Christ the creator and his nature before the incarnation

[Northumber]

I'm realizing the Orthodox have a different understanding of the pre-incarnate Christ than in the West (which is my background: Protestant, Lutheran).

We had pastors that hinted at the fact that some interpretations of the "angel of the Lord" could be Christ.
I take it this is not really "in question" in the Orthodox Church seeing that there are icons of Christ creating the cosmos:

and Adam:

Christ creating Adam is a very different depiction than an "old man" like in the Sistine Chapel.

Forgive me if this is a terrible question but is there an understanding that Christ has human nature before the incarnation? Is it that using words like "before" is not really the way to describe Christ and God who are outside of time and history?

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

I'm realizing the Orthodox have a different understanding of the pre-incarnate Christ than in the West (which is my background: Protestant, Lutheran).

What do you think is different?

It is my understanding that Christ created all things, and that He made many appearances prior to the incarnation. He is described as "walking" in the Garden of Eden and He even eats with Abraham in Genesis 18.

Some Pastors will exercise restraint when applying "the Angel of the Lord" to Christ because the text is not always referring to the Divine Person, but in many cases it is.

 

[Kingdom]

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."
-John 1:1-3

"Verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."
-John 8:58

"No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
-Luke 10:22

"No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."
-John 1:18

Forgive me if this is a terrible question but is there an understanding that Christ has human nature before the incarnation?

No, except that Adam was created in the image (prototype) of Christ (in other cosmogonies Adam Kadmon, Adam Elyon, puruṣa, Philo's heavenly man), without which the Incarnation would not have been possible.

---

In esoteric cosmology there are concepts of unmanifested and manifested God, or Macro and Microprosopus (Arich Anpin and Ze`ir Anpin).
Here is an interesting (non-Orthodox) take on the subject of Christ and YHWH. Make of it what you will:

"To believe that YHWH has a Father is not heretical. His father is the Father, El Elyon, God in the Highest. YHWH the Logos is El Elyon’s only begotten son. The other angels are his sons, too, but they are created, not begotten.

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 has YHWH as one of the sons of El Elyon (“God of gods” or “God in the Highest”):

"When the Most High (‘elyon’) gave to the nations their inheritance, When He separated humanity, He fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of divine beings. For YHWH’s portion is his people [Israel] Jacob his allotted heritage."

So YHWH was the ba’al – the bar El, “son of God” — of Israel, while, e.g., Addu was the ba’al of Ugarit, and Moloch the ba’al of Tyre. The “gods of the nations” (a familiar phrase in scripture) are also often called “shepherds.”

Early in Israel’s history, YHWH was understood as separate from El. Later they were assimilated to each other, but from the start YHWH was the son of the Father. Many of the more perplexing utterances of Jesus are much easier to understand if we remember that he is the incarnation of YHWH the Son.

[...]

El is the title of the Most High God of ancient (pre-Israelite) Ugarit, and is still in use today to refer to the Most High God, by both Muslims and Christians, in its Arabic cognate, Allah. El Elyon appears in Genesis 14:18-19 as the God of Melchizedek the Priest at Salem (Jerusalem) to whom Abraham sacrificed and tithed, and in whose eucharist he partook; whose Great High Priest is Jesus, and to whose priestly order, prior and superior to the Aaronic priesthood, all Christians are ordained forever (baptism being the rite of ordination to this priesthood).

With the doctrine of the Trinity, this does indeed get tricky. El and YHWH are different persons, but the same essential being: they perfectly implement exactly the same Nature. They are not a single entity, that appears to us under different species, or aspects, depending on what face (Greek prosopon, Latin persona) it presents to us. That notion, simpliciter, is the heresy of modalism. But, compliciter, it is orthodox, because the Persons perichoresce: whatever is true of El is true also of YHWH and of the Holy Spirit. Thus each of the Persons is an aspect of the other two.

Perichoresis is a most useful term from Patristic theology, used by the Greek Fathers to refer to the relation of the Persons. It means literally “dance-about.” When square dancers join hands and dance coordinately in a circle, they perichoresce. The Latin fathers translated the term as circumincession, which captures a different aspect of what the Greek fathers were getting at in using the term perichoresis: circumincession means literally, “about-in-going.” In the dance of the Trinity, there is complete fluxion from each Person to both of the others; all of them perfectly inform each of them. Unlike human square dancers, then, the Persons of the Trinity dance in perfect accord. They are as one, and form a substantial unity; but they are different from each other (this being the only way they could have a relation in the first place).

