separation from God is perdition; reunion with God is salvation.

God is the source of life and indeed Life itself. Being in communion with God is life, and separation from God is death. The only reward is life in God and the only "penalty" is death without God. There is no legalism whatsoever, and our destiny is based on our cooperation or rejction of God, who is our spiritual physician.

The Patristics didn't deal with Incarnation without the fall concept because it is was an alien thought to the early Church, and I really can't see Fr. Florovsky speaking on behalf of any broad Orthodox community by embracing such an idea, God intervenes in our lives, in the economy of our salvation, and Incarnation is the ultimate such divine intervention.

The idea of an Incarnation without the fall negates that God intervenes in real time, and all we are witnessing is a movie that has a beginning and the end and we are simply spectators who were dragged into the move theater against our will.

The movie will play itself out with or without our participation; we can sleep through it; talk to each other; or watch. The end will be the same, as determined by the movie-Maker. At the end of the show, some will be rewarded and some punished, as was determined before the movie was even made!

That is in essence western, particularly Reformed theology which tends to place St. Paul above the Gospels, and the NT on the same level as the OT. The various Protestant groups have an amalgam of semi-Catholic, semi-Patristic theologies mixed with elements of Reformation.

The Catholic theology, while decidedly more Patristic then the rest of Western Christianity, remains locked in legalistisms fully embraced with the emergence of Anselm's theology of justification late in the 11th century, and its scholastic backbone which is diametrically opposed to, and soundly rejected by, Palamite Orthodoxy.

It was precisely Anselm who addressed the whole issue of Incarnation in his famous Cur Deus Homo, introducing the concept of satisfaction demanded by God (a profoundly OT concept), which in and of itself is an oxymoron given that God cannot be dissatisfied or lacking in anything.

Legalistic theologies tend to anthropomorphize God, a very pagan approach at its core. That's why Calvinists, for example, find the rought-and-tough God of the Old Testament so much more appealing and why they do their best to try to stuff Christ into the OT God model rather than the other around.

We can recognize the Reformed in Anselm's vocabulary, since they borrowed it directly from him and, by extension, from the Catholic Church. His theology is directly responsible for such "pillars" of Catholic theology as the "treasury of merit," for example, and Calvinist substitutionary theology ("penal substitution"), which is an oxymoron because it asserts that God is penalized by his voluntary death!

[kosta50]

I was also under the impression that “theosis” or deification in Christ according to Saints like St. Gregory of Nazianzen and St. Gregory of Palamas was more central to the Orthodox spirituality rooted in the Incarnation which obviously lends itself to the so-called “absolute primacy of Christ”—absolute because God’s immutable decree was the Incarnation (sin or no sin) and our "theosis" in Him—as opposed to a “relative primacy of Christ”

I have never heard this before. The whole basis of Palamite theology is rejection of scholasticism. Instead, monasticism forms the backbone of Orthodoxy, a life of prayer and abstinence, struggling and climbing the ladder of divine ascent.

Incarnation is extreme humility in which God humbled himself in order to offer himself as ransom for our freedom from death. Such ransom could not be made without Incarnation, and without the fall Incarnation would not be required.

If we accept that God gave Adam wide freedom (he could go anywhere and eat anything in the Garden but one fruit), then we do not have a micromanager God. It was God's decision to give us reason and with reason the freedom, and the responsibility. When we abuse the freedom, we lose it.

The get-out-of-jail card is repentance, and finding freedom in God rather than on our own. God, by his divine intervention in the economy of our salvation, affects our destinies according to what we do; our deeds will be judged. The Bible is clear on that ((cf Mat 25).

And it is equally clear that God changes our destines depending on which way we choose:

Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life." [Isa 38:5]

The entire OT and Christ's own teachings revolve around two issues: God intervenes to save his beloved people over and over, and God forgives if we repent. Incarnation was God's intervention to save us from certain death. There was not a trace of any other selfish reason for such sacrifice. It's really that simple.

[trisham]

Kolo is probably enjoying his summer vacation, possibly even in Greece, but hopefully we will hear from him sooner than later. :)

******************

Good for him! I was wondering why I hadn't seen him recently. Thanks for the info. :)

[kosta50]

Do you mean Mal 1:9? I don't see it:

ט וְעַתָּה חַלּוּ-נָא פְנֵי-אֵל, וִיחָנֵּנוּ; מִיֶּדְכֶם, הָיְתָה זֹּאת--הֲיִשָּׂא מִכֶּם פָּנִים, אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת.

Of course not! :) It is Mal 1:8, my typo. Sorry.

[maryz]

I see the more relevant context in Mal 1:7.

[kosta50]

Yes, that is a huge problem. I was scandalized the first time I really understood what was changed in the 1960s (I'm 23, so all that happened was well before my time.

You are blessed for recognizing that. It is indeed shocking how something completely new can become the "norm" in less than one generation. But if that's all you know, you'd believe that's how it always was and any attempt to bring the Church back to her traditional path is seen as "changing" the Church.

