Is Jesus passible......today?
- Thread starter earl40
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Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Alpha and Omega.
I really don't understand your question though. What are trying to to get at?
I really don't understand your question though. What are trying to to get at?
MarieP
Puritan Board Senior
I think I understand what you are trying to ask, but if I'm right about it, "impassible" would be the wrong term. "Impassible" means that something is not subject to pain or feeling. Jesus was not impassible, obviously.
But it's an interesting question, does Jesus still feel emotion in heaven? I would say yes, He does, and I don't believe we have to enter the "does God have emotions" debate (which we've discussed here before, and not discussed impassibly, I'd add!).
Jesus remains fully God and fully man. So, He must have emotions. Also, we read in Heb. 12:2, "Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Are we to believe that Jesus would enter heaven and not experience joy anymore?
That's all I have time to post now, but it's a start!
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Not to sound obtuse but did Jesus have a human nature before the incarnation.
My question pertains as Marie alluded to in that does Jesus react the same as He did 2,00 years ago. In other words, is Jesus immutable, today?
I think you have it backwards. The human nature of Jesus was certainly not impassible during the time of His humiliation: He was capable of suffering and He did suffer.
Now, though, He has been exalted: He has entered a condition of glorification, and suffering is done away, if not as a logical possibility certainly as a present reality; but nonetheless He is still touched with the feelings of our infirmities. I recommend The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth by Thomas Goodwin for a beautiful treatment of the exaltation of Christ.
Now, though, He has been exalted: He has entered a condition of glorification, and suffering is done away, if not as a logical possibility certainly as a present reality; but nonetheless He is still touched with the feelings of our infirmities. I recommend The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth by Thomas Goodwin for a beautiful treatment of the exaltation of Christ.
Impassibility does not mean that God is not subject to emotion but it refers to the fact that He is without passions. God is said to be angry, joyful, and a number of other emotions but the issue is whether God is learning information and then reacting to these events with his emotions.
For example, somebody cuts me off on the freeway. I have an immediate, surprised reaction to that event that evokes anger.
God is not like a driver on the freeway Who is "cut off" by human sinfulness and then reacts to that anger. God is not passive with respect to things being done to Him or in the receipt of information.
Remember that with Christ, He took on a human nature and, in His humanity, set aside some rights of His divinity. While He was on the earth, it was the purpose of the Godhead that His glory be veiled and that He grew in wisdom. His humanity did not know the beginning from the end. He suffered emotional and physical pain and reacted to the pain inflicted by others.
His human nature is now glorified. Yes it is still a full human nature but a glorified one and, in His person, there is perfect communication between the divine and human natures. Christ has emotions but they are not reactive emotions and, as such, He is impassible.
For example, somebody cuts me off on the freeway. I have an immediate, surprised reaction to that event that evokes anger.
God is not like a driver on the freeway Who is "cut off" by human sinfulness and then reacts to that anger. God is not passive with respect to things being done to Him or in the receipt of information.
Remember that with Christ, He took on a human nature and, in His humanity, set aside some rights of His divinity. While He was on the earth, it was the purpose of the Godhead that His glory be veiled and that He grew in wisdom. His humanity did not know the beginning from the end. He suffered emotional and physical pain and reacted to the pain inflicted by others.
His human nature is now glorified. Yes it is still a full human nature but a glorified one and, in His person, there is perfect communication between the divine and human natures. Christ has emotions but they are not reactive emotions and, as such, He is impassible.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
You are correct I did mean He was passible during His ministry.
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I do not wish to get into "God being angry" now for I suspect we may disagree on if God can be angry "while being in a happy repose" I like how Calvin and Edwars used to say believe "as if" God is angry.
So do you think Jesus, now glorifed, still feel the wounds in His hands, physically?
Rich, I have a couple of quibbles with your post. One, though merely verbal, is that using the language of "subject to emotion" still conveys an essentially passive idea; obviously you reject that, but the initial wording is not quite precise. Another is that emotions are attributed to God anthropopathically, not properly: such statements speak of God's effects, not His internal state. Denying that God is reacting is good, but it is also necessary to be clear that no variableness (not even a self-caused variation) is present.
Alan D. Strange
Puritan Board Senior
As the Eternal Word, the second person of the Blessed Holy Undivided Trinity was impassible. Impassibility means that He was always and ever the One who has decreed and who acts. He is never acted upon: He has no passive properties.
When the Word became flesh, He added humanity to His deity. With respect to his creaturely nature, He was subject to suffering. Yet, in the intergrity of His Theanthropic person, He remained, because He remained fully God, impassible. This is a great mystery, well-expressed in the Tome of Leo and clearly promulgated at the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.).
In his exaltation (resurrection and session), He remains, of course, both as God and man in one person forever, impassible. This is a much maligned doctrine these days, from Moltmann to a plethora of evangelicals, due in some part to the misconstruction and misrepresentation of the doctrine by certain rationalists.
