Christology

Maybe we should define the word, Christology. At one time, I'd never heard of it. I found this online dictionary definition:

"the branch of theology concerned with the person, attributes, and deeds of Christ"

But I'm not perfectly happy with that, as to me Christology involves you and I. What is our relationship to Christ? I mean by that, with all great respect to Jesus, not our relationship to Jesus, but our potential possibility to become a Christ ourselves. To me at any rate, that is the fundamental core question at the heart of any Christological debate.

V

Religion by definition should be the apex of the pyramid of the achievements of men and women. Man's spiritual beliefs are by nature that rod by which he/we measure and assess the rightness or wrongness of all of our thoughts, actions, and emotions. Religion should be the torch of illumination which sheds its wisdom and inspiration into all other fields of human endeavour. That's why I call it the apex of the pyramid.

So what has gone wrong in the West?

I believe the crux of the problem can be identified as an erroneous Christology - an erroneous understanding of the nature of Christ. Orthodox Christian doctrine has it that only Jesus was or is divine in the sense of having God within himself. In contrast, we are told, human beings are born in "original sin" (which I understand to mean sex, but how else are we going to be born, and is it sinful to be born?). Christianity tells us that we are therefore inherently and irreversibly imperfect. Man and woman cannot save themselves by self-effort, but must be saved by another - by the Saviour.

Christianity differs in this from most other religions or major faiths, for they place the onus upon the individual to improve themselves and their own lot through spiritual (and practical) individual attainment.

In many other world religions, and in lesser-known faiths, the goal of life is illimitable: we are intended to achieve Nirvana (Buddhism), Moksha (Hinduism), or the Ascension or "Fifth Initiation" (the I Am Faith begun by Theosophy in 1875). Christian doctrine places a ceiling upon us: "don't imagine that you can get all that high, ye sinner". My thesis here would be that this has placed grave limitations upon spiritual aspirants throughout the Western world, and that these limitations, spiritually, are detrimental to our entire society - spiritually, morally (that is clear!) and even in terms of how high our civilisation can rise, or how stable and sustained it can be, or whether it might fall.

V

Did Jesus and the Apostles really believe that he was unique and, as a corollary, that we also cannot become Sons or Daughters of God?

First of all, I'd point out that the four gospels of the Bible don't tell you much about what this man, Jesus, taught, in a life that extended to fully 33 years. The gospels give a very bare skeleton of his words. I'd direct anyone to those such as Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, who received Jesus' much deeper oral (but not written down) teachings directly from followers who themselves had personally known the Apostles.

Is anyone on HP free to find good links to Clement or to Origen, and to quote them?

The apostle John did write that we should strive to have a purity fully equal to that of Jesus, and that we should be like him. (I John: 3:2,3). Jesus and the Apostles say numerous times in the New Testament not that we should be "saved" but that it is the goal of life to become literally perfect. Why then does this call to literal perfection (such as Jesus attained) have no place in Christian doctrine? To St. Paul, Jesus was not unique but rather, "the first fruits of them that slept" (I Cor: 15: 20). So what of the other fruits when they (we) also "awake"?

When the Jews challenged Jesus for saying God was in himself, he replied by quoting the Psalms. He said, "Is it not written in your law, 'I have said, ye are gods'?" [3 John: 10: 54). (The original he was quoting from, Psalm 82:6, states: "I have said, ye are gods ... all of you".)

Let's stop there for a moment, as in the English translation, fundie Christians explain this away saying that it means "Ye are God's" i.e. 'you belong to God'. LOL. But this isn't the meaning of the actual scripture: the psalm means "Ye are gods" - that all the people, you and I, are gods. What to make of this?

In quoting this, under threat of death in fact, Jesus was making a highly mystical and esoteric statement, for he was justifying for all time his own Sonship on the basis that all people are (potential) gods, or Sons and Daughters of God.

One could continue with many more such verses. They are all there if one looks for them.

V

The idea that Christ is finite and material or a person seems less likely than considering The Christ to be non physical, spiritual, the Soul of all rather than an idividual soul of Jesus.
Christ as the son or creation of God the Source of Creation and then Man and the universe as the reflection or expression of the Creation or Christ makes sense to me. This allows us as individuals to show forth the Christ humanly and have a spiritual oneness as part of the Christ our true being.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3
The belief that man is mortal and material would miss the mark of perfection and result in sin and death
Christ destroys sin and death as Jesus demonstrated
In Christly affection
Owen

Hello Owen,

Welcome to HP! I resonate with what you've written and look forward to hearing more. I think it's very important to see the difference between the man Jesus and the infinite Christ, his true selfhood, that he so fully reflected and embodied (and which is actually the true selfhood of all of us) I love to think of the Christ in many ways, but this is one favourite, from an article titled "The Christ" : The power of the presence of God and the presence of the power of God.

