A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (9)

Systematic theology is all over the ancient creeds and confessions of the early Christian church and here, with the Athanasian creed, as it discusses the unity of the person of Jesus, it’s as dense as it gets.

The creed reads: He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. 

That which made the Son of God, the Son of God, did not change during the incarnation. We saw that much in the previous statement, and through the words of Paul in Philippians 2. Instead of the Son of God being changed by becoming a human being, he took upon himself humanity and, thus, remained as he was and always had been: the Son of God from all eternity.

This truth leaves us with the wonderfully complex and mystifying reality that Jesus Christ, is one within himself while being God and man. There is no hint of a complex unity of persons like there is within the godhead (see Genesis 1:26: then God said, “Let us make man in our image.”). 

There is not a fractured existence with Jesus where his divinity and humanity are fighting it out with one another. As we saw before, Jesus is truly and completely God while, through his incarnation, being truly and completely man.

In the one person of Jesus—the Son of God—there is unity. There is unity between the natures of Jesus, just like there is unity among the persons within the Trinity. It is impossible to speak of the biblical God without assuming the existence of the Trinity. In a similar manner, following the incarnation, it is impossible to speak of the existence of Jesus without assuming the reality of his divinity and humanity.

To put it another way: God is complex, therefore, the Son of God is complex. However, his complexity is not a barrier to keep us from him; instead, it’s an invitation to come and see, and worship this Jesus.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (8)

How does something like the incarnation happen?

The Athanasian Creed does its best to give a succinct answer to this question by saying: He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God’s taking humanity to himself.

To be clear, and this is where numerous creeds and confessions are so helpful, this creed is cautious to clarify what it means by saying that the Son of God became a human being. He did not become a human being by being turned into a man. Instead, he became a human being by taking flesh upon himself (i.e., being incarnated).

Again, whenever we can turn to Scripture to substantiate a section of the creed (which is an end to which we should always be pursuing) this will help us better understand what the early drafters of the creed meant by what they wrote. The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Philippians 2: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7, ESV).

I’d like to focus on one phrase in that statement by Paul: taking the form of a servant. In Greek, the phrase is: μορφὴν δούλου λαβών. The last word in the Greek phrase is what helps us understand what’s going on here. It’s a Greek word that often means I take or I receive. In this sense, it clearly means, I take. Paul shows us by using the word λαβών that the being of the Son of God didn’t change through the incarnation. 

Admittedly, it’s splitting hairs, but it’s important.

When the Son of God became a man he did it without changing the essence of who he was; instead, he did it by taking upon himself humanity. You might say that the Son of God added humanity to himself. Or, if you want to stick close to the words of Paul, then Jesus took the form of a servant.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (7)

At this point in working through the Athanasian Creed, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to start thinking of Jesus as two different people or beings.

We have been witnessing how the creed can speak of his divinity and humanity as two separate and distinct aspects of his person. So, this ultimately leads to two people, right?

Again, thankfully the creed is on top of this and works to clear up any misunderstandings.

Although he is God and man, yet Christ is not two, but one.

According to the creed, it would be incorrect to assume that because Jesus is God and man that he is somehow two beings or two persons. This is not the testimony of the creed and neither is it the testimony of the Scriptures. We’ve seen what the creed says on the matter, now let’s look at what the Scriptures say in the Gospel of John. 

In John 1, we read: “In the beginning was the λόγος (Word, singular)…and the λόγος (Word, singular) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw αὐτοῦ (his, singular) glory” (John 1:1, 14). I want to point out just a few things that I think are crucial for our understanding of who Jesus is based on this particular text.

1.  John’s usage of λόγος (Word) in verse 1 and 14 are singular. Grammatically, there is no hint of a plurality of persons or beings in the one Jesus. In the beginning was the Word; not the Words.

2. John says, “we saw his glory” in verse 14. Again, the grammar of the word choice makes a big difference. The word, in Greek, for “his” is αὐτοῦ, and αὐτοῦ is—you guessed it—singular. John is not speaking of multiple beings or persons here. Instead, he is speaking of the one Word of God who became flesh.

The question is: Does this make sense? How in the world can we believe in one person being God and man? The truth is you and I can’t look anywhere else in the world to see this sort of thing happening. But, this does not mean we’re left without a testimony. We have the Scriptures and we are bound by grace to them. And, in the good providence of God, we have testimonials written by fervent Christians of old like what we’ve seen in the Athanasian Creed.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (6)

What are we to make of those places in the New Testament when it’s clear that Jesus is on the same level as the Father and then, in other places, is not as great as the Father? Is it fair to just toss up our hands and pronounce the charge of inconsistency within the text?

The Athanasian Creed can be of help to us with exactly this situation when it says:equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.

