The Chalcedonian formula [the council's decision declaring Jesus both God and man] makes genuine humanity impossible. The conciliar definition says that Jesus is true man. But if there are two natures in him, it is clear which will dominate. And Jesus becomes immediately very different from us.
Then Hart is a heretic from his own church. It happens.
The early church was chock full of heretics back in the day, and we certainly have plenty of heretics running around now. It was predicted.
It's not uncommon for folks to misunderstand the dual nature of Christ. This generally happens in the cults as opposed to the historic, traditional church. But whether Hart espouses they denounced Chritologies of
Eutychianism (Christ's divine and human nature was scrambled together) or
Monophysitism (Christ's divine nature was combined with his human nature into one nature) matters little. In either instance Christ would become a creature that is neither man nor God and thus unable to mediate for either, and this is where your argument breaks down.
If an intelligent dispute arises between a man and a horse, how would you decide it fairly? If you hire a man the horse will object, and if you hire a horse, the man will immediately claim the horse to biased.
So if Christ is only man, he cannot mediate for God and if Christ is only God, he cannot mediate for man. If he is some weird mixed combination of the two, he can do neither.
Christ has a dual nature (hypostatic union). NEITHER nature "dominates" the other...instead they co-exist as born by scripture:
GOD
Man
He worshiped the Father (John 17)
God
Man
God
Man
God
Man
He prayed to the Father (John 17)
God
Man
God
Man
God
Man
God
All the fullness of deity dwells in Him (
Col. 2:9)
Man
READ and
APPLY the above scriptures to your Christology
@rrobs. Your Christology
must be able to account for
all verses concerning Christ, without over or de-emphasizing others. This is how the church formed its Christology.
As you scripturally discern Christ's
dual nature you'll be able to understand how Trinitarians can state Christ was
subject to the Father in his
nature as man or even call upon the Father as his God (because there is only one God of man) whilst at the same time being fully God.
Indeed, had Jesus known He was God he would not have been at all like the rest of us.
Jesus was "like" us because he was fully man. He was also fully God. This allowed him not to be "like man" but actually a man whilst not being "like God" but actually God. If you understand how a spouse can be a wife to her husband and a secretary to her boss without "mixing" these roles with her boss to her husband's detriment, then you have all the needed capacity to understand the dual nature of Christ without confusion.
Can you be tempted and know you can not fail? I trust you will answer that in the negative.
You and I were born into sin, so of course we can be tempted and fail. Another way to phrase your question: How can Jesus be like us unless he sins?
So if you can fail but Jesus can't fail, how does that make Jesus just like you, as Hebrews clearly says he is.
Jesus was tempted just like any man would be from Adam to the present time. Unlike Adam (or the rest of us) Jesus relied on God which is not a recipe for failure.
John 1:14 says the logos became flesh. That didn't happen until many years after the beginning spoken of in
John 1:1,
so Jesus was not there in the beginning. There is more to the logos than simply substituting the word Jesus for it.
You'll really have to explain this one to me. John 1:1 tell us:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
and John 1:14 tells us
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
There are not two "Words" but one "Word" here! The Word was "In the beginning" and yes, many years later
"The Word became flesh", so how on earth can you say
"...so Jesus was not there in the beginning" when John 1:1 tells us the exact
opposite???
Remember
@rrobs, John 3:16 clearly tells us the Father
gave (not "made") his only Son. Jesus has always been there.
We should be able to reconcile John 3:16 with your statement that "Jesus was not there in the beginning" and I'm not seeing how that is done.
So if you can fail but Jesus can't fail, how does that make Jesus just like you, as Hebrews clearly says he is.
Sin equals failure.It's not that Jesus couldn't fail, it's that he didn't. Jesus did not sin so there was no failure. We on the other hand do sin, and quite often, some with every chance they get so we have lots and lots of failures..
To claim Jesus couldn't be like us because he didn't fail (sin) is like claiming Adam wasn't really a man until he did.
Come back to the hypostatic union
@rrobs. There are two
distinct and unmixed natures in the Christology of Jesus...the Divine, and the human. Had Jesus called upon his own Divine nature to circumvent/check on whether he would be successful or not, or to prevent him from temptation, he would have instantly ceased to have been human and could no longer offer himself as a human ransom for all. That is why he had to rely
totally on the Father:
"By myself, I can do nothing..." (John 5:30)
"...I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me." ( John 8:28)
It's why he called upon his Father rather than himself for strength:
"An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him" (Luke 22: 43)
And its why Trinitarians can reconcile biblical texts while Unitarians struggle.