Venetian, sorry but I've not had a chance to come back to discuss what you've written (still can't) but here's a link to Christology on Wiki:

And here are three links to BibleTexts.com that commented on early Christianity. The site , following the death of its author is no longer on the open web, but I found it in the archives:

Many early Christians were very concerned that the developing doctrine of the Trinity was a departure from monotheism. Some Christians clearly saw it as polytheistic heresy. It had been bitterly debated until it was settled by Constantine's coercion and edict at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Even with that pronouncement of the Nicene Creed, the theological pendulum swung back and forth until later in the century, as different Roman church officials went in and out of power. Those who were on the losing side at any given time were banished, and some even lost their lives over the issue.

And a couple more:

The Council of Nicaea

Man as the image of God:

I haven't had a chance to look up your links yet, but perhaps you didn't notice that I had posted a quote from Clement above?

Love and peace,

Judy

Yes, Judy,

Of course I did read your quote from St. Clement, in the very first post of this thread.

On the whole subject of Christology (to me meaning not at all just "who was Jesus?" but who are we in our lives in relation to his example?) I do think the early church-fathers are important to quote from, and to read. For a 33-year life, frankly we don't have many of the words of Jesus in the New Testament in the Bible.

He even seems to have left his homeland from his teens to age 29, going to India and Tibet. That's why the Bible has nothing to say on those years.

Can we even put any limits on how important this is? Origen and Clement, and others, all said that Jesus passed on oral teachings (not in the Bible) for those who were closest to him, and that these were passed on orally through only one generation until such as Origen and St. Clement wrote them down.

I fully believe that these early chuch fathers received the true oral teachings of Christ Jesus. Haven't got time now, and there are whole books to cover, but one or more of us might pick out some key quotes from those oral teachings?

What always strikes me about them is that they pre-date Constantine and the Roman establishment, but also are so different to the simply human Christian doctrine that people later have called "Christianity".

It's all there: reincarnation, that you have to strive for yourself to achieve higher spiritual attainment (Jesus does not "save"), and all kinds of things I could cite. These are what Jesus actually taught - not "Christianity" as it is today.

V

Hi V,

I had a look at the vast amount of info on the web - hard to know where to start. I was hoping to find more actual quotes rather than biographical info or overviews of their thinking, but this is as far as I've got. I liked reading about how Origen saw that the Bible was on three levels - that's certianly what mary Baker Eddy saw. Sadly it seems that most people only read it on one - the literal (or just the moral and historical) rather than the spiritual.

Didn't have time to do Clement:

Origen of Alexandria

Clement was the successor to Origen:

Love and peace,

Judy

I'll take a look later? Yes, I knew that Clement was a follower of Origen, but Origen came first. He literally received the oral (maybe also written down) teachings of Jesus only one generation removed: Jesus spoke them - and they are certainly not in the Bible - and his disciples passed them on, Origen receiving them.

It's quite ridiculous to imagine that all Jesus ever said in his whole life is contained in the New Testament. LOL, it would mean he was basically unable to speak! Obviously he said a whole lot more, and tradition has it that the known biblical gospels frankly are just for "the masses". His deeper teachings were oral. Orthodox Christianity will never accept them, to their great loss. Those teachings IMHO were for those literally able to follow him and become Christs themselves.

V

BTW, I have not read Origen or Clement for a number of years. But I would add that Origen strikes me as being someone who utterly was going to not distort anything, and rather to pass on the precise word he had received, the oral teachings of Jesus (who seems to have spent his whole 20s in India etc). Origen was faithful.

I therefore always consider St. Clement as someone who very precisely and faithfully expounded upon what Origen had written too. IMHO, if you want to find true (pre-Constantine) Christianity, then you find it in what Origen and Clement wrote down, along with St. John and St. Paul of course. But Jesus' deeper teachings only began coming out through Origen, Clement, and others. They are edited out of the Bible.

It's an eternal travesty that Christians only believe so little of what Jesus is actually recorded as having taught. It diminishes the religion no end.

V

Just wanted to drop in Judy and Venetian to let you know that you are not just having a conversation between yourselves!

I am following it avidly and finding it really interesting - particularly:

IMHO, if you want to find true (pre-Constantine) Christianity, then you find it in what Origen and Clement wrote down, along with St. John and St. Paul of course. But Jesus' deeper teachings only began coming out through Origen, Clement, and others. They are edited out of the Bible.

It's an eternal travesty that Christians only believe so little of what Jesus is actually recorded as having taught. It diminishes the religion no end.

Thank you for the links Judy. I can feel a lot of reading coming on.....

