To readers who aren’t philosophers – thanks for your patience! We philosophers feel compelled to pick through these things at a slow pace. Stay tuned for less exploratory and technical stuff.
In my last post, I tried to answer the quesion “What is modalism about the Trinity?” The basic idea is that there are things, and there are modes of things, or ways those things are. The upshot was that there are many possible kinds of modalism. The main questions any modalist has to answer, in order to disambiguate her position, are:
- Exactly which are modes of which? For example, do you hold that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of God? Or do you hold that Son and Spirit are modes of the Father (the Father being identical to God)? Or what?
- Are the modes strictly sequential, or do they overlap? If they overlap, do they completely overlap, so that God is omnitemporally or eternally those ways?
- In grasping the different modes, are we merely understanding ways in which God appears to humans, or also, ways God really is?
I’m afraid, though, that that isn’t enough! A mode is a “way God is” – but what on earth is that? It seems that there are many possibilites. To make it easier, switch to the apple on my desk. What could it mean to talk about “ways it is”? For one thing, we might mean ways it merely appears, or ways it has the powers to appear to different observers. But we’ve already noted that issue, so let’s lay that aside. Just stick to the “noumenal” senses – we’re talking about the apple itself. What sorts of things might I mean by referring to “ways my apple is”?
- Intrinsic properties of the apple. (e.g. having a certain mass, having a bruise)
- Reflexive relations of the apple (e.g. being identical to itself, being the same size as itself)
- multi-place relations in which the apple stands – these could be causal relations, or not. (e.g. being to the left of my computer, or being between my computer and the wall, being from the tree in my yard, being cold from the refigerator, being the source of the fresh apple smell around my desk, exerting a certain downward force on the table, being “right side up”, facing me, etc.)
- Events or states of affairs of which the apple is a component (e.g. There being an apple on Dale’s desk at 11am on July 6, 2006.)
Have I left any out? I honestly don’t know. But let’s consider the claim that the Son is a mode of God, considering what this might mean.
- the Son is an intrinsic property of God, e.g. God’s lovingness, or God’s attribute of compassion. This option doesn’t seem too attractive, as it seems that properties aren’t subjects of consciousness, and don’t act, though the Son is supposed to be a conscious agent.
- the Son is a relflexive relation, e.g. God’s loving of himself, or the “speaking to” relation which God bears to himself. Same problem as above, I think.
- the Son is a multiplace relation, one relatum of which is God. e.g. The friend-and-savior relation that God bears to us. Again, it seems the Son shouldn’t be a relation.
- the Son is the event (or state of affairs) of which God is the component substance. e.g. The Son is the event of God’s relating to us as friend and savior. Or the Son is the event of God’s taking on flesh and living and dying to reveal the Father to humankind. Or the Son is the eternal, timeless event of God’s living in… a son-like way. Or the Son is the event of God’s loving himself (Augustine, anyone?).
The lesson I draw from these reflections is: serious modalists must mean this last type of thing. That is, when they say that, for example, the Son is a mode of God, what they really mean is, that the Son is identical to either a state of affairs or an event, the component substance of which is God. The Son, that is, just is God’s having a certain property, or being in a certain relation, at a time (or timelessly).
But if this is what they mean, difficulties loom. Can events (or states of affairs) be conscious? In a manner of speaking. One might say that the event of Dale’s being awake all day “is conscious”, in that it includes the feature of consciousness – it just is me being conscious in a certain way. To say that an event “is conscious” seems to be a roundabout way of saying that there’s an event which implies that a certain substance / entity is conscious. I’m assuming here that “consciousness” is not a thing, but is rather a feature or property which is always “in” or “had by” a thing.
Can events act (that is, intentionally do things)? I want to say that the answer is no – that’s a category mistake. Events can’t act any more than numbers can explode or mailboxes can be odd (in the sense that 3, 5, and 7 are odd). Of course, there are events which just are, or which imply, certain substances acting. There’s the event of my tying my shoe, for instance.
Can events be properly praised or blamed? It seems, no. Only a certain kind of substance, a person (personal being) can be morally responsible.
In sum, events can be thought of and spoken of as persons, or as having personal attributes, when they include one or more personal beings as component substances. But the sober truth seems to be that no person is an event and vice-versa.
