Did the 2nd "PERSON" of the Trinity weep, weary, thirst, hunger, suffer, and die? If not, then "WHO" did?

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Rainee

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Please kindly receive this topic in a prayerful manner.

Long story short ==> Some claim that it is not possible to know what the word "Person" means in the Creed of Chalcedon, thereby claiming it is not possible to know "who" the "Person" of Christ is!

And many of them misunderstand the True Doctrine of the Impassibility of God (a subset of the True Doctrine of the Immutability of God) claiming strange unbiblical things about the Eternally Begotten Son who is the 2nd Person of the Trinity who is the Logos/Word who came down from Heaven and entered into His Creation who took upon Himself an "impersonal" Human Nature (body & soul including mind, heart, and will) to become con-substantial with "His People" to save them from their sins (Matthew 1:21); who now "Ever Lives" forevermore for the salvation of His sheep making intercession for them forevermore.

Those who misunderstand claim that the 2nd Person of the Trinity did not weep, weary, thirst, hunger, suffer, or die.

This is because they say He could not.

"Who" then Atoned?

"Who" is the "PERSON" of the Mediator?

1) Some agree with R.C. Sproul's teachings that only the "Human Nature" atoned.
2) Some instead agree with others' teachings that the human nature was "personal" in and of itself indwelt by the Logos (a variation of the Ancient "2 Person" Heresy).
3) The Creed of Chalcedon in keeping with Orthodox Christianity teaches the Divine "Person" who is the 2nd Person of the Trinity is the Person of the Mediator and is who atoned for His people.

What does Holy Scripture teach about who is the Great Shepherd?

What does Holy Scripture teach about who is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world?

Furthermore ==> If the 2nd Person of the Trinity could not weep, weary, thirst, hunger, suffer, or die then LOGIC dictates that He could not experience the "JOY" that was set before Him either (for that is an affection/passion)!

"Who" experienced the "JOY" that was set before Him?

Additionally ==> "Who" is this Jesus Christ who proclaimed in Rev 1:18 that He was DEAD?

Rev 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Finally ==> "Who"
purchased the Church with His own blood?

Acts 20:28 "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."

Prayer ==>
May our Lord Jesus Christ cause His people to know "who" He is!

Jesus said in John 17:3 "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
 
Hi Rainee,

If you don't mind, I have a couple of questions. Some of the people on this board are very erudite and knowledgeable, and I'm not one of them, so some clarification would greatly help me. Here goes:

1) I'm not familiar with this teaching of R.C. Sproul's. Could you show me where it is that he says that? He's written quite a lot, so having a clear reference that I can look up would be very helpful.

2) You ask a lot of questions your post. However, I am not clear on exactly what it is you are trying to say about the 2nd person of the Trinity. Could you state for me, in clear and simple terms, what it is that you are asserting?

3) Could you point me to some resources that you believe to be correct and orthodox on this matter? I see that you believe that Clark and Sproul were wrong on the person of Christ and on the Creed of Chalcedon, and I would like to know who gets it right so that I can check them out.

I look forward to your reply!
 
Prayer ==> May our Lord Jesus Christ cause His people to know "who" He is

Rainee,

The Lord saved me when I was 20 years old. Since then, I have followed Him, taught the Bible, meditated, prayed, and read many great books. In several months, if the Lord is willing, I will turn 70 years old. I'm sure I am much closer to the Lord these last five or six years than I was in all the years previously. But I also have a great desire to know the Lord Jesus much better. I've been praying to that effect for several years now. I just don't understand Him in a way that I think I should. God has graciously helped me over those years to know Jesus a bit better. But I still have too much vagueness in my mind about exactly who he is. I don't mean I doubt that He is the second person of the trinity. I just don't relate to him personally as I do to the Father, the Fountainhead of salvation.

You ask a good and valuable question here, and I eagerly wait to hear the answers that wiser people than me will give.

Thanks,

Ed Walsh
 
Ed, I am rereading Dane Ortlund’s book “Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers”. I think you would enjoy it. It has certainly been a blessing to me.
 
