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To: kosta50; Agrarian; Kolokotronis; HarleyD
In fighting various heresies, the Church established trough Councils that Christ had two natures, one fully Divine and one fully human and that the two did not mix. As such Jesus, the Man, knew of His special blessing but was not acting like Christ the Gd. So, I reject the "inside information" theory of Forest Keeper.

Really, the two did not mix? In that case, who was Jesus telling us to believe in? His invisible, and separate, alter-ego? What did Jesus mean when He said "I and the Father are one"? To be consistent, you must believe that the man Jesus NEVER claimed to be God. I am amazed you are saying this. I guess the Jews were way ahead of you.

If He was walking around with the "inside knowledge" then He was more than Adam.

It is controversial to you that Jesus was more than Adam? Words fail me.

Unless He was in every way like us except that He (as fully human without "inside information") chose not to sin but could have sinned according to His human nature, the whole thing was a show.

How in the universe do you come to that conclusion? Jesus was ONLY human, or else His existence was a show? How did the human Jesus perform miracles? Did the Father send down special powers, BYPASSING the divinity in Christ, to Jesus the man? Where do you get this stuff? :)

4,233 posted on 03/31/2006 10:56:21 AM PST by Forest Keeper
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To: Forest Keeper; Agrarian; Kolokotronis; HarleyD
Where do you get this stuff? [Christ had two natures that were separate and not mixed]

I would say I get it from the Fathers, such as +John of Damascus, who writes:

Confessing, then, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, to be perfect God and perfect man, we hold that the same has all the attributes of the Father save that of being ingenerate, and all the attributes of the first Adam, save only his sin, these attributes being body and the intelligent and rational soul; and further that He has, corresponding to the two natures, the two sets of natural qualities belonging to the two natures: two natural volitions, one divine and one human, two natural, energies, one divine and one human, two natural free-wills, one divine and one human, and two kinds of wisdom and knowledge, one divine and one human. For being of like essence with God and the Father, He wills and energises freely as God, and being also of like essence with us He likewise wills and energises freely as man." [Exact exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book Book III, Chapter XIII]

His two natres are united in one Person, but are not mixed. Thus, Christ is one Person, with two distinct wills and two distinct natures, united but not mixed.

4,240 posted on 03/31/2006 1:40:37 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: Forest Keeper; kosta50; Agrarian; HarleyD

FK, you'd best read the declarations and canons of the Council of Chalcedon, which, as I understand it, all Trinitarian Protestants accept. Here's a link: http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum04.htm

And here's a relevant snip:

"But there are those who are trying to ruin the proclamation of the truth, and through their private heresies they have spawned novel formulas:

* some by daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord's economy on our behalf, and refusing to apply the word "God-bearer" to the Virgin; and
* others by introducing a confusion and mixture, and mindlessly imagining that there is a single nature of the flesh and the divinity, and fantastically supposing that in the confusion the divine nature of the Only-begotten is passible.

Therefore this sacred and great and universal synod, now in session, in its desire to exclude all their tricks against the truth, and teaching what has been unshakeable in the proclamation from the beginning,

* decrees that the creed of the 318 fathers is, above all else, to remain inviolate. And because of those who oppose the holy Spirit, it
* ratifies the teaching about the being of the holy Spirit handed down by the 150 saintly fathers who met some time later in the imperial city
o -- the teaching they made known to all,
* not introducing anything left out by their predecessors, but clarifying their ideas about the holy Spirit by the use of scriptural testimonies against those who were trying to do away with his sovereignty.

And because of those who are attempting to corrupt the mystery of the economy and are shamelessly and foolishly asserting that he who was born of the holy virgin Mary was a mere man, it has accepted
# the synodical letters of the blessed Cyril, [already accepted by the Council of Ephesus]
pastor of the church in Alexandria, to Nestorius and to the Orientals, as being well-suited to refuting Nestorius's mad folly and to providing an interpretation for those who in their religious zeal might desire understanding of the saving creed.

To these it has suitably added, against false believers and for the establishment of orthodox doctrines
# the letter of the primate of greatest and older Rome,
the most blessed and most saintly Archbishop Leo, written to the sainted Archbishop Flavian to put down Eutyches's evil-mindedness, because it is in agreement with great Peter's confession and represents a support we have in common.

It is opposed to those who attempt to tear apart the mystery of the economy into a duality of sons; and

* it expels from the assembly of the priests those who dare to say that the divinity of the Only-begotten is passible, and
* it stands opposed to those who imagine a mixture or confusion between the two natures of Christ; and
* it expels those who have the mad idea that the servant-form he took from us is of a heavenly or some other kind of being; and
* it anathematises those who concoct two natures of the Lord before the union but imagine a single one after the union.

So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God-bearer as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us."


4,258 posted on 03/31/2006 4:53:41 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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