One might ask what I mean by a “person”. A person is a thing / substance / entity which has at least these three features: (1) it is conscious, (2) it has or can have a mind (intelligence), (3) it can intentionally act. Humans are (at least typically) persons. If there was a being like E.T., it would be a person. Anything which is a god is by definition a person in this sense.
Next time: more on objecting to modalism.
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Hi Jobeth,
By bringing up modes/roles, etc. I was trying to attribute the most coherent position to you. But now I understand what you’re asserting: God, that is, the Father, is the soul of Jesus.
Is a human body animated by God (and not by a human soul) a human? *Maybe* it is. But if not, your view is docetism – that Jesus only appeared to be a man, and this flies in the face of the NT, which repeatedly calls him a man and emphasizes his humanity (in some cases, probably, against some early docetists).
You seem to not appreciate the force of this problem: on your view, in the garden of Gethsemane, either (1) God was pretending to not want to be crucified as he acted like he was trying to talk himself out of it, or (2) at one time God did and did not want Jesus to be crucified.
(1) is consistent, but it is a ugly reading of that episode (why would God put on such a show for the disciples), and doesn’t fit the thrust of the NT, which has Jesus relating to God as a Son to his heavenly Father, and as being the unique mediator between God and humanity. This you ignore, sticking to proof-texts which you think show Jesus and his Father to be numerically one. Jesus’s prayer life? God talking to himself. Jesus asserting that some things are God’s prerogative but not his? Outright deception. These are high prices to pay, to achieve a consistent theology.
(2) is inconsistent, hence false.
Re: Acts 20:28. Honestly, did you think I made that up? The reading I noted is cited in the footnote of a major translation – I forget which one.
“Therefore God can rightly swear that he will not share his glory with another person or agent (Isaiah 42:8) and yet share his glory with the person/agent Jesus precisely because Jesus is God.”
Interesting argument. Couple of problems though. God’s point in the relevant verse seems to be to distinguish himself from false gods or idols. Hence, the whole verse (NIV): “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” Second, the NT teaches that God has shared his glory with another – with Jesus. See John 1:14, or the worship scene in Rev 5, or, best yet, John 17:1-5:
” 1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”
There are palpably two persons portrayed here, and moreover, there’s mutual glorifying.
Dale,
One more point, if I may. When we say that a man became a police officer, we do not think that man went from being a man into being a police officer, do we? Of course not. A police officer is still a man. The man has merely voluntarily assumed a temporary role/office by virtue of vow and vesture.
In exactly the same way, when I say God (who by nature/form is Spirit) became a man (who by nature/form is mortal) I do not mean that the all-powerful God ceased from being Spirit and turned entirely into a weak physical body. No. Rather I mean God (who is Spirit) in an act of vesture (not divesture) voluntarily donned a physical body of human flesh and assumed the Role and character of a servant/son of God. And according to Phil 2:6-8 he stayed “in character” (humble obedience) all the way to his death on the cross, just as He swore to do in Isaiah 45:21-22.
Dale,
Have I failed so completely to convey my assertion that you missed it entirely?
You complain, “Now if you say that God, acting in one role (the Son one) was crucified, while God acting in another role (the Father role) wasn’t, the way this differs from the officer example was that this was all at one time.”
No that is NOT what I say. I do not say that God acting in one role was crucified while God acting in another role wasn’t. God was doing the acting, so whatever we saw Jesus doing was what Jesus saw God doing, because they are identical. Jesus and God are not separate and distinct one from the other. Rather Jesus and God are one and the same – identical. What I mean is that Jesus and God are inseparable and indistinct one from the other, because they are ONE being/essence/substance. Jesus was God in the Flesh. God was In the man Jesus. God inhabited the mortal body of Jesus in the same way that you inhabit your mortal body and I inhabit mine.
This is precisely why I brought your attention to Acts 20:28. There it says that God (Theos) bought the church with his own blood. It does not say Lord (Kurios), as you say in your “alternate reading of the text”. I checked.
Jesus’s body was God’s body. Jesus’ blood was God’s blood. God’s glory is Jesus’ glory. And vice-versa. Therefore God can rightly swear that he will not share his glory with another person or agent (Isaiah 42:8) and yet share his glory with the person/agent Jesus precisely because Jesus is God.
