JourneyOnline
Christian scholars differ greatly on how to understand the resurrection of Christ.
Is his resurrected ‘body’ is to be understood as his incarnate body (possibly transformed in some way) or rather as some ‘spiritual’, dis-embodied ‘body’, or even as simply externalising the ‘internal’ experience of the disciples in ‘meeting’ their risen Lord again.
These variants in belief can be linked to the ways the early church understood the Son of God’s presence in his earthly life.
The early church, for the most part, understood both that Jesus of Nazareth was fully, entirely, completely human (en-fleshed and en-souled as all humans were and are) and also that somehow, in a way which was not true for any other, God was present to us in and through him.
They believed that Jesus was in fact not merely the Son of God (though Son of the Father), and not merely a representative of God on earth, but was indeed in and of himself God.
Others (and often for very similar reasons) took the view either that hJesus was not at all divine in himself but rather very much a chosen human being (chosen by God for a particular purpose) but still and only very human, or even that he was actually, utterly and completely God and not at all human.
Most of the early Christian theologians took the view, even if they struggled to explain it, that Jesus of Nazareth/the Christ/the Son of God had two natures, one human and one divine.
The others held that he was of one nature only, either human or divine (but not both). Often these views were held because they could not bear to think of the majesty of almighty God somehow ‘soiled’ (if you like) by direct contact with the material, physical world.
Ebionites and Adoptionists
Those who took the view that Jesus was of human nature only – that he was (in the language of the day) a ‘mere human’ – were often called Ebionites (for reasons not really known to us) or Adoptionists (the suggestion being that God had simply ‘adopted’ Jesus as ‘son’ for a particular and special purpose).
The problem here for the early Church Fathers was that if this were true then God had not truly entered into the human experience, our experience, and that there had been no incarnation, that God had not taken or assumed our nature.
And, on the principle that ‘what is not assumed is not healed’, salvation – however that was understood – was not present for the physical world or for that part of us at least which was physical.
The goodness of the creation itself, spoken of by God in Genesis, was neither affirmed nor restored in Christ.
Docetists
Those who took the view that Jesus was of divine nature only – that he was God but not human – were called Docetists (from the Greek word dokein, which means to ‘appear’).
They suggested that Jesus had merely ‘appeared’ to be human, to hunger, to thirst, to suffer, to die, to be raised from death, and so on.
The problem here for the early Fathers was that if this were true then God had not truly entered into the human experience, our experience, and that there had been no incarnation, that God had not taken or assumed our nature.
Heresies and Implications
These are two heresies – or so they were regarded – with different views, but the same motivation and the same outcomes.
And the resurrection of Jesus, if it were not of the body/flesh which he (as God) had assumed, would mean nothing for the creation which God had decreed as ‘good’. Indeed a dis-embodied resurrection (if one were possible) meant for the early church that the creation was itself devalued and cast aside as of no interest to God; a mere way station on the way to somewhere else.
Rev Dr David Rankin is Principal of Trinity Theological College and Director of Studies in Church History.
Photo : David Rankin is Principal of Trinity Theological College and Director of Studies in Church History.
