09-03-2004, 09:33 PM
Akhai Paulous:
Slame wa Sheyne d'Maran 'mayk
To the Orthodox the idea that God the Son did die as a man and as a God in one movment of the full Statsis (existential being as contrased with hypostasis meaning below the existential being and being only one conglomerate thereof) of Christ is imperative to our understanding of salvation.
Here's why...
To us there is one head of the Trinity-God the Father from whom proceed the Son and the Holy Spirit-each with his own role and responsability but none more important than the other. Analogious to this is the Husband and wife relationship; the husband is the head, but he is not more valuble than the wife-they are equals. Nevertheless the wife shouldn't say "I wanna be the man and/or head" nor would the Holy Spirit way "I wanna be the Father". Each has his own role. THe role of the God the Son is to take the material world that was one with the Divine (Eden) but has fallen and Christ is to return fallen earth to a divine one. In short, redeem that which man's weakness caused to fall. We insist that God (through the LOGOS) must become man. HE must endure suffering and temptation (aside, a common theologumen (non dogmatic theological thought) is that Christ would not have been tempted by hate or lust etc but by seeing man living in a fallen world and Christ who is GOD in the flesh would want to eliminate the fallen world altogeter to aliviate suffering. His love would make him want to eliminate free will, and that would be Christ's temption).
GOD Himself does enter into a human state and does die as such. God can die as much as he can be angry since death is just a pathway and it only can destroy the falleness which we inherit here on earth. You can't be lustful during/after death or smell roses for that matter. The material becomes etheral. If anyting it would be most logical that the LOGOS would die inorder to fully recapitualate the cycle of man. In adams time we were mere mortals not fit to proclaim glory to God, but we become priests in Christ's time whose duty it is to offer back creation. Wait, creation must be spotless in order to be offered back to God. So we need Christ to recapitulate it in order to make it a "spotless sacrifice". Moreover, death is the ultimate offering back to God, and therefore it cannot be a fallen process but a perfect one. So God must endure it in order to recreate death into a redemptive and holy perfection. If not no one man may be saved since death would mare him and he would die far from His God. To say that God did not, in his perfecting grace, endure death is to say that death, as a part of the fallen world, was not glorified and made a part of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Humbly and sinfully
Ephriam
Slame wa Sheyne d'Maran 'mayk
To the Orthodox the idea that God the Son did die as a man and as a God in one movment of the full Statsis (existential being as contrased with hypostasis meaning below the existential being and being only one conglomerate thereof) of Christ is imperative to our understanding of salvation.
Here's why...
To us there is one head of the Trinity-God the Father from whom proceed the Son and the Holy Spirit-each with his own role and responsability but none more important than the other. Analogious to this is the Husband and wife relationship; the husband is the head, but he is not more valuble than the wife-they are equals. Nevertheless the wife shouldn't say "I wanna be the man and/or head" nor would the Holy Spirit way "I wanna be the Father". Each has his own role. THe role of the God the Son is to take the material world that was one with the Divine (Eden) but has fallen and Christ is to return fallen earth to a divine one. In short, redeem that which man's weakness caused to fall. We insist that God (through the LOGOS) must become man. HE must endure suffering and temptation (aside, a common theologumen (non dogmatic theological thought) is that Christ would not have been tempted by hate or lust etc but by seeing man living in a fallen world and Christ who is GOD in the flesh would want to eliminate the fallen world altogeter to aliviate suffering. His love would make him want to eliminate free will, and that would be Christ's temption).
GOD Himself does enter into a human state and does die as such. God can die as much as he can be angry since death is just a pathway and it only can destroy the falleness which we inherit here on earth. You can't be lustful during/after death or smell roses for that matter. The material becomes etheral. If anyting it would be most logical that the LOGOS would die inorder to fully recapitualate the cycle of man. In adams time we were mere mortals not fit to proclaim glory to God, but we become priests in Christ's time whose duty it is to offer back creation. Wait, creation must be spotless in order to be offered back to God. So we need Christ to recapitulate it in order to make it a "spotless sacrifice". Moreover, death is the ultimate offering back to God, and therefore it cannot be a fallen process but a perfect one. So God must endure it in order to recreate death into a redemptive and holy perfection. If not no one man may be saved since death would mare him and he would die far from His God. To say that God did not, in his perfecting grace, endure death is to say that death, as a part of the fallen world, was not glorified and made a part of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Humbly and sinfully
Ephriam