Warfield deals beautifully with this in his magisterial "Emotional Life of our Lord," and Shedd has a fairly full treatment of a separate but related question in his long chapter on the "Impeccability of Christ" (in his Dogmatic Theology)
When the Word became flesh, He added humanity to His deity. With respect to his creaturely nature, He was subject to suffering. Yet, in the intergrity of His Theanthropic person, He remained, because He remained fully God, impassible. This is a great mystery, well-expressed in the Tome of Leo and clearly promulgated at the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.).
In his exaltation (resurrection and session), He remains, of course, both as God and man in one person forever, impassible. This is a much maligned doctrine these days, from Moltmann to a plethora of evangelicals, due in some part to the misconstruction and misrepresentation of the doctrine by certain rationalists.
Warfield deals beautifully with this in his magisterial "Emotional Life of our Lord," and Shedd has a fairly full treatment of a separate but related question in his long chapter on the "Impeccability of Christ" (in his Dogmatic Theology)
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
So His human nature become impassible since He is now glorified?
Hmm... No he didn't. To quote the Nicene Creed as it is in the Trinity Hymnal (Red):
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who for us and for our salvation
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
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To answer the question... He is impassible in his divine nature, but not in his human nature.
steadfast7
Puritan Board Junior
I would deny that the risen Jesus can be slapped and that his face would swell. Recall his walking through walls, which many propose that his human nature can take on a spirit/matterless form on command, this Calvin denies (I remember reading somewhere). The human nature (flesh) of Christ cannot be but human flesh which cannot alter. Calvin argues that in his walking through walls, it was not Jesus but the wall that changed its composition and gave way when Jesus was passing through as very man of very man.
Alan D. Strange
Puritan Board Senior
Earl:
I did not put it that way. This is a vast mystery and it is unduly partitive to speak of Him solely with respect to one nature or the other and not in the integrity of His theanthropic person. This mystery consumed the church in its early centuries and its attentiveness to the biblical facts in this regard was its glory. Before speaking quickly, and hence facilely, about this profound mystery we ought to think and study carefully. I fully affirm, as has the church in all its branches since the early centuries, the formulation of this in the Tome of Leo. I would suggest that everyone here read this to get this glorious mystery: That Christ became, and continued, truly God and man in one person. He came down from His glory, but, at the same time, never left the throne. So much more to say about this but I have to run now.
I did not put it that way. This is a vast mystery and it is unduly partitive to speak of Him solely with respect to one nature or the other and not in the integrity of His theanthropic person. This mystery consumed the church in its early centuries and its attentiveness to the biblical facts in this regard was its glory. Before speaking quickly, and hence facilely, about this profound mystery we ought to think and study carefully. I fully affirm, as has the church in all its branches since the early centuries, the formulation of this in the Tome of Leo. I would suggest that everyone here read this to get this glorious mystery: That Christ became, and continued, truly God and man in one person. He came down from His glory, but, at the same time, never left the throne. So much more to say about this but I have to run now.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
In His humanity alone, Jesus is not impassible, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent or omnipresent.
Dennis
Christ is beyond such blasphemous treatment now. His human body and reasonable soul are glorified and exalted, but He remains a glorified and exalted man in His humanity.
Christ's suffering for us ended when He committed His rational human soul to the Father.
Dennis
Christ is beyond such blasphemous treatment now. His human body and reasonable soul are glorified and exalted, but He remains a glorified and exalted man in His humanity.
Christ's suffering for us ended when He committed His rational human soul to the Father.
steadfast7
Puritan Board Junior
I don't see what was blasphemous about my statement. I am only saying that I don't believe his human flesh is subject to corruption or change.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
I didn't say you were blasphemous, but those who slapped him were; although I don't know why you chose that as an example.
I agree that Christ's body was, and our bodies will be, made incorruptible. Whether or not that involves what you are saying I don't know. There won't be violence and violent treatment in the Heavenly Kingdom, anyway.
Just because Christ's and our bodies become incorruptible, doesn't logically entail that His humanity became impassible and immutable.
I updated the thread title to reflect your question better. The question is, I believe, if the glorified human nature of Christ is impassible - that is, incapable of suffering. Obviously there is no question (on a confessional board) as to whether the divine nature is impassible; nor, I should think, is there any question as to whether Christ is actually suffering, since that part of His work is completed and exaltation is incompatible with an experience of suffering.
In some ways, it is then a purely hypothetical question, in that it raises the point whether a capacity for suffering persists in an environment where there is no possibility of suffering.
steadfast7
Puritan Board Junior
forgive my misreading of your post.
