| By claiming that he has life in himself, Jesus seems to make a claim to deity. By claiming that the Father delegated this authority to him, however, he acknowledges the Father " s superior rank (5:26). He also claims to live because of the Father (6:57). Polytheistic syncretism could lead to considerable confusion in roles; thus one could address Helios as the «greatest of gods,» «god of gods,» then entreat him for access «to the supreme god, the one who has begotten and made you.» 5892 But in a Jewish context, one might think best of God " s agent, Wisdom or the Logos (see comment on 1:1–18). The claim that the Son would participate in the judgment would probably shock most of Jesus» hearers (see 5:22, above), but now Jesus explains why he will judge (5:27). The Father has committed judgment to his Son, 5893 because his Son is also the Son of Man. The point could be that Jesus participates fully in humanity (1:14) and hence is an appropriate judge for humanity (cf. Heb 5:2); hence the distinctively anarthrous use of «Son of Man» here. 5894 Even in the LXX of Dan 7:13 , however, «Son of Man» is anarthrous, and it is the allusion to that Son of Man that most fully explains Jesus» authority here. (On Jesus» likely historical claim to be Son of Man, see the Christology section in chapter 7 of our introduction, esp. p. 304.) People should not marvel at Jesus» claims, for he would one day demonstrate them by raising all the dead (5:28). 5895 The future form of 5(«an hour is coming») without the present (cf. 5:25) shows that Johns eschatology is not wholly realized, as do other references such as the last day (6:39; cf. 11:24) and the explicit mention of «tombs» in 5:28. (Other texts connect «tombs» with the final resurrection, 5896 but the most likely source of the language here is Isa 26LXX.) 5897 The «tombs» call attention to the later mention of Lazarus " s and Jesus» tombs (11:17,31,38; 12:17; 19:41–42; 20:1–11), from which the physically dead are restored, and in the most dramatic way in the second case. |
| On the one hand, the term might be qualified by a parallel expression in 13(cf. 12:27; 14:1), suggesting that John figuratively stretches the sense to include emotional disturbance without anger per se; it may stem from observing Mary " s grief and wailing (11:33). 7633 Some think that «anger» overstates the case, though «troubled» is too weak. 7634 But 13may refer to a similar yet different emotion, and the term employed here does indicate anger when applied to humans. 7635 If Jesus is angry, one may think he is angry at sin, Satan, or death as a consequence of sin. 7636 While that proposal may be good theology (and may also fit the experience of some subsequent healers and exorcists, and perhaps of Jesus as well, cf. Mark 1:25; 4:39; 9:25 ; Luke 4:39), it lacks direct support in this text. More likely, he is angry at the lack of faith on the part of those who should be exercising it, 7637 as God was angry at Israel " s unbelief despite his previous signs (e.g., Num 14:11 ) or Jesus was angry with the unbelief of disciples in Mark (e.g., Mark 4:40 ; cf. Mark 1:43; 3:5 ). In both cases (11:33, 38), it occurs immediately after statements that Jesus could have done something before Lazarus died (11:32,37)–perhaps implying disbelief that he could do something now. Jesus is not, however, angry with their grief itself; he seems emotionally moved more by Mary " s tears (11:33) than by Marthás words, and responds by weeping himself (11:35). 7638 In any case, Jesus» internal disturbance over others» pain emphasizes his humanity «and/or the passionate nature of his divinity.» 7639 It reveals his character, which leads to his suffering on others» behalf (cf. 1:29; cf. Heb 4:15–5:8). By weeping, Jesus shows his solidarity with the mourners (11:35). That Jesus asked where the burial site was (11:34) would have suggested to his hearers that he wanted to join in mourning at the burial site (cf. 11:31); their invitation to «Come and see» (11:34) is an invitation to join in the mourning. 7640 Perhaps more significantly, his question, «Where have you laid him?» anticipates Mary Magdalenés question about where Jesus has been laid (20:15), 7641 underlining the implicit contrast between Lazarus, who awaits Jesus to raise him, and Jesus whose body is already gone (as well as the contrast between Lazarus " s burial by his family and Jesus» by two leaders of «the Jews» yet not the expected disciples). |
