Many broadminded theologians today reflect the words of Don Cupitt: “The critical historian no longer sees both natures displayed in Jesus’ life. He sees a purely human Jesus, a first-century man of God in the Jewish tradition.”[1] This new age Jesus becomes a pattern for human life, but is no longer the incarnation.
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Most broadminded theologians miss Thomas Merton’s sentiment in The Seven Storey Mountain,
Jesus Christ was not simply a man, a good man, a great man, the greatest prophet, a wounded healer, a saint: He was something that made all such trivial words pale into irrelevance. He was God. But nevertheless He was not merely a spirit without a true body, God hiding under a visionary body: He was also truly a man.[2]
Contemporary theologians talk of Jesus as “God embodied in a human life.”[3] But, in Jesus God wasn’t just embodied in a human life like other prophets. Jesus was utterly unique: God’s human incarnation. This affirmation of generations of witnesses differentiates Christianity from all other world religions. Some claim “His life incarnates the character of God.”[4] But, “Jesus incarnates the character of God” evades the bold affirmation of the ages: God incarnate; “God in human form” (Philippians 2:8, Colossians 2:9).
“The Word (God) became flesh (human)” (John 1:14). This is the difference between God’s human incarnation and God’s prophets and prophetesses. In Jesus God didn’t dwell within a human like Moses, Elijah, and Deborah. God became human. This is the unique legacy of the Christian testament.
[1] Goulder, Incarnation and Myth, 43.
[2] Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, 209.
[3] Borg, The Heart of Christianity, 88.
[4] Borg, The Heart of Christianity, 88.
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