The
Origin of the Son of God vs the Incarnation of “God the Son”
Ray
Brown, Birth of the Messiah: “In Luke
1.35 the begetting is not quasi-sexual as if God takes the place of a male
principle in mating with Mary. There is more of a connotation to creativity.
Mary is not barren, and in her case the child does not come into existence
because God cooperates with the husband’s generative action and removes the
sterility. Rather, Mary is a virgin who has not known man, and therefore the
child is totally God’s work—a new creation…And this double expression of God’s
activity makes it clear that when the child is called “holy” and “Son of God”,
these designations are true to what he is and to his origins.”
Fitzmyer,
The Gospel According to Luke: “The idea of Incarnation is foreign to Luke, as
to Matthew. [In Luke 1.35] ‘Therefore (dio
kai)’ expresses a causal connection between the virginal conception and the
divine Sonship. It is another indication that Luke does not have a notion of
Jesus’ preexistence.”
J.D.G.
Dunn, Christology in the Making: “In his birth narrative Luke is more explicit
than Matthew in his assertion of Jesus’ divine sonship from birth [1.32-35;
2.49]…it is sufficiently clear that it is a begetting, a becoming, which is in
view, the coming into existence of one who will be called and will in fact be
the Son of God—not by the transition of a preexistent being to become the soul
of a human baby or the metamorphosis of a divine Being into a human
fetus…Similarly in Acts there is no sign of any Christology of pre-existence.”
D.
Hare, Matthew, Interpretation: “Not
only was [Matthew] referred to among Greek-speaking Jews as Genesis but also
his phrase ‘the book of the genesis of Jesus Christ’ is strongly reminiscent of
the Greek version of Gen 5.1, ‘the book of the genesis of human beings’, and
Gen 2.4, ‘the book of the genesis of heaven and earth’…in Jesus Christ, God had
made a new beginning. To borrow from the language of Hollywood, the First
Gospel could be billed as ‘Genesis II, the Sequel’.”
W.B.
Tatum: “Now the origin of Jesus Messiah was thus” (1.18a). Following these
words, the First Evangelist demonstrates that the circumstance surrounding
Jesus’ origin—both genealogical (1.18b-25) and geographical (2.1-4.16)—are in
fulfillment of OT prophecies about the Davidic Messiah.”
N.H.
Snaith, The Distinctive Ideas of the Old
Testament: “Neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is based on Biblical
theology. In each case we have a domination of Christian theology by Greek
thought."
So What Happened?
“The
holy, pre-existent Spirit, that created every creature, God made to dwell in
flesh, which He chose.” Hermas, Similitudes,
V.6.5.
“For
just as, when John says, The Word was made flesh, John 1.14 we understand the
Spirit also in the mention of the Word.” Tertullian, Praxeas, Ch 26.
“The
Word and Son of God…enters into a virgin; being the Holy Spirit…He us endued
with flesh; God is mingled with man.” Cyprian, Idol. Treatise 6.
“The
Holy Ghost, descending from above, hallowed the Virgin's womb, and…mingled
Himself with the fleshly nature of man...” Hilary, On Trinity, 2.26.
“There
is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in
man…Son of Mary and Son of God, first created and then uncreated, Jesus Christ
our Lord.” Ignatius, Eph. 7:2
“Christ
the Lord who saved us, being first spirit, then became flesh…” 2 Clement 9.5.
Athanasius,
The Incarnation. “Just as the
astronaut, in order to operate [in space] puts on an elaborate space-suit which
enables him to live and act in this new, unfamiliar environment, so the Logos
put on a body which enabled him to behave as a human being among human beings.
But his relation to this body is no closer than that of an astronaut to his
space-suit.”
On First Principles, Origen described Jesus as “the
only-begotten Son, who was born, but without any beginning…His generation is
eternal and everlasting. It was not by receiving the breath of life that he is
made a Son, by any outward act, but by God’s own nature.”
Hence
Wilberforce: “Origen introduced the phrase ‘the Son’s eternal generation’” and
W. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology: “Only with Origen’s doctrine of the eternal
begetting of the Son did the concept emerge of an eternal trinity in God.”
