Jason Dulle article:

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Esaias

John says the Word was made flesh. Did the Word cease to be the Word when it was made flesh? He also says the Word was God, and was made flesh. Did the Word cease to be God when it was made flesh?

No. Jesus is God in the flesh. Everything that makes God to be God dwelled bodily as Jesus Christ. When we look at Jesus, we are seeing all we will ever see of God (as far as I know).

I believe the use of "Word" is a synecdoche.

Obviously not. God cannot cease to exist, or cease to be whatever He is. God however can become a man, because that does not involve ceasing to be something, but rather taking on a new way of being. God 'took on himself human nature', isn't that what everyone says? So God became a man - that is what 'assuming to himself human nature' means, indeed, that is all it CAN mean because a Person, who has human nature, is a MAN (ie human being). So when God 'took human nature to himself' he began to exist as a man, a genuine human being. Yet, God did not cease to exist as God, such a thing is a logical impossibility.

I basically agree with what you've said. Who says that God ceased to exist as God?

God did all those things, as a human being, did he not? Therefore, he did them 'as a man'. It was God who did them, via the human nature (the human existence).

Yes, of course.

Dulle and Bernard seem, to me, to be trying to express a Biblical truth via trinitarian christological terminology, which derives from Greek pagan metaphysics. My point is that going that route, instead of simply sticking to the Biblical data and statements, leads to unnecessary complication of a simple fact - God became a man, died for us, rose again, and demonstrated to us in living technicolor the very character and will of God.

I agree with you. I think Dulle would agree with you also. Thanks for the explanation.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

No. Jesus is God in the flesh. Everything that makes God to be God dwelled bodily as Jesus Christ. When we look at Jesus, we are seeing all we will ever see of God (as far as I know).

I believe the use of "Word" is a synecdoche.

I basically agree with what you've said. Who says that God ceased to exist as God?

Yes, of course.

I agree with you. I think Dulle would agree with you also. Thanks for the explanation.

How is it a synecdoche?

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

How is it a synecdoche?

Its the use of a part/aspect for the whole. In this case it emphasizes that God spoke the world into existence. God himself created but he created by speaking words. In the OT the prophets would say that the "word of the Lord came to me". They understood that the words that were being spoken to them were not simply words coming into their minds or audible spoken but those words had a source in God and in reality God came to them through words.

And I'm not saying that "Word" may not represent something else.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

Its the use of a part/aspect for the whole. In this case it emphasizes that God spoke the world into existence. God himself created but he created by speaking words. In the OT the prophets would say that the "word of the Lord came to me". They understood that the words that were being spoken to them were not simply words coming into their minds or audible spoken but those words had a source in God and in reality God came to them through words.

And I'm not saying that "Word" may not represent something else.

I dont see a figure of speech being necessary. The Logos equals the Memra.

Memra is a circumlocution for every time Yahweh spoke, here for Yahweh speaking creatively

That hard part is explaining how the Memra was with God

This could be a personification, like Wisdom

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

I dont see a figure of speech being necessary. The Logos equals the Memra.

Memra is a circumlocution for every time Yahweh spoke, here for Yahweh speaking creatively

That hard part is explaining how the Memra was with God

This could be a personification, like Wisdom

Or you could say it is a synecdoche.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

I dont see a figure of speech being necessary. The Logos equals the Memra.

Memra is a circumlocution for every time Yahweh spoke, here for Yahweh speaking creatively

That hard part is explaining how the Memra was with God

This could be a personification, like Wisdom

How would you explain it?

[Esaias]

1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
1Jn 1:2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us

The Word of life... that eternal life which was 'with the Father'... and 'was manifested unto us'...

There is an obvious parallel between John 1 and 1John 1. In the gospel the Word was in the beginning, it was with God, and it was God, and in it was life, and the life was the light of men, and it was made flesh and tabernacled with us, declaring God to us. In the epistle, the Word of life is from the beginning, has been seen and heard and touched by men (made flesh), which is that eternal life which was with the Father/God and was manifested unto us.

So the Word being 'with God' in the gospel must correspond to the eternal life being 'with the Father' in the epistle, correct? In fact I believe the preposition is the same in both passages - 'pros'. So, saying 'the Word was with God' is the same as saying 'that eternal life which was with the Father'. So how is eternal life 'with' the Father? To say that eternal life was with the Father means that the Father had eternal life, an eternal life which he has brought down to us and given to us. Just as God had a Word/Logos, a spoken Message or Revelation, which he sent to us and gave to us. In fact, that Message (word, logos) is the eternal life which God gives to us, which God made known to us, which God made available to us. That eternal life was manifested as a human being, the Christ/Messiah, the Son of God. And this is the same thing as the Word or Message or memra of God being manifested to us by 'becoming flesh' ie human.

God's Message to us is eternal life, and that message of eternal life, that message which is not just ABOUT eternal life but which is itself eternal life, is Jesus Christ.

Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

And again,

1Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

Or you could say it is a synecdoche.

If you are saying, what I just said is a synecdoche, I don't see it as the same thing.

John is using a Hebraism

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Esaias

How would you explain it?

Well I actually just did

John is speaking "rabbinically" and in rabbinical literature, as well as biblical, One can personify certain things

Wisdom is not another person but is spoken of in that way. But in reality it was God who Created BY Wisdom

The memra being with God is a personification along the same lines.

There is another possible Option. The memra is also seen as the Angel of the LORD...not another person but a literal personification or "Hypostisization"...we might call him a Manifestation.

Being With God represents the reality prior to the incarnation...prior to the creation that before God sent His Word to Abraham and others, before He sent His Memra to earth, where was the Memra? With God

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Well I actually just did

John is speaking "rabbinically" and in rabbinical literature, as well as biblical, One can personify certain things

Wisdom is not another person but is spoken of in that way. But in reality it was God who Created BY Wisdom

The memra being with God is a personification along the same lines.

There is another possible Option. The memra is also seen as the Angel of the LORD...not another person but a literal personification or "Hypostisization"...we might call him a Manifestation.

Being With God represents the reality prior to the incarnation...prior to the creation that before God sent His Word to Abraham and others, before He sent His Memra to earth, where was the Memra? With God

I would explain it more like this:

If I were a programmer and created this amazing earth simulator and I wanted to interact with that virtual world then I would need to create a representation of myself inside that world. Anything I wanted to do in that virtual world would then be done by that virtual representation of me. Call it my avatar. My avatar is me in relation to the game world. However, it is with me in relation to the real world.

Now imagine instead of creating a world-earth simulator I created an ant simulator. I could still place an avatar of myself inside this ant simulator. The ants could gain an understanding of me through how my avatar interacts with them. However, they would probably not even be able to fully comprehend this avatar of myself. It would be even harder for them to comprehend that I was not actually in their world at all.

Such is the Word. It's God's representation of himself in this world. Thus the Word is God in relation to this world. And it is with God in relation to whatever God considers his "real" world.