If Jesus was accused of having a demon, then so was God. If Jesus turned water into wine, then so did God. If Jesus calmed the storm or raised the dead or forgave sins or walked on water, then so did God, because they are One and the Same Person.
Does that satisfy your “identity” test?
“Specifically your claim if I understand it correctly is that if Christ is God, then anything true of God will be true of the man Jesus. But that ain’t necessarily so.”
Yes, it is so IF “is” there means identity. (A single thing can’t at one time and in the same way differ from itself!) Sorry, but if you don’t see this as obvious, you’re not focusing on the concept of numerical identity, but on some other meaning of “same”. Now wily metaphysicians are good at coming up with these, but I take it you’re a modalist – Jesus will just be (numerically identical to God) or a way God lives his life (one of three such ways). Either way, if we observe the Trinity (you know, texts involving such) and say how many persons (personal agents, selves, thinking things) are there, you’d say: one.
Re: the officer example. It isn’t that one man both can and can’t arrest – that’s not a good way to put it. Rather, one single being (the one man) can while acting in one role arrest, but while not acting in that role, he can’t (lawfully) arrest.
Now if you say that that God, acting in one role (the Son one) was crucified, while God acting in another role (the Father role) wasn’t, the way this differs from the officer example was that this was all at one time. In 33 CE (or whatever), then, in your view God did and didn’t get crucified. It’s not easy to specify the two ways in these both may be true. Suppose I told you I was, acting in one role (say, of teacher), mugged the other day. It would follow that I was mugged (period). Dale-in-role-X just is Dale. What happens to the first, happens to the second – it’s all one being. And I take it, it can’t be that one part of God got crucified and another part didn’t. But then…?
As to Acts 20:28, a quick check reveals that an alternate reading says “Be shepherds of the church of *the Lord* (i.e. of Jesus) which he bought with his own blood.” That fits the tenor of the whole NT – Jesus, the freely self-giving sacrifice who thereby mediated peace between us and God.
Are traditional trinitarians modalists as well? In truth, I think many are, particularly those who seek to minimize the differences between the persons by casting them as (or something like) temporary roles, or even permanent and essential roles, i.e. each one is just the same Person (in a more proper sense of “person”) acting in a certain way. I’ve posted several times on this phenomenon when Christian theologians are interacting with Muslims (and it turns out this goes back to like the 700s). And one sometimes hears sentiments to the effect that the whole dispute re: oneness pentecostalism is all a matter of words, or maybe differing emphases. (Incidentally, are you a UPCI person? Just curious.)
BUT, then there are people who view themselves as upholding the mainstream tradition who have rather complicated and refined theories about what the Three are and how they’re related – really involved theories it may take a metaphysician to love! 🙂 I don’t think they are modalists, at least most of the time.
There there are the Mystery folk… but I’ll leave them to another time.
Hi Dale,
I am pleased to offer my response to your objection.
In your post “An argument against Son-Modalism” you give this same objection as #3. There you say, “The Son is identical to God only if whatever is true of God is true of the Son, and vice versa.”
Specifically your claim if I understand it correctly is that if Christ is God, then anything true of God will be true of the man Jesus. But that ain’t necessarily so.
I refer you back to my previous analogy. In the case of a man who is a police office or a soldier, it is lawful for that man to kill another person while in the line of duty, while it is unlawful for that same man to kill another person while not on duty. This is true even though he is One and the Same man.
In the same way, while for God all things are possible, (Mk 10:27; 13:26; et al) when God was enfleshed (clothed with mortal flesh), it was not lawful for him to act of his own will and agency. This is true even though he is One and the Same Lord.
You say that Jesus was crucified but God was not. And yet Paul claims that it was God (who is Spirit Jn 4:24) who purchased the church of God with His own flesh. See Acts 20:28.
Let me just add that even Orthodox Trinitarians agree that God the Father and Jesus the Son and the HS are ONE in being/nature/essence/work/authority/will and substance. They all share, according to Orthodoxy, ONE power/glory/majesty/rule. I have no dispute with the Trinitarians when they stress the Unity and Deity of the “Godhead”.
