Cheryl Schatz

I finally released NN’s comment from moderation #77 that I had kept in the moderation que for an extended period of time because frankly I was so busy this summer I hardly had time to think.

Now that we finished our last ministry trip for the year, and in trying to clean up the emails that I was not able to get to this summer, I came across NN’s comment still held in moderation. I now have time to answer his concerns. Those reading this might want to look back at #77 where NN’s comment shows up in the time order that it was written.

NN, you said:

I honestly don’t think (I hope) that you believe differently regarding the fundamental nature of God the Son’s pre-existent nature than I would.

As Christians we should be in complete agreement that Jesus’ nature as God before taking on humanity was fully God. That isn’t the area that we disagree on. It is with the term “Christ”.

You said:

Indeed I am greatly reassured versus some of your original words on how we should not not “equate Christ with God” – I presume that you can understand the concern that these sorts of statements might raise given your interaction with cultist groups.

I think I have made it quite clear that the term “Christ” is a prophetic term in the Old Testament for the coming Messiah and in the New Testament it is the term that refers to the human Jesus (who is God come in the flesh). What I have said, and say again is that God in His essence and nature is not called “Christ” since the term “Christ” refers to a human. God took on the nature of man and thus became the Christ, but God is not called “Christ” as His name from eternity past.

You said:

However, the Christ was both fully God and fully man He could not have been the Christ were He not fully God. Therefore to assert that the title of “the Christ” refers only to His human nature would be quite contrary to Scripture.

This is not true. In fact in order to disprove what I have written, all you would need to do is to produce one Scripture that calls the pre-incarnate Word of God as “Christ” before He became man. The term for His Deity is the “Word of God” in the New Testament. The term for His humanity is “the Christ”. He was born the Christ because He became human. “The Christ” was resurrected as a human because only the man Jesus died. The Spirit cannot die. The Christ died and was resurrected and surely you can admit that God did not die.

You said:

Indeed one thing that I cannot rule out from your words which still worries me is that you would assert that God the Son did not exist as a separate Person in “eternity past” but was somehow synthesized from a previously unified Godhead in the incarnation. I suspect (again hope) that you don’t believe this but I put it out there to clarify.

I said nothing of the sort. That is a fabrication.

You said:

I will close only by stating that I believe with high confidence that you are wrong in your exact assertions about the Christ and that I can prove it Biblically

Go ahead and try to prove it Biblically. Your comment was held since mid-July, so hopefully you are not as busy now so you can take the time to put your money where your words are. Fair enough?