Complete WordStudy Dictionary: “The designation of this
relationship by words with a temporal notion [“this day have I begotten you”,
Ps 2.7] has troubled theologians, who have proffered various explanations.
Origen understood this as referring to the Son's relationship within the
Trinity and was the first to propose the concept of eternal generation.”
J.O.
Buswell Jr. “The notion that the Son was begotten by the Father in eternity
past, not as an event, but as an inexplicable relationship, has been accepted
and carried along in the Christian theology since the 4th-century.
We have examined all the instances in which ‘begotten’ or ‘born’ or related
words are applied to Christ, and we can say with confidence that the Bible has
nothing whatsoever to say about ‘begetting’ as an eternal relationship between
the Father and the Son.”
Adam
Clarke: “the doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ is, in my opinion,
anti-scriptural, and highly dangerous…To say that he was begotten from all
eternity, is, in my opinion, absurd; and the phrase eternal Son is a positive
self-contradiction.”
Cut to: Christ-Mass
The New Encyclopedia Britannica, v. 13, 15th ed.
1990: “Christian festival celebrated on December 25, commemorating the birth of
Jesus Christ and also a popular secular holiday…was celebrated in Rome by AD
336…In Jerusalem, opposition to Christmas lasted longer, but it was
subsequently accepted. In the Armenian Church, a Christmas on December 25 was
never accepted… The
reason why Christmas came to be celebrated…Christians wished the date to
coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the “birthday of the unconquered
sun” (natalis solis invicti); In the Roman world the Saturnalia (December 17)
was a time of merrymaking and exchange of gifts. December 25 was also regarded
as the birth date of the Iranian mystery god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness.
On the Roman New Year (January 1), houses were decorated with greenery and
lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances
were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic tribes penetrated
into Gaul, Britain and central Europe. Food and good fellowship, the Yule log
and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated
different aspects of this festive season. Fires and lights, symbols of warmth
and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both
pagan and Christian. Since the Middle Ages, evergreens, as symbols of survival,
have been associated with Christmas. Christmas is traditionally regarded as the
festival of the family and of children, under the name of whose patron, St.
Nicholas, presents are exchanged in many countries.
Tree
worship, common among the pagan Europeans, survived after their conversion to
Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with
evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and of setting up a tree for
the birds during Christmastime; it survived further in the custom, also
observed in Germany, of placing a Yule tree at an entrance or inside the house
in the midwinter holidays. The Germans set up a Paradise tree in their homes on
December 24, the religious feast day of Adam and Eve. They hung wafers on it
(symbolizing the host, the Christian sign of redemption); in a later tradition,
the wafers were replaced by cookies of various shapes. Candles, too, were often
added as the symbol of Christ. In the same room, during the Christmas season,
was the Christmas pyramid, a triangular construction of wood, with shelves to
hold Christmas figurines, decorated with evergreens, candles, and a star. By
the 16th century, the Christmas pyramid and Paradise tree had merged, becoming
the Christmas tree.”
Rick
Warren, Christianity Today posted
12/19/2008: “The entire reason for Christmas is the love of God. God loves you
so much that he came to earth as a human so you could get to know him and learn
to trust him and love him back. Theologians call this the Incarnation. God
became one of us, a human being, so we could understand what he is really
like.”
R.H.
Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the
Life of Christ: “The essence of the Christmas story is not that Mary
conceived as a virgin. Nor is the Christmas story a sentimental ode to
motherhood. The essence of Christmas is that God’s Son came into the world in
human form and dwelt among us. It is the “fact” of the incarnation that is the
key to Christmas, not the “how” by which this was brought about…For orthodox
Christianity that is self-evident. The Son of God did not come into existence
through virginal conception. The Son of God was, is and always will be…”
Karl
Rahner: “The representation of a god’s becoming man is mythological, when the
‘human’ element is merely the clothing, the livery, of which the god makes us
in order to draw attention to his presence here with us, while it is not the
case that the human element acquires its supreme initiative and control over
its own actions by the very fact of being assumed by God…The persistence of
this idea [ought to make us realize that it] probably still lives on in the
picture which countless Christians have of the ‘Incarnation’, whether they
believe it or not.”