Please continue.

It's quite ridiculous to imagine that all Jesus ever said in his whole life is contained in the New Testament.

Hee hee, I don't think that even orthodox Christians believe that! John's gospel ends with these words:

[COLOR="Purple"] This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

That always makes me feel envious of those who were there with him!

Thanks for popping in Rachel - yes, it was beginning to feel like a duet! 😮 I've got tons I want to share (as done V I'm sure) but time is rather short at the moment - still more time to read links!

Love and peace,

Judy

Yes, there are dozens of references to things Jesus taught ... but the words are not in the Bible was my point. 🙂

It's said time and again that it's not all recorded, yes. For example, he'd give a more simple parable to the masses, then expound on the inner meaning (not in the Bible) to the disciples. After his Resurrection, I often think of his giving the close disciples "forty days and nights in the upper room"! A lot of inner teaching there ... he wouldn't just have been repeating "Love thy neighbour" for forty days! IMHO this was initiatory and esoteric teaching for close disciples only - but passed on orally later.

V

Hi V,

I'm not doing very well at getting to this thread! Time - "mortal limitations" seems to be stopping me.

However, today, while responding to a thread on some other forums, I shared some of the "Revelation of divine Love" that came to Julian of Norwich in a series of 16 visions where she was taught by the crucified Jesus. She saw these visions on what was expected to be her death bed and she was healed as a result and then gave her life over to prayer, meditation and (over 20 years) to writing down her visions.

I guess Catholics and open-minded Christians will accept it, but not those who insist that the entire Word of God is in the Bible and nowhere else, and that every word is correct (even though much of it contradicts itself and Jesus overturned many of the old Jewish theology), especially as it contradicts so much of the male-dominated traditions and beliefs that are found there. I love her experience and revelations as they mirror Mary Baker Eddy's in many places (and of course, those of so many other holy and inspired seers)

In 1373 Julian of Norwich (not her real name) had a series of sixteen visions of being taught by the crucified Jesus on her death bed (which healed her). She became an anchoress in the church of St Julian (and took on its name) then wrote down (over 20 years) what she had seen, in a little book called “The Revelations of divine Love” (the first book written in English by a woman.)

In one of her visions, Julian saw God as Mother. This troubled her as it conflicted with the teachings of the "Holy (Catholic) Church", so she explained it away through the Virgin Mary. She was also taught that there was no sin and that God, being all Love had no wrath. This is part of her revelation and it's so beautiful:

"...and so I saw that God rejoices that he is our father and God rejoices that he is our mother and God rejoices that he is our true husband and our soul his beloved wife."

".....I saw that he is to us everything which is good and comforting for our help. He is our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for his love, which is so tender that he may never desert us. And so in this sight I saw that he is everything which is good, as I understand.

And in this he showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it would suddenly have fallen in to nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it: and thus everything has being through the love of God."

"And from the time that it was shown, I often asked to know what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in inward understanding, saying this:

'Would you know your Lord's meaning in this? Learn it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Hold fast to this and you shall learn and know more about love. But you will never need to know nor learn anything else for ever. So was I taught that love was our Lord's meaning.

And so I saw full surely that before ever God made us, he loved us. And this love was never quenched, nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting.

In our making we had beginning, but the love in which he made us was without beginning, in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God without end."

From In Search of Julian of Norwich by Sheila Upjohn)

Also see

Isn't that awesome? I love where she says after stating that love was our Lord's meaning, "And in this love (God) has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting."

Doesn't that mirror the end of the first creation account in Genesis?:

[COLOR="Purple"] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good...

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them...

"And in this love our life is everlasting" - "... but the love in which he made us was without beginning, in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God without end." Does that not remind us of Jesus' words in John 17:
[COLOR="Purple"]
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Which is an echo of Proverbs 8:

[COLOR="Purple"] The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

Doesn't that encompass the understanding that the true substance and origin of man is as a divine eternal idea, one with its divine Principle, God?

To me, the eternal spiritual perfect idea of God, man, is the Christ, the Son of God, which was most fully embodied and reflected by Jesus, but which is the true nature, substance and individually of all the sons and daughters of God:

[COLOR="Purple"] Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:(Eph 4)

It's time to say more about Genesis below...

Continuing with an excerpt from the chapter on Genesis in Science and Health (the top part links to the Julian revelations above):

[COLOR="Blue"]In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity....

God has countless ideas, and they all have one Principle and parentage. The only proper symbol of God as person is Mind's infinite ideal. What is this ideal? Who shall behold it? This ideal is God's own image, spiritual and infinite. Even eternity can never reveal the whole of God, since there is no limit to infinitude or to its reflections.

