As Man Jesus....but as God Jesus....
 

For years I have heard the standard Bernardese on Jesus's two natures and I used to teach exactly the same thing. That is that Jesus, the man, would at times do things AS a man and at other times do things AS God.

Yet in every case we spoke of, it was still the man. For example It was those human legs that trend on the water and it was the human mouth that said to Peter he could come out there too. Yet at the same time we have made a clear distinction between God and humanity. How is it then we can say "As God He walked on water" when it is clear He was still a man?

No. This is wrong. Yes He was God in personal identity while in the form of a man. Yes His Divine nature was present and resident and even in ontological union with the human nature. But I believe the bible shows that when Jesus healed the sick and did miracles He was still acting AS MAN.

Consider that He was a MAN approved by those miracles
Act 2:22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:

That Jesus said the works HE did the Disciples would to do
Joh 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
Why? He told them they needed FAITH to do these things. But when it comes to Jesus doing these things we are saying He was not a man with great faith doing things things but He was God...that seems contradictory if we are to be like Jesus. Jesus had a certain advantage then. He was not a man that had to overcome the flesh and have faith and give His will totally over to God in order to do those things if the common thinking is correct.

No, He came here and was our example. It was through the Humanity, as a man that Jesus said
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised
There'd be no reason to expect that if we have faith like him, live like him and was submitted to the will of God like him that we can do the works that he did if the only reason he was able to do those things is because he was going back and forth from being God to being man. That makes no sense because he never stopped being a man. He never changed forms when he worked miracles. It was still those human hands, feet and voice.

I think it is both theological wrong to say "as man he did, but as God he did" and I think it is dynamically wrong to say that. In other words it leads to doctrinal error, almost a nestorian error that ultimately denies a true Human nature and a Kenosis or emptying of Himself (he had an advantage) and it lends us to believe ultimately that we can't really be like Jesus (other than the fact that he never sinned) in His humanity. In fact this would be the conclusion of the Divine Flesh theory too since we have to wait till the resurrection to attain such a status (which begs the question though, if His flesh was Divine why did he need to be changed after the resurrection?)

Anyways I see this as both a Theological issue and a dynamic faith issue.

BTW what I mean is, by the Kenosis. Kenosis is the greek term used in Phil 2 to translate "emptied Himself"...If the "as man Jesus, as God Jesus" thing is true then this renders Phil 2 totally meaningless.

2Co 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2Co 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Rom 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Rom 12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Interesting that this thought came to me while I was praying and had just read the first couple chapters of that book by A.A. Allen, and God has been speaking to me for a long time now about this verse in Romans. The first couple chapters of the book speak of the servant not being above the master, then that everyone that is perfect shall be AS the master.

We can never be above him in rank and certainly never claim to have a Divine nature, but only be filled with the Divine nature. But in humanity we can grow to become like Him

I guess nobody disagrees with me....We should all email Bro Bernard then and tell him he's wrong

the Nestorian Schism

No, wait... that had to do with whether or not Mary gave birth to a 'god' or a 'savior'. blah

Very good Prax. JD has addressed this on several occaisions and with several papers. http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstu...tsymposium.htm

For quite a few years, I have taught and written against Benardism. In the mid 90s, I decided to oppose the belief of two natures in Jesus. I first posted these things on the OLD GNC. I don't know if you can find it in the archives or not.

A couple of years ago, I had an ongoing discussion with an ardent two nature believer of Jesus presently. In fact, it was a long on-going discussion that ran simultaneously on two threads.

Thank you Prax. I appreciate this post. I believe that this knowledge and understanding is taking root among honest hearted seekers of truth.

This is so timely for me...my sister and I have been dicussing this the past week or so...she comes from a different church background than I do....this is truly the answer to our discussion...Thank you so much for your time and effort here....I am going to print this out so we can talk about it further...its a great Bible study!

I don't believe in Jason Duleism either. It seems to be a convoluted argument of Binatarnism. He said:

"While it is tempting to fragment Jesus into a divine side and a human side, and then reason that since Jesus' deity is the Father only His humanity is the Son, the hypostatic union demands that we understand the Son to be one indivisible person. His two natures cannot be understood to be individual entities able to be viewed separately from one another and labeled by two separate names, but two natures unified in one indivisible person. When we are talking about the Son, then, we are talking about deity and humanity united in one ontological reality."