Equality and inferiority: the creed says that Jesus has both of them when it comes to his relationship with the Father. Specifically, when it comes to his incarnaterelationship with the Father.

When we’re talking about his divinity—that which makes him God (his Godness) he is equal to the Father, because he and the Father are God. Remember that the creed says that Jesus is God from the essence of his Father. That being said, when it comes to his humanity, he is lesser than the Father, because the Father is God and did not become a human being. Paul speaks of Jesus’s incarnation by using the words emptying and humility. Something happened to Jesus as he took humanity onto himself by becoming a human being.

The creed is certainly helpful here, but what is of more help is what the Scriptures say on their own about Jesus. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is recorded as saying two seemingly contradictory things within just a few chapters of each other. In John 10, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:31, ESV). Now, this could be taken as Jesus saying that he and Father are the same person, but this sort of interpretation fails quickly as we consider that Jesus prays to the Father and the Father guides, leads, and speaks to him. Considering those realities, Jesus must be speaking toward his status in relationship to the Father. There is a real sense in which there is no difference between the Father and the Son in relation to their divinity. 

In the opposite (but just as true) direction, Jesus says, in John 14, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28b, ESV). Did Jesus forget what he said previously? Did he change his mind in that short time? Was he schizophrenic in his understanding of who he was and is? I think it’s clearly a no to all of those questions. Jesus can, at one time, speak to his equality to the Father as God and, then at another time, speak to his inferiority to the Father as a human being.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (5)

Is it really possible that Jesus was made to be—through his incarnation—just as we are?

Thankfully, as we’ve seen with other truths about Jesus, the Athanasian Creed helps us here when it says: completely God, completely man, with a rational soul and human flesh; 

Again, the creed makes clear that in the writers’ minds, Jesus is God and man. Specifically, they say that Jesus is completely God and completely man. Notice the word usage of “completely” instead of “fully” or even what the creed said early in that Jesus is God and man, “equally”. Historic Christian theology has regularly and consistently spoken of Jesus as being complete or even total in his humanity and in his divinity. That which makes him a real human being like you and me, is just as present in the one person of Jesus as that which makes him God. It’s who he was and, even in his resurrected state, who he is.

The creed goes further in its clarity by also saying that Jesus has a “rational” or (depending on the translation of the creed) a “reasonable” soul. What I think the creed is getting at here, with some difficult to understand language, is again that Jesus was a real person. Often in the Scriptures, the soul is used as way to describe life—or even just a living person. This is the point being driven at here.

You and I have a rational soul—or, if we’re using the language of C. S. Lewis, we might say that we are rational souls, because we’re living real people. Along with that, we have bodies. Our flesh is real. The same is said of Jesus because, again, that’s how the New Testament describes him. He was (and is) a real person with a body like ours. 

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (4)

Depending on your Christian perspective and background, it’s sometimes easier to think of Jesus being God than it is to think of him being an actual person.

This is another area where the ancient ecumenical creeds, and especially the Athanasian Creed, can be extremely beneficial to us. In our walk through a small section of the Athanasian Creed, we’ve come to this statement: and he is man from the essence of his mother, born in time;

As you might remember, we just talked through the idea that Jesus is God from the essence of the Father and that he has been coming (or proceeding) from the Father for all eternity past.

To put it into slightly other words, there was not a moment in all of eternity past when the Son was not coming from the Father. I believe that to be true. I also believe it to be true that there was a moment in time when the Son of God became the Son of Mary. Paul puts it like this: “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4a, NIV).

The Son of God has been God forever. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. But the Son of God has not always been a human being. There was a moment when he was not a human and then, in the next moment at his conception, he was a human. This, unlike his pre-incarnate existence, which had been occurring prior to any human existence, occurred within the time of human existence.

Along the same lines, the Son of God—in time—is from the essence of his mother—Mary. What makes him a human being? Something about his connection to, and coming from, his mother. The Son of God is a human being because he has taken upon himself humanity. And, in the good pleasure of the triune God, this has been done through the Son of God’s being born of a woman.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (3)

In the Athanasian Creed, the writers were doing their best to describe the Jesus found in the New Testament with as much clarity as possible. They did this by means of introducing a description that we may have never used when thinking or talking about Jesus.

He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time;

What makes someone or something who they are? Their essence. By way of a somewhat silly example, it may help to consider a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

What is the essence of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? It can’t be the bread, because other types of sandwiches are made with bread. The essence of that particular sandwich is the peanut butter and jelly. The way you can tell the difference between a ham and cheese and a PB&J is not by the bread, but by what’s in between the bread.

The same type of thing can be said about Jesus.