So many others don't mind that the Roman Rite was deformed (yes, I'll use that word) into something that was unrecognizable as such... because it was easier

Of course. Catholics used to receive communion only if they confessed, and fasted 12 hours before receiving communion, and abstinance form passions, just as the Orthodox still do.

Cathoic communion now resembles the host give-away. Anyone, properly prepared through confession, prayer and fasting or not, can receive on his conscience. Well, that's just way too Protestant if you know what I mean. It's easy and it invites people to make up their own theology.

But the Church our Lord left us also left the clergy repsosible for the state of our conscience! If it all defaults to our conscience, what's their job?!?

Also, the CNS article is not completely accurate; As I said earlier, a small number of feasts did have readings from the OT

I am talking about the standard Sunday liturgy, not feast day services, which always contain relevant readings that are normally not part of the standard liturgy. The Orthodox Church uses the 1,6000 year-old Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for most of the year and on 14 occasions the older Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, which is essentially the same but with more prayers and therefore longer.

The Church always used to read Pauline Epistles and the Gospels on those regular Sundays. The incursion of the Old Testament was implemented after Vatican II, I imagine, as an attempt to make the Catholic Church all things to all people (to paraphrase St. Paul) that they may be saved. But there is no salvation in ecumenism. God doesn't want luke-warm. The Church did not survive by being luke-warm. :)

[kosta50]

I see the more relevant context in Mal 1:7.

How can bread be blind and lame? What are you talking about? The context is that God demands perfect sacrifice and if "offended" by anything less than perfect sacrifice, for that which we would not offer to those above us but offer it to God.

Of course, this is silly because there is no such thing as perfect sacrifice that we can offer to God. And the whole issue of God demanding sacrifices is another issue I don;t want to get into on this thread.

If anything, wasn't the tragedy and Cain and Abel over God's disdain for "grain sacrifices" and his preference for something killed?

[maryz]

God's disdain for "grain sacrifices"

I believe there's a lot of commentary, both Jewish and Christian, on this, but if grain sacrifices had been understood as being by their nature unacceptable, they wouldn't have been offered in the temple, and they were.

Anyway, 1:7 mentions "polluted bread" and the verse is a complete thought; the blind, the lame and the sick are mentioned separately in 1:8, presumably imperfect animals. Sounds to me to mean that bad grain and flawed animals are both unacceptable.

[kosta50]

Sounds to me to mean that bad grain and flawed animals are both unacceptable

So it seems. Older Judaism (Torah) has God demanidng animal sacrifices. See Genesis 4:4, 8:20-21, 15:9-10, Exodus 20:24 , 29:11-37, Leviticus 1:5, 23:12-18, Nummbers 18:17-19, Deuteronomy 12:27.

On the other hand, middle period and apocalyptic Judaism written afterf the Babylonian captivity and closer to the time of Jesus says otherwise. See Ps.40:6, 50:13, 51:16, Isaiah 1:11, 66:3, Jeremiah 6:20, Micah 6:6-7

The same anti-sacrifice sentiment is expressed in Matthew 9:13, 12:7 with "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice."

This indicates a profound change in Judaic mindset, frlom the erly, basically pagan reigion, to Christian-like Psalmology.

[GCC Catholic]

It is indeed shocking how something completely new can become the "norm" in less than one generation. But if that's all you know, you'd believe that's how it always was and any attempt to bring the Church back to her traditional path is seen as "changing" the Church.

Yes. Any sort of restoration of the Traditional Form of the Roman Rite is going to require huge amounts of catechesis for clergy and for laity. For as bad as catechesis might have been going into the 60s, it's certainly been worse since then.

I am talking about the standard Sunday liturgy, not feast day services, which always contain relevant readings that are normally not part of the standard liturgy.

I see; you are correct then. Am I correct to say also that the Orthodox Church also continues to use the same one-year cycle of readings that is used in the EF? That makes it easier to connect a particular reading to a particular Sunday out of the year... meaning that it's easier to remember. In addition, those are the same readings we find referred to in the sermons of the Fathers.

But there is no salvation in ecumenism. God doesn't want luke-warm. The Church did not survive by being luke-warm. :)

In the Latin Rite, some of us noticed... but there are still many who deny that there is a problem.

[koinonia]

Summer vacation in Greece? It’s hotter than an oven over there right now. I’m sure Kolo will confirm that for us later :)

At any rate, you mention that the western mindset is like passively watching a movie. Perhaps the modern mindset sees it like that, but Aquinas and Duns Scotus both underscore man’s cooperation with God’s grace. “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt 22:14). God calls many into existance and extends his grace to all of them, but few are chosen (predestined) because they fail to correspond to that grace. Man is always free to choose Hell or correspond to grace in being, as you put it, restored and reunited to God. God, on the other hand, does already know the outcome because He is outside time and sees the whole thing from beginning to end.

Duns Scotus held that after sin entered the world Christ could have restored us in a variety of ways, but chose to redeem us on the Cross. Scotus rejects the whole Anselmian notion of sin necessitating the Incarnation to placate God’s wrath.