| In Jewish texts the title applies particularly to Isaac at the Akedah, of whom God said, «sacrifice your son, your «only son,» whom you love,» in Gen 22 3688 According to Jewish teachers, «whom you love» reinforced the pathos of «your only son.» 3689 As Josephus declares, «Isaac was passionately beloved (περηγπα) of his father Abraham, being his only son (μονογεν) and born to him »on the threshold of old agé through the bounty of God.» 3690 Among the handful of non-Johannine uses of the term in our earliest Christian texts, the only theologically significant use (cf. Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38) applies to Isaac (Heb 11:17). In John as in common Jewish usage, the «special» son is the «beloved» son (rather than «only begotten»), 3691 and in John as in the oft-told Akedah, this emphasis on being the only one of his kind increases the pathos of the sacrifice (3:16). 3692 And like that sacrifice, Jesus» incarnation represents a special act of loving obedience in view of the Son " s special relationship with the Father depicted in this term. 3693 Jesus, like the holy and understand-ing Spirit in the Wisdom of Solomon, 3694 is μονογενς not in the sense of derivation but as unique and the special object of divine love. What is extraordinary is that in him, this same love becomes available to all who are his followers (17:23). Christians, like Israel, are called God " s children (1:12–13), but Jesus is the special Son, the «only one of his kind.» 3695 1E. Full of Grace and Truth (1:14) John " s use of πλρης is intelligible enough in Jewish Greek 3696 without direct appeal to Stoic, 3697 Philonic, 3698 or gnostic technical usage of the πλρωμα. 3699 A more obvious back-ground lies nearer at hand: when God revealed his glory to Moses, he revealed that his character 3700 was «abounding in covenant-love and faithfulness,» which translates naturally into John " s Greek expression «full of grace and truth.» 3701 The LXX admittedly rarely renders as χρις, 3702 but textual analysis of John " s citations indicates that he or his sources could translate directly from Hebrew at times yet expect his audience to recognize the quotation as Scripture. 3703 Whereas λεος often signified «undeserved favor» in the LXX, this usage receded in later times; early Christian literature typically employs χρις in this sense, making it the natural term for John to apply. 3704 |
| The Mystery comes from the Apostles. Having received from the Lord Jesus Christ power in the time of preaching to heal all the sick and infirm, they anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them ( Mark 6:13 ). Especially detailed is the account of this Mystery by the Apostle James. 7s any sick among you? Let him call for the presbyters of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him ( James 5:14–15 ). The Apostles did not preach anything of their own but taught only that which was commanded them by the Lord and that which was inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul says, But I certify you brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ ( Gal 1:11–12 ). Holy Unction is not given to infants because infants cannot knowingly commit sins. The Eleventh Article of the Creed. 11. I look for the resurrection of the dead . The eleventh article of the Creed speaks about the general resurrection of the dead, which will come at the end of the world. The resurrection of the dead that we look for will occur at the same time as the second and glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. At that time all the bodies of the dead will be united with their souls, and they will come to life. Faith in the resurrection of the dead was expressed as early as Abraham, at the time of the sacrifice of his son Isaac (cf. Heb. 11:17); by Job in the midst of his extreme suffering, For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God ( Job 19:25–26 ); the Prophet Isaiah, Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead (Isaiah 26:19). |
| He suffered and died, not in his Godhead, but in his manhood; and this not because he could not avoid it, but because it pleased him to suffer. He himself had said: I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. John x. 17,18. 206 . In what sense is it said that Jesus Christ was crucified for us? In this sense: that he, by his death on the cross, delivered us from sin, the curse, and death. 207 . How does holy Scripture speak of this deliverance? Of deliverance from sin: In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. Ephes. i. 7. Of deliverance from the curse: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. Gal. iii. 13. Of deliverance from death: Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Heb. ii. 14, 15. 208 . How does the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross deliver us from sin, the curse, and death? That we may the more readily believe this mystery, the Word of God teaches us of it, so much as we may be able to receive, by the comparison of Jesus Christ with Adam. Adam is by nature the head of all mankind, which is one with him by natural descent from him. Jesus Christ, in whom the Godhead is united with manhood, graciously made himself the new almighty Head of men, whom he unites to himself through faith. Therefore as in Adam we had fallen under sin, the curse, and death, so we are delivered from sin, the curse, and death in Jesus Christ. His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death. |