My beef is that they make too much of the differences. It seems to me that the only points of differentiation that even Orthodoxy can ascribe to the so-called “members of the Godhead” are those of Role and Revelation, such that Jesus was revealed as a man at the incarnation, the HS was revealed as the comforter at the outpouring and that Jesus will be revealed in all His Glory at the ingathering of the Saints and Judgment of the Earthdwellers.
Even where the Trinitarians stress those differences, they maintain that these various and sundry Revelational Roles are Temporal, Dispensational, and Voluntary, and neither Eternal nor Necessary. All of which as far as I can see could easily be performed by One Person – God.
JoBeth,
Thanks, this is an interesting conversation.
Re point 1: I thought you were claiming, like many have, that atonement is impossible unless God himself, working without any helper, does the atoning. If you instead take your stand on those passages, well, as you basically admit, nothing about them compels me to take them in your sense.
“If God and Christ are two separate and distinct persons, then which one is the Judge of all the earth?” Well, it could be God, by means of his agent Christ. This is like asking “Who invaded Iraq? Bush, or his general?” Both, in different senses – but in a sort of primary way, Bush.
Re: point number two. OK, *IF* being human is compatible with being uncreated, never having come into existence, existing without a body, and always having all divine attributes, then, sure – it’s coherent to say that God/Christ is a man. There are biblical difficulties here, but let those pass.
The last point is really the one that’s fatal to your position. If Christ just is God (and vice versa) that is, if they’re numerically one and the same, then anything true of one, will be true of the other. I daresay that nearly every Christian holds some things to be true of one that aren’t true of the other. You’ll perhaps have to supply your own examples, but here are some obvious NT candidates: Jesus is the Son of God, God is not. Jesus was crucified, God was not. Jesus isn’t the heavenly Father of Jesus, but God is. Jesus, in Gethsemane initially didn’t want himself to be crucified, but God always did want Jesus to be crucified, Jesus only did what he saw his Father doing, but it’s not true of God that he only did what he saw his Father doing.
In your last sentence, you supply your own case of Jesus and God differing: “the immortal God is of course greater than Jesus was prior to His resurrection”.
The problem is that this is self-evident: if something’s true of X but not of Y, then they are not one and the same (numerically identical). Put differently: nothing can differ from itself, or be and not be some way.
The (plausible) claim that Jesus hid his identity or full significance doesn’t help with this problem.
Dale,
Thank you for your response.
In this segment you have offered three objections to my position.
As to the first objection, there is no need for me to concede that it is a logical impossibility that God would use an intermediary, since I never said nor implied such in my previous post. All I said was that I deny that this is in fact the case and asked you whether you thought it was necessary.
Here is my defense. God Himself has said He alone is our Savior. In Isaiah 43:11 (KJV) God says, “I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.”
And again:
Hosea 13:4 (KJV)
Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.
Now I understand that some have inferred from these statements that God is not therein precluded from becoming our savior through a cooperative agent. In fact, there are some who posit that Christ were merely God’s human agent (divinely appointed of course) and nothing more.
I disagree with that assumption. God tells us He looked and found none (among men) who would help Him and none who would uphold His truth. God explains that this is why He Himself became their (humanity’s) savior.
Isaiah 63:5 (KJV)
And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
In this same passage, God speaks of judgment. If there is anything that the Revelation teaches us, it is that the crucified and risen Christ is THE Judge of all the earth. Christ also made that claim. John 5:22
If God and Christ are two separate and distinct persons, then which one is the Judge of all the earth? In my mind, they are one and the same, inseparable and indistinct one from the other. The Lord is the Judge of all the earth, and God and Christ are one and the same Lord.
Your second objection is for me a non sequitur. I deny your charge that I am asserting docetism – that Christ only appeared to be human, but was in fact divine. That is not my claim. Every human being is a living soul inhabiting a mortal body. We are all subject to corruption in the grave except we are miraculously translated into our immortal and non-corruptible bodies. So my saying that Jesus was God enfleshed in a mortal body does not take away from my claim that he was truly human any more than when I say you are enfleshed in a mortal body takes away from your humanity.