Long story short ==> Some claim that it is not possible to know what the word "Person" means in the Creed of Chalcedon, thereby claiming it is not possible to know "who" the "Person" of Christ is!

You don't have to be coy. I am sure you are talking about me. I did not say it is not possible to know what the word person means. I said it was hard to define (and I gave about half a dozen definitions).
 
I am going to go ahead and again run through the definitions of what a person is, as it has been understood throughout church history. Note, I am not claiming we cannot know what a person is. I am simply saying it was a hard thing to define throughout church history.

Basil: A mode of existence (huparxeos tropos)
Turretin: person is an individual intellectual suppositum (III.xxiii.7)
Boethius: an instance of a rational nature
Thomas Aquinas: Person is relation
Tertullian: a persona is identified by one who has substantia

Some basic terminology (again)

Hypostasis: The actual concrete reality of a thing, the underlying essence, (in earlier Christian thought the synonym of physis.)

Prosopon: The observable character, defining properties, manifestation of a reality.
 
I found some more notes of mine. Notice I am actually working through the issues here in conjunction with historic Christian orthodoxy.

Maximus: “Hypostasis” is that which exists distinctly and by-itself, since they say that “hypostasis” is an essence together with particular properties and it differs from other members of the same genus in number” (Ep. 15).

Leontius: to nature applies the logos of being while to hypostasis applies the logos of being by itself (Bathrellos 41).

Bathrellos on Maximus: it is an essence with idioms, or the essence of an individual man that includes all his idioms (102).

Alexander of Hales: good is self-diffusive. , bonum est diffusivum sui. “Thus, the “distinction” of the persons in the one divine essence is the “difference of relation or of mode of existing” that arises “by reason of origin.’ (PRRD IV: 39).
 
Be careful with the Ortlunds. Both are becoming very woke. The elder just welcomed Russell Moore to be a minister at his church. He also is very elitist in the things he says about lay Christians. The younger is part of the gospel coalition which in my estimation has completely sold out to CRT and almost every other liberal theological position.
 
Be careful with the Ortlunds. Both are becoming very woke. The elder just welcomed Russell Moore to be a minister at his church. He also is very elitist in the things he says about lay Christians. The younger is part of the gospel coalition which in my estimation has completely sold out to CRT and almost every other liberal theological position.
This caution is well-taken. At the same time, we should evaluate the mentioned book on its own merits. I am currently reading through it and have found it very helpful.
 
Ed, I am rereading Dane Ortlund’s book “Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers”. I think you would enjoy it. It has certainly been a blessing to me.
Be careful with the Ortlunds. Both are becoming very woke. The elder just welcomed Russell Moore to be a minister at his church. He also is very elitist in the things he says about lay Christians. The younger is part of the gospel coalition which in my estimation has completely sold out to CRT and almost every other liberal theological position.
I do not recommend Ortland's book. I won't derail the discussion but I would invite you to read Jeremy Walker's very thoughtful and even-handed review.
 
From the review:
Confusion on impassibility may lie behind statements such as the assertion that God ‘is—if I can put it this way without questioning his divine perfections—conflicted within himself when he sends affliction into our lives’ (138).

This reminds me of authors like Philip Yancey.
 
I do not recommend Ortland's book. I won't derail the discussion but I would invite you to read Jeremy Walker's very thoughtful and even-handed review.
Yes, thanks for the review. It caused me to dig out Goodwin, which led me through a momentary block I was having.

I love the Goodwin quote:

‘Take this, as one incentive to obedience, that if he retained the same heart and mind for mercy towards you which he had here on earth, then to answer his love, endeavour you to have the same heart towards him on earth which you hope to have in heaven.’
 
I do not recommend Ortland's book. I won't derail the discussion but I would invite you to read Jeremy Walker's very thoughtful and even-handed review.
I am reading through it right now.

Some of the language is a bit troubling to me. The focus however, on Christ's compassion, humility, sympathy, etc. is really helpful for me, as someone who is often depressed.

I will try to keep a watchful eye out for troubling signs.
 