What is true then of God is true of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So in speaking to Jesus, we are speaking to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, to the whole Trinity; and when any one of the Persons speaks, or acts, all of them do. So Jesus prays to his Father; yet he insists also that he and his Father are one. So likewise we hear in Samuel 22:14 that “YHWH thundered from heaven, and Elyon uttered his voice.” So likewise in Psalm 97:9 we sing, “For you, YHWH, are Elyon over all the earth; you are raised high over all the elohim,” and in Psalm 78:35 that, “they remembered that Elohim was their rock, and El Elyon their redeemer.” So likewise El Shaddai appeared to Abraham at Mamre as three angels, who spoke as one who is on the one hand agent and ambassador of YHWH, and on the other is YHWH himself. God is a One who is a Many. He is Elohim: literally, “gods.”

But out of all the elohim, YHWH is the proper name of the el who is the only begotten Son of El Elyon."

(source unknown)

 

[Northumber]

What do you think is different?

It is my understanding that Christ created all things, and that He made many appearances prior to the incarnation. He is described as "walking" in the Garden of Eden and He even eats with Abraham in Genesis 18.

Some Pastors will exercise restraint when applying "the Angel of the Lord" to Christ because the text is not always referring to the Divine Person, but in many cases it is

The depiction of an old man (which I always assumed was a representation of the Father) versus the depiction of Christ creating at the beginning was the best example of a difference I could come up with.

The Father is involved, of course: Father commanding, Christ creating, Spirit hovering.
But, Michelangelo's image is a stretch to make fit isn't it? I think alot of people have that image of creation (especially the outstretched fingers). Christ's role ended up downplayed in my mind anyways.

No, except that Adam was created in the image (prototype) of Christ (in other cosmogonies Adam Kadmon, Adam Elyon, puruṣa, Philo's heavenly man), without which the Incarnation would not have been possible.

Ok. The connection there is one of those things that I think I knew, but never thought about much. It's interesting to contemplate the significance of the incarnation to our salvation. I don't think I appreciated the extent of this before.

 

[Thefinalepic]

Very interesting, I am reading some of the early church fathers before the 325 Nicean Council and will delve deeper into this.

 

[Jeremiah Branch]

This is definitely one of those "ask your priest" areas, but -- with that initial caveat -- I will dive in a bit.

1. "Orthodox have a different understanding of the pre-incarnate Christ than in the West"

I can think of a few specific differences here.

Foremost is the Filioque and the Christological implications of the Orthodox position on the Filioque. As a matter of origins and the relationship among the three persons of the Godhead outside of time, only the Father "begets" (the Son) and only the Father "causes the spiration" (of the Holy Spirit). There's a lot more that could be said about what this means but I'll leave it at that basic distinction between the Orthodox position and both the Catholic and the Protestant position.

In addition, the Orthodox fathers are more open to poetical and analogical descriptions of the Son in the Old Testament. For instance, you will find fathers who state that the description of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is a description of the Son. And there are other similar OT verses that refer to "wisdom" that are taken as descriptions of the Son. (I will qualify this by noting that in the Arian controversies, the Arians also cited Proverbs 8 as part of their evidence that the Son was not co-eternal with the Father but was a created being. If you review Proverbs 8, you will see how the verses arguably could have been used to justify either a co-eternal or a "created" interpretation of Wisdom. Some translations have Prov 8:22 as "The LORD [Yahweh] created me [i.e. Wisdom] at the beginning of his ways." Other verses within chapter 8 describe Wisdom as being there "from the beginning.)

If you want to dive deeper into the historical development of the Christological understanding of the early church, check out J.N.D. Kelly's Early Christian Doctrines. He provides an incredibly detailed and careful exposition of the development of trinitarian thought over the early centuries of the church, and some of it will surprise you, for instance the equation of the Son with Wisdom, etc. So, in relation to your question, I would say that Orthodoxy has retained some of those early modes of description, even if the final dogma is only presented in the Creed of 381.

https://archive.org/details/pdfy-CY7YNVnvFwggDjnT

2. "is there an understanding that Christ has human nature before the incarnation?"

The Son is eternal and was with the Father from the beginning (Jn 1:1). That is the second person of the Godhead, but it is not the human incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, as a man, with human nature, is something that occurred at a point in time. The Creed: "...who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man..." So the incarnation is a historical, not an eternal, event. (Jesus Christ is embodied now for eternity; but he was not embodied from the beginning.)

So the Son (the second person of the Godhead), took on human nature. As for the question of whether the human soul of Jesus Christ existed from all eternity, and similar types of questions, I would need to look into it further. So, I'll leave my answers at that, with the caveat that I am very much open to being corrected on this, and that this is something to look into the writings of the fathers directly as well as to discuss with your priest.

 

[Northumber]

Jay Dyer recently had a live stream discussing something closely related to my original question. The discussion was focused on the nature of the Trinity.

From a protestant background we just don't think about the Trinity that much. If we do we are all over the place. For all the descriptions that are offered the validity of each is ultimately labeled a "maybe, maybe not" and we default to what is easy to repeat: God is the Trinity and stop.