The two natures, both for us and for Christ, are not divine and human, but rather they are living and everlasting. All humans are given life by virtue of our inheritance from our ancestor Adam. Gen 2:7; I Cor 15:45. But we are promised another inheritance in Christ. We are promised a life, like God’s, that never ends. Ps 133:3 Heb 1:12
Lastly, you asked me whether I see how my stated christology is going to run afoul of the identity claim. This objection is the one I anticipated in my previous post where I said:
Quote: I think God hid His true identity and “foisted” this thinly-veiled “trick” on the world because would He have made it known who He truly was, they would not have crucified the King of Glory. Is 45:15 I Cor 2:8 Unquote
My position is that Christ’s specific claims concerning His true identity ought to persuade us against making unwarranted assumptions from those other passages that are not as specific and commanding and straightforward as His own claims are about Himself. I am referring to those passages where Jesus tells us plainly concerning Himself as in John 8:58; John 10:30; John 14:9 et al
In one sense I will grant that the immortal God is of course greater than Jesus was prior to His resurrection, since being temporarily vested with mortality is not as great as being once again immortal and omnipresent. Compare John 14:28 with John 17:5
Hi Jobeth,
Thanks for the response. I think your view is a pretty popular one, at least among conservative Christians who are into apologetics.
Here are some responses:
“If Jesus was not God Himself, then Jesus’ death is merely another meaningless and tragic murder of an innocent man which only serves to further condemn humanity.”
To my eyes, this seems an non sequitur. This and some of the other things you say imply that it is impossible that God should reconcile us to himself by means of an intermediary. Really? Impossible? Where precisely is the contradiction? I suggest that this dubious claim comes from philosophical speculation, not from the Bible.
Suppose this is what God has done. Of course, God is still, in the primary sense, our Savior, even if the unfolding of his plan involved someone else cooperating with him, to freely offer his life as a sacrifice to God.
There are two big problems with your scheme as stated. First, it is docetism – that Christ only appeared to be human, but was in fact divine. This avoids all the metaphysical agonies involved in the traditional “two natures” theories, but it seems to fly in the face of scripture. Whatever else he is, Jesus is presented there as “a man approved by God”. One might also worry about patristic theories of the atonement, on which the savior has to be truly human, else humanity won’t be divinized. (I’m not high on these myself…)
Second, and this is the bigger problem, in my view, your theology requires you to deny this:
For any X and Y, X = Y only if whatever is true of one is also true of the other.
Problem is, once you understand what = means – that is, once you grasp the concept of numerical identity, you see that this principle is self evident – just as self-evident as, say, 1+1=2. Do you see how? And do you see how your stated christology is going to run afoul of this?
Dale,
I guess my position most closely aligns with your number 2. I deny both 1 and 3.
My motive for affirming that Jesus is actually God comes from my desire to deny the whole idea that a “Substitutionary Death” is good enough to purge us from our sins.
Jesus was and still is God. God was “play-acting” the role of a human being. God was literally “dressed up” in mortal flesh and blood. And God remained vested in His assumed human “role” and “costume” all the way to the cross.
I think God hid His true identity and “foisted” this thinly-veiled “trick” on the world because would He have made it known who He truly was, they would not have crucified the King of Glory. Is 45:15 I Cor 2:8
God did this because God personally paying the death penalty for all the sin and evil in the world was Necessary in order to purge us from our sins.
If Jesus was not God Himself, then Jesus’ death is merely another meaningless and tragic murder of an innocent man which only serves to further condemn humanity.
But Jesus was much more than divine substitute. Jesus was God Incarnate.
Do you believe that it was necessary for God Himself to become our Savior? Is 43:11 Hos 13:4 I Tim 4:10 Titus 1:3 Jude 1:25
Or do you believe that a “substitute” is good enough to purge us from our sins?
Hi Jo Beth,
Thanks for your comments. You passionately and vividly express some common ways of thinking about Christ and God.
But you seem to not be keeping separate three different claims:
1. Jesus is a mode of the person God. (Here, it does seem to follow that Jesus isn’t itself a person – no mode can be a person – it’s in the wrong ontological category.)
