ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 24 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> If all the attributes of Christ's divine nature are given to Christ's human nature, are all or some of the human nature also given to the divine? In other words, is there a reciprocation between the two natures? >> DR. DAVID SCAER: This is a very attractive option that the -- just as all of the attributes of the deity or the divine nature are given to Jesus, so the limitations of the human nature are given to the divine. I think this would appeal to the American mindset because we deal with quality. I'm going to refer to the Georgian architecture which was so popular in the colonial period. And that is if you had a door on one side of the room, you also had a door on the other. Of course maybe there wasn't any place for a door. So they made something that looked like a door. And so this is a very attractive option. Before going actually into the theological discussion of how Lutherans have looked at it, this type of thinking has come up in modern times. And that is that the human attributes are attributed to the divine or to God. And there is a movement among many Bible believing Protestant evangelicals people who we would ordinarily put into the category of conservative that God himself has imposed upon himself limitations so that he does not really know the future. And that perhaps his own existence as God may in some way be compromised. You should be alert that this type of thinking has -- is very popular today and is going on. The idea that the human attributes of Jesus should be given to the divine nature is called reciprocity. And the word reciprocity is generally used between governments or between states in the United States. There are 50 states. And there's reciprocity. If one state acknowledges the legality or validity of a marriage, so does the other state. And it would seem to be the natural thing to do. Essential to understanding the person of Jesus, that the action is always on the part of God and not on the part of the human nature. It's not that the human nature ever decides to become like God. I mentioned to you before how you would approach the person of Jesus in a private or public university in a secular situation. There is no understanding in that kind of situation that God became man. That's completely foreign to them. What they can tolerate is this idea: That there was a man, Jesus, who acquired because of his moral excellency certain divine qualities. And that after his death, these were even increased more and more. He grew to be like God. But the action -- the action the way the Lutherans have looked upon this and the way the scriptures look upon it, that is always God that comes into our situation. And there are no limitations placed upon God. Because of the incarnation God is no less God. On the other hand we want to state quite clearly there was no God outside the person of Jesus. If we want to understand God, we first have to understand the person of Jesus. Now, the Reformed realize that they held to a different viewpoint of Jesus. And just as we would be uncomfortable with their position, they made it quite clear that they were uncomfortable with our position. And they did everything they could to disprove it. Thus, for example, how could you explain that the eternal God lived in the person of Jesus who had a beginning? The Lutherans answered the question in this way: That the attributes of God were not given to Jesus in the same way, in regard to the eternity of God, that he is not bound by time, the Lutherans said that the eternity of God rests within Jesus, was active within Jesus but in no way did the Lutherans ever suggest that the human nature of Jesus became eternal. No. 24. >> There are some things, of course, which are problematic. Let's take, for example, the attribute of omniscience. Omniscience means -- that means knowing all things. God knows all things. He knows all things in one moment. God doesn't learn. God doesn't have to study anything. He knows all things. And in a sense, he's the cause of what he knows. However, if you read the story of the boy Jesus in the Gospel of Luke -- and there it says. That he grew in his understanding of God. Jesus really learned. I think that's one of the most amazing things about the person of Jesus is that his childhood was no different than any other child. He had learned to speak. He learned to pray. Whatever the educational system was in that day -- and I think it's much more advanced than what we think. I'm literally convinced that the household of Jesus spoke at least three languages. Aramaic was the kind of language they spoke at home. If you've been in Germany, you know -- and in fact, it's true in any European country -- there's a ***pladdox. There's a common language that the people speak. It's not simple language. It's very sophisticated that when they go to school -- at least in Germany there's high German. And I think true also among the Italians and European in general. I'm convinced that Aramaic, they spoke Aramaic at home when Jesus prayed in the Gospel of Mark. It was ***alialama sabachtome, common language. They also spoke Hebrew. That was liturgical language. When you went to the temple, they read the Hebrew text sort of like our reading the King James Version. And in the Roman Catholic Church knowing the Latin. And I'm also convinced that they knew Greek. There was a Greek village about two miles from where Jesus lived in Nazareth. That seems very likely that his father who was a carpenter worked there and that Jesus had a good education. Can you imagine Jesus having to learn things? Knowing all things, he had to learn things. And he never said when he learns anything. It's never when he heard the Scriptures read, he didn't say to himself "Oh, I wrote that." He never said I don't know if you have children or grandchildren. You know, children can become very short with us. I already know that. He never said that. Because he really was learning. He was completely subjected to his parents and to other people. He never pulled rank. He was one of us. He had our sorrows. He had our emotions. He had our happiness. Nobody saw -- nobody saw anything special in him by the excellent virtues which he did by saying "My, this is an absolutely unusual child. Would you take a look at him." No. He was just like all of the others. Inspite of what we see, he at the same time had all of the attributes of God. I like to make a reference to Luther's -- one of Luther's Christmas hymns. And the line goes like this "With milk was fed the Lord of all who feed the ravens when they call." I hope in the future if you have any opportunity to read anything about the person of Christ, that you would read some of the excellent studies that have been made about Martin Luther's Christology, the study of Jesus. That small hymn verse is magnificent. In one person at one time there was a child who was completely dependent upon his mother like all other children for his life and for existence. At the same time he is the Lord of all. Even as Luther says, he feeds the ravens when they fall. I wonder if in the back of Luther's mind were the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. That your Heavenly Father knows that even when a sparrow falls to the ground. And of course that's the great magnificence of Lutheran theology. Is that it combines the realities of God and man in one person, Jesus. If you haven't got an opportunity or -- to read the works of Luther, if you want something that might be a little shorter and definitely a little simpler, I would like to call your attention to a book I wrote some years ago in the confessional Lutheran dogmatic series simply with the title "Christology." There are a few pages in there. And this might help you to begin a journey that I hope will last as long as your life. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***