Posts Tagged ‘Adam’

Is God masquerading as a human being or is Jesus fully human?

February 20, 2021

Lent 1 – 2021

Mark 1:9-15

Marian Free

In the name of God Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

I am aware that a number of people struggle with the idea that Jesus is fully human. That is not really surprising. It is an extraordinarily difficult concept to get one’s head around and yet the belief that Jesus is fully human and fully divine is at the centre of our faith – as we confess each week in the Nicene Creed. 

The significance of Jesus full humanity is clearly illustrated in two lines from this morning’s gospel. “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Something external – the Spirit of God – drove Jesus the human into the wilderness. There his true mettle was tested. Without food, water, shelter or even human contact would he succumb to the temptation to take short cuts or would he trust in God to see him through? Would he complain and wish himself at home (as did the Israelites did in the desert) or would he have faith that God would sustain him? Would he try to take control of the situation or would he allow himself to be completely vulnerable?

It is precisely because Jesus is human that the wilderness experience has any value. In the absence of any physical comfort Jesus learns that he is able to rely on God for nourishment. Without human companionship, Jesus discovers that God’s presence has followed him into the barrenness of the desert. It is as a human being that Jesus faces the privations of the desert. It is as a human being that he deals with hunger and loneliness and the voices that taunt him. It is as a human being that Jesus confronts Satan.  

If Jesus is simply God – all of this becomes meaningless. The wilderness would not be a test because God would not be impacted by hunger, fear or loneliness. Forty days would be as nothing to God who created time and space and Satan would be no match because God is strongly than Satan and it is impossible for God to be tempted. 

The whole point of the Incarnation, of God’s coming to earth among us, is that God chooses to fully share our human existence, to become one of us. It is only by fully inhabiting the human condition that Jesus is able to redeem the human condition. Jesus can save humanity from itself precisely by being human, by demonstrating in his own (human) life that our human nature is not an impediment to our divinity. Through the human Jesus, we are reminded that are we created in the image of God and we can be restored to our original place in creation. 

It is only because he is human that Jesus is able to reverse the damage done to our relationship with God inflicted by that first human – Adam. Adam was disobedient, Jesus was obedient. Adam desired to be as God. Jesus resisted the temptation to compete with God. Adam sought control; Jesus chose submission. Jesus demonstrated that we, as human beings, do not have to be determined by Adam’s misstep, but that we can choose a different way of being, a different way of relating to God. He demonstrated in his own life that it is possible to transcend the limitations of being human. 

Examples of Jesus’ humanity abound in Mark’s gospel. Jesus eats and drinks and sleeps. He is compassionate (1:41) angry and sad (3:5, 11:14,15). He expresses amazement (6:6). He becomes tired (4:38) and needs to find time and space for himself (6:30f). He sighs and groans (7:34, 8:12) and becomes annoyed (10:14). He gets frustrated and impatient with his disciples (4:40, 8:21, 8:31) to the extent of calling Peter ‘Satan’. He becomes indignant when the disciples send the children away (10:14). His miracles do not always work the first time (8:22-26) and he does not display foreknowledge (he doesn’t know who touches him). He allows the Syrophoenician woman to challenge him and to change his mind. He is disappointed in, critical of (7:9f, 8:15) and rude to the Pharisees (7). 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was distressed and agitated, he confessed to being deeply grieved and prayed that God might spare him (14:33f). He experienced betrayal at the hands of two of his inner circle and finally, he was arrested, beaten and crucified. Jesus died, really died – if he did not then the resurrection means nothing.

I put it to you that if Jesus is simply God masquerading as a human being then our faith becomes a nonsense. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to believe in a God who just pretends to be one of us, who is play-acting sharing our experience and who does not really know what it is to be one of us. Because if God is just pretending, Jesus’ torment in the garden becomes a farce, as does his agony and confusion on the cross, not to mention his frustration, his exhaustion and his grief. If Jesus is God impersonating us his death means nothing. 

The reality is that God does not and did not need to go through the drama of coming to earth if God did not believe that by sharing our experience God could somehow enrich that experience, remind us of our true nature and awaken the divinity that resides within each one of us. God, being God could simply have waved his hands and reversed everything that had gone wrong since creation. God, being God, could simply have bent us to God’s will. From the beginning of time, God has not enforced God’s will, but has allowed us to choose our own way. 