As I said above, to my understanding, this ideal, “the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” was brought to human perception through Christ Jesus. He was the supreme example of the real, ideal man, whom God creates. He shows us what we are, in reality. He shows us what we are capable of doing and overcoming. Above all, he shows us man’s unity with God. John’s gospel presents the history of Jesus as the history of an idea which not only dominated Jesus’ life, but which was his life and his whole purpose of existence. “It was for this I was born and for this that I came to the world, to give testimony for truth.” (John 18)

To me, to really begin to understand Jesus, the Christ and man's one-ness with the divine, we have to start with the first account of creation in the Bible and most importantly, to read Genesis 1 from a spiritual perspective. I read this chapter, not as a material literal creation - especially not in 6 days (!!!) but as the unfolding of the spiritual ideas which are the true substance of everything that appears to us as mortal and material.

Also, rather than the wrong deductive reasoning which men have used over thousands of years which says, "Adam was a man made in the image and likeness of God" (wrong, the second account says Adam was made from dust and Eve from one of his ribs) therefore, God must be a man, with 'masculine' emotions". However, if we take Jesus' definition of God as Spirit, then man the image and likeness of God is actually spiritual, not material. (Of course, Jesus also implied that God is Truth and Life, and John said that God is Love and Paul that He is Mind.)

Here is a link to the chapter in Science and Health by MBE. This is from her exegesis:
[COLOR="Blue"]
Immortal and divine Mind presents the idea of God: first, in light; second, in reflection; third, in spiritual and immortal forms of beauty and goodness. But this Mind creates no element nor symbol of discord and decay.

Genesis i. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.

The eternal Elohim includes the forever universe. The name Elohim is in the plural, but this plurality of Spirit does not imply more than one God, nor does it imply three persons in one. It relates to the oneness, the tri-unity of Life, Truth, and Love. "Let them have dominion." Man is the family name for all ideas,--the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power....

God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in goodness, which impart their own peace and permanence. Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light....

Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God's dominion over all the earth. Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.

Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God created He him; male and female
created He them.

To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated that God made man in His own image, to reflect the divine Spirit. It follows that man is a generic term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are human concepts. In one of the ancient languages the word for man is used also as the synonym of mind. This definition has been weakened by anthropomorphism, or a humanization of Deity....

Here is a link to the exegesis of those two verses in full for anyone who wants to read them:

Here's another interesting bit from the chapter:

[COLOR="Blue"]The following are some of the equivalents of the term man in different languages. In the Saxon, mankind, a woman, any one; in the Welsh, that which rises up, --the primary sense being image, form; in the Hebrew, image, similitude; in the Icelandic, mind. The following translation is from the Icelandic:--

And God said, Let us make man after our mind and
our likeness; and God shaped man after His mind; after
God's mind shaped He him; and He shaped them male and
female.

Again, doesn't that tie in with Clement of Alexandria's words in his Exhortation to the Greeks?

For the image of God is His Word, the genuine Son of Mind, the Divine Word, the archetypal light of light; the image of the Word is the true man, the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have been made "in the image and likeness of God," assimilated to the Divine Word in the affections of the soul, and therefore rational; but effigies sculptured in human form, the earthly image of that part of man which is visible and earth-born, are but a perishable impress of humanity, manifestly wide of the truth.

Love and peace,

Judy

Hi Judy,

Lovely quotes, thanks.

Not to upset anyone here too much I hope, but despite any flaws in the institution of the Catholic Church, it's there that I find most of the inspiring saints. (But then it has been around longer.) Their writings are remarkable. I don't see the books of the saints as actually being about love towards Jesus per se, but even if they didn't quite understand it, their amazing mystical writings are to me about the stages they have gone through in the process of becoming Christs themselves.

So when St. Catherine of Sienna writes of Christ, I see that as being her own inner Christ a'borning and teaching her within the heart. St. John of the Cross, wow! And quite a few more.

So to sum up, to me we are all Christs within (or in potential - it's all semantics). I believe the Old Testament - and obviously other religions - bears witness to living Christs. But Jesus' "mission" was to also become a Christ (or be born already as one from past lives ... ) but, however, to also be an exemplar: a kind of image of what can be, to stick in peoples' minds forever. Very likely he taught what all men and women can be, but as we've noted elsewhere, the whole was overturned by Catholic doctrine after about 400 years: from then on he was supposedly "unique", we sinners.

What did Jesus Christ actually teach? You know, we hardly even know! He lived for 33 years, and it's often clear that he spoke to the multitudes, or to closer disciples, for hours at a time. Compare a whole lifetime of teaching by him to - frankly - very few words indeed in the Bible ... A surprisingly small number of verses describe Jesus' teachings.

V