2. Jesus just is (is numerically identical to) God. Here, if God’s a person, Jesus must be a person as well, indeed, that same person. But as I’ve mentioned some past postings, this is simply not something a believer in the NT can say – some things are true of one, that aren’t true of the other. It follows from this that they are not numerically identical. And just as bad – Jesus’ Son-Father personal relationship to God must be a faux interpersonal relationship, something like God himself play acting.
3. Jesus is “an inherent component of” God – perhaps a personality, or a temporal stage of God. Here, Jesus may or may not be a person, but in any case, he won’t be the same person as God, because no proper part of a thing is numerically identical to what it’s a part of, and being the same person as God would require being numerically identical to him.
1-3 mean different things, and at various places in your comment, you affirm each of 1-3. Unfortunately, they all seem mutually inconsistent. “modalism” sometimes means each of the three. And more disturbingly, those who consider themselves wholly orthodox and square within the mainstream of Christianity, often affirm more than one of them.
As to the Incarnation, you seem to view it as a change God undergoes. This is a popular view nowadays, but I believe the traditional, creedal view, does not view the Incarnation as a change God undergoes, but as the timeless “assumption” of a complete human nature, timeless “hypostatic union” of the divine nature and an individual human nature.
As a modalist myself, I object to your characterization that if a “mode” is “as way God is” then it denies the personhood of Jesus.
When speaking of the Son, Jesus Christ, I am speaking of a person. For me, that person referred to as the Son aka Jesus, is not a god. He IS God.
The Son is Himself an inherent component of God’s continual existence and revelation and purpose, neither separate nor distinct from God Himself.
Here is an analogy. Look at the man named Bill who is a police officer (or farmer, or preacher, or businessman). The police officer (or farmer, or preacher, or businessman) is an inherent component of Bill’s temporal existence. Donning the attire or uniform and assuming the role (and oath and duties and responsibilities) of a police officer (or farmer, or preacher or businessman) does not detract whatsoever from Bill’s being a human being. And removing the attire or uniform of a police officer (or farmer or preacher or businessman) and retiring (temporarily or permanently) from serving in that role or office does not make Bill somehow “more” human.
I cannot think of Bill without thinking of him in his role or mode as a police officer (or farmer, or preacher, or businessman). When I think of Bill as a child, I think of him growing up to be a police officer (or farmer, or preacher, or businessman). When I think of Bill as retired from his job or position or profession, I think of him with the knowledge that his former work relates and contributes intrinsically to his personality and character and life and legacy.
Even for Bill himself this is true. Bill is continually conscious of his role (or mode) in his office (or position or profession) as it relates to his mortality, his family, his property and his future. In the course of Bill’s career he may need to weigh his duties, responsibilities and legacy as an officer (or preacher, or businessman or farmer) against his duties, responsibilities and legacy as a father, a husband, and a useful citizen. There may be conflicts. There may be sacrifices. There may even be secrets in Bill’s council with himself concerning his decisions and actions that are never shared with anyone or only shared with those few who are closest to him.
The point is that Jesus can be fully the single entity God in His role as our Redeemer in the same way that Bill can be fully the single entity Bill in his role as a police officer (or a farmer, or a preacher, or a businessman). We may comprehend Bill only as Bill the police officer (or farmer or preacher or businessman) but that doesn’t mean that Bill as fully and inherently Bill is more than we imagine he is.
The way I describe my own position is that God “becoming” a man (i.e. God incarnate) was an act of vesture, not divesture. God donning human flesh is like a man becoming a police officer or soldier by donning the uniform and assuming the oath and duties of a police officer or a soldier. The vesture they wear and the acts they do while performing their respective duties neither adds to their nature as a mortal man, nor detracts from it. The business of wearing a uniform and performing the duties of their office is done entirely within the realm of their human nature. Whether a man puts on a uniform or takes one off does nothing to his underlying human nature. It neither changes him for better or for worse. He is not more or less of a man when he removes his uniform. Nor is he more or less a man when he is in uniform.
It works the same way for the Father of Spirits. The business of putting on flesh and performing the duties of an obedient son was done entirely within the realm of God’s person and Deity. Whether God puts on humanity or takes it off does nothing to his underlying Divine nature. It neither changes him for better or for worse. He is not more God when he rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven to reign from Heaven. Nor is he less God when He condescended to the earth and died on the cross to purge us from our sins.
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