From my past near conversion to Catholicism I'd say Catholics have a much more definitive description of the Trinity. As I've now learned, the big idea: that the Holy Spirit is dependent upon both the Son and the Father (Holy Spirit is love between the two), is the idea where they split off.

Dyer here talks about how he thinks the reason this happened is because of something deeper:

It is RC's belief that nature reveals a generic God (and that you can tie that generic God to the Triune God) (natural theology)

versus

Orthodox Christian belief that nature is an icon of the Logos and the Trinity
(natural revelation)

This is significant. Coming from a protestant background it was interesting to hear the RC be so insistent that there must be validity in being able to reason to a generic God and then tie that to the Trinity. (I think it's out of concern for the salvation of people from different religions)

This all ended up impacting something related to my original question as the discussion led to Dyer talking about how Abraham and Moses met Jesus in the OT.

It was difficult for the RC to consider that the people in the OT would have known God as the Triune God (they wouldn't have labeled it that way, but would have effectively known God as we Christians would describe now).

The video should start at the point of their discussion:

 

[Lawrence87]

It seems to me that Orthodoxy is a lot more content with mystery than other traditions in Christianity.

As mere humans we cannot wrap our heads around Christ. We tend to reason about Him in a human, temporal manner. Whilst there is validity in our perspective, there is a tendency to think of the Old Testament as pre-Christ, His earthly ministry as a moment in history now passed, and the span of history after that as post-Christ. However Christ is God, and God is an eternal being. Therefore our temporal notions go out of the window when we contemplate Him as the "Lamb slain before the foundation of the world" or when we acknowledge that the Liturgy is not a repetition of Christ's sacrifice, but a reentry into the eternal sacrifice.

We can never full get our heads around it, and God would not be God if we could. I think the mistake of Catholic theology is thinking that we can understand God, which is where the natural theology stuff comes in. That we can get our heads around God with our puny logic, and by analysing the world.

 

[Northumber]

We can never full get our heads around it, and God would not be God if we could. I think the mistake of Catholic theology is thinking that we can understand God, which is where the natural theology stuff comes in. That we can get our heads around God with our puny logic, and by analysing the world.

It's strange to see how insistent people can be on natural theology when they otherwise seem very devout. They accept some mysteries, why not others when it comes to Christ?

I think it also comes down to what we believe our highest faculty is. For a RC it seems they really do believe it is our intellect. For a protestant.... again, it is the tradition I'm from, but the answers would vary. I actually never considered that question growing up. We just worked with the concept that you had to have faith. I had a sense there must be some mysterious part about faith that is more than just intellectual assent, but, didn't have vocabulary for it. The Orthodox concept of our soul having a special organ, a nous, that is our highest faculty really puts it together.

 

[StanWildman]

Don't forget, when in doubt go to the source.

He told us "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven".

Pretty important first-person testimony, that. And one of the few things he told us directly relating to your question.

 

[analyst_green]

Don't forget, when in doubt go to the source.

He told us "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven".

Pretty important first-person testimony, that. And one of the few things he told us directly relating to your question.

What do you mean exactly? That Christ's human nature has existed from eternity?

 

[StanWildman]

What do you mean exactly? That Christ's human nature has existed from eternity?

Not at all, but simply that of the very few cosmic realities He shared with us, giving us a peek into what things are actually like out there in the reality we cannot know, this was one of the few about Himself directly and it says something about His eternal nature. Anything else we might know is going to be a matter of surmise and hypothesis on our part, including the very interesting ideas being proposed above in this thread.

He was there; He tells us something He saw; this places the event in question in some form of chronology (perhaps) that we can understand, in that it appears to have happened in the past from when He said that. Also, it relates a fact from His experience phenomenologically, something that happened in His previous form existence.

It is still a mystery to us, for sure, but maybe not as much of a mystery as most anything else we try to nail down regarding His pre-Incarnation nature. IMO.

 

[Northumber]

I found this very interesting.

 

[Northumber]

Orthodox Ethos just put out a video that addresses this topic.

A summary:

- modern Christians imagining there is some God of the OT we can agree on between Jews, Muslims, and Christians (so called people of the book) is dead wrong. The righteous of the OT were encountering Christ when talking to God.

- Christ in the OT is described by the fathers as: the still fleshless Son that is operating by the common Triunal energies

- Christ speaks and acts as a foretelling of His incarnation

- It was Jesus who appeared and spoke to Moses, Abraham, and other patriarchs carrying out the will of the Father

- It is Christ who speaks and acts in the theophanies (or manifestations of God)

- sometimes Christ was in human form

- The OT forefathers were men of Christ and saw Him in human form



It actually makes sense that those in the OT had to be interacting with Christ because no one has seen the Father.

 

[Samseau]

Yes, and there are many Pslams where God is speaking or being spoken too, and it is deduced that was also The Christ.