EXPLAINING THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF GOD- JESUS (Part 1)

By Rev. Michael Benson Ajayi       

    One of the problem a Christian faces in theological debates is being able to logically explain  the birth and death of Jesus Christ who is considered in the Christian faith as God in human flesh (John1:14, Phil2:6-7) .If Jesus Christ is God who is above death and creator of the universe ,how can it be said that He was born as celebrated on Christmas day, died and resurrected like a human being as we claim during Passover (Easter)?   

      The Christian testimony declares that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.He was truly God as well as man and conceived and delivered by the virgin Mary through a supernatural conception but a biologically natural birth.   Mary was therefore referred to as  “the Mother of God,” or God-carrier.”  Consequently, God came into the human race through Mary and by this she could be said to have given birth to God.

     The Christian position on the birth of God is contrary to logic , the qualities of  divinity in comparison to humanity are laterally inverted and mutually exclusive while humans are created, frail , limited by power, knowledge, space and time and dependent on the creator for survival ,on the other hand God is eternal , all-knowing , all -powerful, self-sustaining , necessary and all -present . It is therefore inconceivable to the layman for a person to be both God and human.  

     The inability to comprehend the mystery of the divinity of Christ gave birth to various theological schools of taught in a bid to escape this puzzle.These groups include the Adoptionists or the Eutychians  who denied the true divinity of Christ. They claim He  was just a mortal man adopted by God as His Son and ascended into heaven .There were also the Docetists (Gnostics)  , they denied that Christ was truly human but an illusion in human flesh . Despite these differing views , early theologians where however, united in accepted the logic postulated by the early Greek philosopher Aristotle who claimed that all things have essences (natures)for instance,  a dog was different from a fish by nature. The human being is composed of a physical body and rational principle ( soul) .Likewise , God has a nature as early enumerated.

   The theology that says Jesus was partly man and partly God was inconsistent with the qualities of the messiah who was described as human and God, therefore ,in order to find a common ground between the various groups a meeting was called by a council of Church elders in Chalcedon in the year 451 and the following was arrived at in a joint communique 

  

"We. . . confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhood and also per­fect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhood, and consub­stantial with us according to the manhood, like us in all things except sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhood, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-Begotten, to be ac­knowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without divi­sion, without separation, the difference of the natures being by no means taken away because of the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not divided or separated into two Persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ. . . ."

       As you make Jesus Christ your lord and saviour and read this now receive grace for an undeniable encounter with the living Christ. 

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