This is the kind of thread where I really miss Ask Mr. Religion/Patrick. He was so good at parsing out this kind of doctrine step by step for "dummies".
 
Some of the language is a bit troubling to me.

The mother of a friend of mine asked him to read it, and he pointed out some cringeworthy lines in the book. He handed it back to her with some warnings, but, upon reading it, she has got into the Puritans. Most people are not going to pick up Richard Sibbes et al for themselves. They generally need to read a popular (even if seriously flawed) book to get them to read better authors. The PRCA ministers are very good at writing pamphlets, which briefly explain particular doctrines. This sort of ministry is important because the average recent convert is not going to have the ability to read the tomes that more experienced Reformed believers devour.
 
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@Rainee I would be very much interested in hearing your answers to my questions from up above, if you are willing to answer them.
 
Forgive me for asking, but what happened to Ask Mr. Religion? Having read quite a few threads here over the years I had just assumed he was still here.
He’s sadly no longer with us. He was a knowledgeable and irenic individual, a true asset to the Church.
 
He’s sadly no longer with us. He was a knowledgeable and irenic individual, a true asset to the Church.
I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for telling me, I look forward to meeting him in Christ.
 
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Hi Rainee,

If you don't mind, I have a couple of questions. Some of the people on this board are very erudite and knowledgeable, and I'm not one of them, so some clarification would greatly help me. Here goes:

1) I'm not familiar with this teaching of R.C. Sproul's. Could you show me where it is that he says that? He's written quite a lot, so having a clear reference that I can look up would be very helpful.

2) You ask a lot of questions your post. However, I am not clear on exactly what it is you are trying to say about the 2nd person of the Trinity. Could you state for me, in clear and simple terms, what it is that you are asserting?

3) Could you point me to some resources that you believe to be correct and orthodox on this matter? I see that you believe that Clark and Sproul were wrong on the person of Christ and on the Creed of Chalcedon, and I would like to know who gets it right so that I can check them out.

I look forward to your reply!
Hi,
1) I am going to be responding to this because my colleague Rainee is actually quoting some things from the rough draft of my book "Exposing Gordon H. Clark's Nestorianism" & then also quoting from the rough draft of my other book "Defending the Impeccability of Christ (against the False teachings of Peccability by R.C. Sproul, Sinclair Ferguson, and Charles Hodge).

2) Please read the post I made last week about Gordon H. Clark and then you will know why the matter of "There not being a good definition of person" is so critical.

3) R.C. Sproul's "infamous" teachings mentioned in this post are still published on Ligonier. He taught "Only the human nature of Christ atoned & NOT the divine person"

4) For the past decade many good reformed theologians stood against R.C. Sproul's bad teachings about this and deemed them of Nestorian influence.

5) Tragically, more and more Christian lay people (and even some Reformed Pastors of my acquaintance) are so confused in their Christology and parrot Sproul, and others parrot Clark.

Clark and Sproul removed the Divine Element from the Passion of the Lamb because they misunderstood the true doctrine of the Impassibility of God.

6) Sadly, Gordon H. Clark and J.R. Robbins of the Trinity Foundation denied the Creed of Chalcedon (as do most followers of Clark & Robbins deny it).

7) R.C. Sproul never went that far, but he did deny the "Divine Person" atoned saying because God is Impassible only the human nature atoned.

R.C. Sproul treated the human nature of Christ as though it was personal in and of itself.

This is why many theologians believed this of Nestorian influence (but NOT full fledged Nestorianism like Clark and Robbins).

8) By the way, some of this post is from the rough draft of my chapter about the true doctrine of the Impassibility of God.

Events experienced by Christ within "Created Time" (for space and time are creatures) do NOT cause change in God. What "God Incarnate" experienced within created time did NOT violate the Impassiblity or Immutability of God.

9) We must defend the Incarnation, the "Person of the Mediator", the Atonement, and accurate Christology.

And we must defend the Creed of Chalcedon!!! (that is accurate representation of what Holy Scripture teaches).

10) I apologize it took so long for me to respond but I have been ill. I am an old lady!
 
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