The whole point of the salvation event is God’s identification with God’s creation. God in Jesus became one of us to show us creation at its very best and to remind us of what we were intended to be. As the orthodox would say: “Jesus became fully human so that we might become fully divine.” Can we honour that intention this Lent?

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Wholly God’s

April 13, 2019

Palm Sunday – 2019
Philippians 2:5-11
Marian Free

In the name of God whose Son frees us from death and opens the way to eternal life. Amen.

You all know the story. God creates Adam. God puts Adam in a garden. God gives Adam everything in the garden – exceptthe fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The snake tells Adam that the reason that God doesn’t want him to eat the fruit is because he would become like God – implying at the same time that God has misled Adam. When Adam realises that he will not die but will become “wise” he decides that being like God is worth the risk of eating the forbidden fruit. He eats the fruit. God finds out (of course!). Adam and Eve are banished from the garden. Instead of a life of peace and ease they are both punished with lives of pain and toil. As it records in Genesis 3: ‘Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’. As a consequence of eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam was refused access to the tree of life and so all human beings who came after him became subject to mortality.

You will notice that I refer to Adam and not to Eve. This is because, as we can see from the letters of Paul, that at least in first century Judaism, Adam (not Eve) was given responsibility for the “fall”. Paul understood that it was through Adam that sin and death came into the world and that ever since all humanity have shared in Adam’s fate.

Paul’s letters reveal that he was convinced that the consequences of Adam’s action had been reversed in Jesus’ life. Jesus’ obedience contrasted starkly with Adam’s disobedience. Jesus’ refusal to claim equality with God completely reversed Adam’s desire to be like God. Death may have come to all through Adam. Life is made available to everyone through Jesus.

Paul explores this theme in a number of places. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul claims: “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. (1 Cor 15:21,22) Paul’s discussion in Romans 5 makes a similar point: “if, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (5:17). In other words, Paul believes that Jesus has undone the damage caused by Adam’s disobedience. Adam created a breach between humanity and God that led to death. Jesus has repaired the damage done, brought us back into the ideal relationship with God and given us access to eternal life.

The hymn that formed our reading from Philippians today is based on that understanding. For those who know the story of Adam, it is quite clear that Jesus’ behaviour is the opposite to that of Adam. Both were created in the image of God but whereas Adam sought equality, Jesus did not. Adam rejected servanthood, but Jesus embraced the role that he saw to be his. Adam who desired to be like God was found in human likeness but Jesus “who was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited”. In his desire for self-aggrandisement Adam exalted himself. On the other hand Jesus, who was entitled to be arrogant, humbled himself. Adam was disobedient unto death. Jesus was obedient unto death. As a consequence of their actions, Adam was condemned by God and Jesus was exalted by God[1].

This hymn, which may in fact pre-date Paul, not only compares Adam with Jesus but also provides the model for Christian living. If Adam is the model of human existence before Jesus, Jesus is the model for Christian existence in the present. Jesus’ “obedience unto death” informs us that only if we empty ourselves of all desires and all ambitions can we be filled with God. Only if we are aware that we are not and never will be God, will we be willing and free to submit to God’s greater wisdom and direction. Only if we make ourselves completely God’s can God’s will be done in us.

Jesus’ life and death are an apparent contradiction. The one who is God behaves as the servant of God. The one who need never die, submits to death.

Those who follow Jesus must live out this contradiction. We must learn that, contrary to our natural inclination it is by not trying that we win the kingdom, it is by not striving that we attain life eternal. As soon as – like Adam – we think we can achieve goodness, holiness, wisdom or any other god-like characteristic by our own efforts, we demonstrate that we have placed our trust not in God, but in ourselves. When we acknowledge our limitations, we understand that a life directed by God is infinitely more satisfying than any life that is determined by our own choices and when we really believe that God knows us better than we know ourselves, we will have the confidence to trust God with life itself. It is not the things of this world that will meet our deepest needs, but only those of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus (who was God) did not count equality with God as something to be exploited, we who are not God, should not place our trust in ourselves, but give our lives wholly to God who gives Godself wholly to us. Then, filled with the presence of God, we like Christ can be the God’s presence in the world.

[1]See further Malina and Pilch. On the letters of Paul. 307.

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