He is who he is because of the Father. That which makes the Father God, is what makes Jesus God. Note, the specificity with the creed. Jesus is God from the essence of the Father. It does not say that Jesus is the Father from the essence of the Father. There is no confusion with the creed as to who Jesus is and to who the Father is. Jesus and the Father are two of the three unique persons of the divine Godhead—the Trinity.

Furthermore, Jesus comes from the Father. More precisely, the creed says that Jesus is begotten before time from the Father. In other words, Jesus is and has been—for all of eternity past—coming from the Father. You could say he has been proceeding from the Father for all time.

It must be stated, before going further, that this idea of the Son eternally coming from the Father is not one that is held by all believers. It is a belief I hold to and one I, of course believe is biblical, but there would be others who would disagree. That being said, let’s move forward.

This is where your head could start to hurt, but the Scriptures present a Jesus who has been the Son of God forever. God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—has existed forever and for as long as God has existed, the Son has been coming from— or in using the language of the creed, begotten of—the Father.

This is, of course, exactly what is said in the letter of 1 John: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 Jn. 4:14, LEB).

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (2)

When it comes down to it, is Christianity simply an incoherent set of belief systems?

Christians believe that the Bible was written by real people who lived thousands of years ago and yet we believe that God is the author of those same Scriptures. Christians also believe that the God we worship is one and yet three at the same time—one being in three persons, or three persons in one being. Also, Christians believe that a man was killed by being nailed upon a cross and then came back to life three days later.

Finally, Christians believe that Jesus was somehow God and man at the same time. This is where the creed comes in. It reads: Now this is the true faith: that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man, equally. 

According to the authors of the creed, they believe that the true faith is believing that Jesus is both God and man equally. That last word in the sentence is interesting. I think, for most of us, when we talk about Jesus being God and man, we like to say that he’s fully God and fully man. That’s helpful, but it also it’s less precise than we might be able to be.

When we think of things as being full, there’s only one sense in which they can be full. They can’t be full twice. If a cup is full of water and then you pour milk in it, some of the water will overflow out. This then is applied to Jesus and his humanity and divinity. Jesus is fully God and then some humanity is dumped in, which causes some of his divinity to overflow out. This, however, is now what the creed, nor the Scriptures say.

The Scriptures do not present a Jesus who is partly God and partly human that somehow make up a new being. Instead, they present a Jesus who is equally God and human at the same time. We cannot say that he is God over and above him being a human. Neither can we say that he is a human over and above him being God. 

The same Scriptures that present Jesus forgiving sins in Mark 2: “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10a, NIV)—doing only what God can do—also present Jesus as eating food: “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him” (Mark 2:15, NIV)—doing what humans do.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (1)

It’s often said that we need to put Christ back in Christmas. And that’s said as a way to lament the fact this Christian celebration has largely been lost to the world. This is probably true, but the question is: What should we do about it?

I think, in part, what we can do is to think honestly and carefully through the theology of Christmas. What does it mean that we celebrate the birth of Jesus? What is so significant about his birth? How does Christmas help us understand who this Jesus is?

Over the next several episodes of “A Moment on the Scriptures”, I’d like to use a section of the ancient Athanasian Creed that focuses on the birth of Jesus—the incarnation—and see how that creed can help us understand what we’re celebrating on December 25.

Let’s begin with the first statement from that section of the creed.

But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully. 

Admittedly, that’s a bold claim from the writers of this creed. What they have said is that in order for someone to be saved—walk in eternal life now and be welcomed into the kingdom when Jesus returns—they must believe rightly about the incarnation.

Why would they make such a statement about something like this with Jesus? This isn’t about his work on the cross. This isn’t about his resurrection from the dead. This isn’t about his own requirement that people believe and trust in him. This is about his incarnation.

I think it’s because if we believe wrongly about the incarnation, then the Jesus we are believing in is not the one shown to us through the Scriptures. It is a different Jesus. The same thing can be said for any number of things about him in general. If we started to believe that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, then the Jesus we’re believing in is not the one found in the New Testament, because that Jesus died on the cross. If we started to believe that Jesus didn’t really raise bodily from the dead, then the Jesus we’re believing in is not the one found in the New Testament, because that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. And, if we started to believe that didn’t really put on flesh through his birth, then the Jesus we’re believing in is not the one found in the New Testament, because that Jesus did put on flesh. Therefore, we would be believing in a Jesus of our own imagination, who is no real Jesus at all.

That’s why I think it is appropriate for the writers to begin where they have with this section of the creed. They are putting all their cards on the table so to speak as it relates to the incarnation.

What they are saying is, getting our thinking right about the incarnation is not about checking a box for good theology; instead, it’s about believing and trusting in the Jesus found in the New Testament—the only real Jesus who exists, the only real Jesus from whom comes life eternal.