If one reads Christ's coming to make war on the nations as literal in any way, then the potential is there. Again I point to Jesus walking through walls. His material body would have approached a solid wall with some potential of harm if contact were made, yet the wall dissolved before his substance and gave way. I still think there's something the human nature of Christ that doesn't allow for corruption, but there's the question of whether bruising and bleeding is a property of true humanity as it was always meant to be, or a result of fallenness.
a mere housewife
Not your cup of tea
Here is a relevant portion from the book by Thomas Goodwin Ruben mentioned above (a wonderful book, and I believe an edition edited by Mark Jones to be more readable is forthcoming). I'm sorry it's a bit lengthy: the first paragraph makes the point, and I added the second because it explains further.
Can Christ ever according to his human nature be said to possess an attribute unique to the Divine nature? Would He not still have fully human emotions, and wouldn't they still be responsive, as a dependent creature, to God -- even though He is no longer capable of suffering by them (and the above quotes make me think that His human emotions, while not suffering ones, are also responsive to some degree to His church)?
Can Christ ever according to his human nature be said to possess an attribute unique to the Divine nature? Would He not still have fully human emotions, and wouldn't they still be responsive, as a dependent creature, to God -- even though He is no longer capable of suffering by them (and the above quotes make me think that His human emotions, while not suffering ones, are also responsive to some degree to His church)?
If one does that, one has bigger problems.
Incidentally, here is a link to Leo's excellent Tome; those alarmed by the suggestion of length involved in that title may be relieved to know that it is simply a letter to Flavian, and is quite concise.
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earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Thank you for the edit.
So can I ask if Jesus weeps now? I trend to think not, in that in the resurection we wil have every tear wiped from our eyes and will cry no more. Though we do not know what we will be like then, we do know that we will not cry anymore after the ressurection.
Scripture are quite clear on this point. Even in his glorified human nature, Christ's human nature does not communicate with his the divine and they remain in hypostatis.
4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
5:1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. 3 Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. 4 And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”;
6 as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”
The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Heb 4:15–5:6.
If Christ is able to sympathize for his elect, it follows he does not for the reprobate, this divine impassibility does not apply. Christ's human nature is moved to act on behalf only for one and not all, thus implying passibility in some sense.
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4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
5:1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. 3 Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. 4 And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”;
6 as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”
The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Heb 4:15–5:6.
If Christ is able to sympathize for his elect, it follows he does not for the reprobate, this divine impassibility does not apply. Christ's human nature is moved to act on behalf only for one and not all, thus implying passibility in some sense.
---------- Post added at 12:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 PM ----------
Correction, Christ's human and divine natures do communicate in hypostasis, but not in the sense that attributes from one can be applied to the other except for the attributes that both human and divine natures share (communicable attributes).
InSlaveryToChrist
Puritan Board Junior
What's the difference between God the Son before His incarnation, God the Son during His ministry and God the Son in His resurrection? Did Thomas Goodwin have a treatise on this?
We are not told that He does, and have no reason to think that He would. Being a man of sorrows was proper to His state of humiliation; but He is still touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
Before: No human nature. God the Son, same substance of the father one nature.
At the incarnation he took upon a second nature and laid aside his benefits, thus from conception to death the Spirit sanctified him (though was without sin) and kept him holy and granted him supernatural abilities.
At the Reserection and asscension more precisely, Christ was given all things, was sat at the right hand of God to rule and to act as a priest. Still 2 natures in one person in hypostatic union. This fact remains for ever. God the Son, will never go back to his preincarnate state.
a mere housewife
Not your cup of tea
Samuel, I hope Paul or someone more familiar with Goodwin will answer, but I am looking forward to reading this by Thomas Goodwin, which seems like it would deal with those things:
Books - Bible Study - Jesus Christ - Christ Our Mediator, Thomas Goodwin, hard cover - Sovereign Grace Publishers, Inc.
InSlaveryToChrist
Puritan Board Junior
Thanks, Heidi. If you're interested, here is the work in a PDF file:
http://www.archive.org/download/theworksofthomas05gooduoft/theworksofthomas05gooduoft.pdf
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Touched up to the point where He does not cry?
Touched to the point where He is merciful and compassionate - as prone to be merciful as we are to need mercy. Unless you define compassion in terms of tears (which I don't know why you would; Jesus was certainly compassionate to the widow of Nain, and yet we are not told of any weeping on that occasion), I don't think there's any reason to speculate about the functioning of tear ducts in a glorified body.
Samuel, to answer your question about Christ before and after the incarnation, it is not very complicated. Before the incarnation there was one person and one nature; after the incarnation there was one person and two natures, and that person went through an estate of humiliation and has now entered a state of exaltation. These are all profitable points for meditation, and I think you will find value in almost any Reformed treatment of the states of Christ.
Samuel, to answer your question about Christ before and after the incarnation, it is not very complicated. Before the incarnation there was one person and one nature; after the incarnation there was one person and two natures, and that person went through an estate of humiliation and has now entered a state of exaltation. These are all profitable points for meditation, and I think you will find value in almost any Reformed treatment of the states of Christ.
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