God is free, and He freely chose in his love to communicate his glory to a creature outside himself in the most perfect way possible, namely by taking a created nature (the humanity of Christ) and uniting it to himself in the person of the Word. In willing the Incarnate Word, God also willed man to be his adopted children in Christ. That is St. John (1:12) and St. Paul (Eph. 1:3ff, Gal. 4:4ff).

By the way, the focus of Scripture on man’s need for redemption from sin and separation from God is natural since the whole Bible is written after sin. That doesn’t mean, therefore, that the exclusive or primary motive of the Word becoming flesh is placating divine justice or defeating death. For Scotus Christ would always have come as the Mediator of grace and glory, the Mediator of communion with God—and this not because of sin.

[maryz]

This indicates a profound change in Judaic mindset, frlom the erly, basically pagan reigion, to Christian-like Psalmology.

Yes, there's a lot on this theme in C.S. Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms (which I mention only because I happened to be reading in it lately).

Are you sure you're not getting tired? Your typing isn't, um, up to your usual standard . . .;-)

[kosta50]

Am I correct to say also that the Orthodox Church also continues to use the same one-year cycle of readings that is used in the EF?

That's correct.

[kosta50]

Good. I read his “Wose Bible is it?” Great communicator. And, no I am not tired. I was rushing. Thanks for the reminder.

[koinonia]

RE: Christ as sent first to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles...

Psalm 71 (72)--Messianic Psalm

[1] Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. [2] He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. [3] The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. [4] He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. [5] They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. [6] He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. [7] In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. [8] He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. [9] They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. [10] The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. [11] Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. [12] For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. [13] He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. [14] He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. [15] And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. [16] There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. [17] His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. [18] Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. [19] And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen. [20] The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

Those predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ are called into existence and justified through faith then glorified: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:29-30.

God is the God of Israel, but also of the Gentiles (I'm not referring to what the Gentiles believed, but about God himself), and all--Jews and Gentiles alike, are justified by faith in Christ Jesus and not by Jewish observance of the law: "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith." Romans 3:27ff

[kosta50]

Summer vacation in Greece? It’s hotter than an oven over there right now. I’m sure Kolo will confirm that for us later :)

I am not sure where he is, but he usually goes into "hiding" in the summer and is home on weekends unless he is in Greece visiting his ancestor's village.

Aquinas and Duns Scotus both underscore man’s cooperation with God’s grace

I would imagine both of them would have been zealots for Christ.

“For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt 22:14). God calls many into existence and extends his grace to all of them, but few are chosen (predestined) because they fail to correspond to that grace

One of the favorite verses the Reformed Protestants like to quote (unfortunately always out of context)! The problem with it being quoted out of context is that the parable has nothing to do with "predestination."

God calls many into existence and extends his grace to all of them, but few are chosen (predestined) because they fail to correspond to that grace.

True, save for the predestined part. Orthodoxy understands "predestination" as God's foreknowledge (or better yet just his allknowledge), not his choices. The decisions must be ours; otherwise there is no free will. If God makes our choices than they are not ours, but His.

God, on the other hand, does already know the outcome because He is outside time and sees the whole thing from beginning to end

According to the Christian theology that is correct.

Duns Scotus held that after sin entered the world Christ could have restored us in a variety of ways, but chose to redeem us on the Cross

But that has the transcendental God reacting to something that happened in time (Adam's fall) as if he didn't know it was coming! In his all knowlege, God would have made that decision before sin entered the world and in fact would have been the screen director that mandated the fall.

Either God predestined Adam's fall and is directly the power behind the emergence of sin, or God permits our decisions and doesn't know what our decisions will be, but rather reacts to our decisions as we make them, as the Bible seems to suggest. In which case he is neither omniscient nor transcendental.

In willing the Incarnate Word, God also willed man to be his adopted children in Christ. That is St. John (1:12) and St. Paul (Eph. 1:3ff, Gal. 4:4ff).

But, if that's the case, then it is not our will, but his, and it is not our decision or cooperation but his will and our servitude. Orthodoxy teaches that love does not compel. So, either we have to ignore these verses because they proclaim Somehting other than man's freedom, or we have to interpret them in terms that are compatible with God's omniscience as well as with our free (i.e. independent)  will. Good luck! You  can't have it both ways.

His primary and, in fact, only purpose was to bring back "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat 15:24) into his fold.

By the way, the focus of Scripture on man’s need for redemption from sin and separation from God is natural since the whole Bible is written after sin. That doesn’t mean, therefore, that the exclusive or primary motive of the Word becoming flesh is placating divine justice or defeating death.

Where is Incarnation mentioned or hinted in the Old Testament? The idea and a need for a savior (messiah) becomes part of Judaism during the Babylonian captivity (6th century BC), some 800 years after the Biblical dates of Exodus. One thing the all Jews soundly reject is the idea that there can be any hypostatic union of two natures. As my Reformed friends like to remind me, God says:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
Nor are your ways my ways," [Isa 55:8]

The case of Incarnation without the fall is simply not supported by anything other than specifically in order for Christ to die (in his human nature) and restore our freedom to be saved. He came down specifically to pull out the fallen humanity from the bottomless pit of sin. Incarnation was an act of extreme mercy for his fallen humanity.