| In other words, St Gregory conceived history not in terms of “first principles” but sacred events. He viewed them as shaping the configuration of time. History, he said, is determined by its content, which explains why he did not “spiritualize” the Redemption nor the events and persons which typified it, such as the first creation, Noah and the Flood, or Moses and the Exodus. For this, St Gregory was not indebted to Philo or Origen, nor to the “myths” of Plato, but to St Paul or, better, to the Savior Himself Who has instructed the Apostles on such matters. Moreover, in his explanation of those aweful days, Gregory reaffirmed the Christian vision of history, a history which began with the event of creation ex nihilo, moving to its center, the historical Incarnation, the divine Economy, whereby Christ “through death might destroy the power of him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). So, too, with the death of death and the devil reduced to impotence, the human race was invited to become in Christ, through the communicable and Uncreated Energy of Grace, “partakers of the divine Nature” ( II Pet. 1:4 ). Returning to communion (κοινωνα) with God – indeed, becoming a god – is the very essence of Christianity. Thus, the words of the Mystical or Last Supper (“Take eat... drink ye...”), of the Apostle Paul (“It is no longer I who liveth... " »), of St Peter (“partakers of the divine nature”). All virtue, all thinking, all knowledge has no other end. This is the tradition of St Gregory of Nyssa and the other Fathers. Christianity is the true mysticism as she is the true philosophy 189 . Christianity, the Church, offers now the life of the Age to Come. She is the “new age,” the “new creation” which Christ inaugurated with His bodily Resurrection. The Church is the beginning of the recovery of the cosmos from the devil ( Eph. 3:9–13 ). When the whole purpose of God has been fulfilled, the blessed Trinity will be “all in all.” That end (eschaton) will not be the predetermined return of all things to God, apokatastasis ton panton, a new episode in the eternal cycle of ages; but anacephalaiosasthai ton panton in Christo ( Eph. 1:10 ). But Gregory’s theodicy, his attempt to prove to an ecumene still very Greek, that God of the Christians was “the Good,” the true and living Deity, Who had in person abolished evil, and to gather the race of Adam unto Himself as its new Head. In his enthusiasm, the Bishop of Nyssa often relied unwisely on pagan philosophy intellectual means for the communication of the Christian message, a practice which sometimes brought confusion not clarity. |
| The Church is linked to the future, to the Age to Come – the Eighth Day, the everlasting Day, after the seven periods of current history expires – by the Mysteries: especially the Eucharist, sacramentum ogdoadis, the mysterium redemptoris, to use the words of Pope St Gregory the Great. The Sunday Eucharist – the solemn ritualization of the mysterion, as Dom Odo Casel observed 11 – is “the icon of the Age to Come,” “the eighth Day” (St Basil. De Spir. Sancto. 66 PG 32192B). For this reason, the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom asserts, “Thou hast done everything to bring us to Heaven and to confer on us Thy Kingdom which is to come” – κα τν βασιλεαν Σο χαρσω τν μλλουσαν (cf. Heb. 2:5) 12 . If, then, the Church has denied the title, “Father,” to certain “Christian authors,” she has done so because of their conception of the mysterion or, put in other terms, of the Incarnation. Necessarily, a false Christology leads to a false understanding of the Church, the Sacraments, the Scriptures, history and the whole divine scheme of salvation 13 . The common life of the Body of Christ finally answers the question “Who is a Church Father?” And, somewhat ironically, renders the question unimportant. One comes to “know” that a Church Father is whoever the Holy Spirit anoints as her spokesman, whoever the consciousness of the Church recognizes as her champion. Undoubtedly, his doctrine and his piety will be apostolic; he will have ecclesiastical cultus, even if only locally. His errors, if any, are errors of logic, formal and lingual errors, implying no loss of the patristic phronema. This brings us naturally to the final point of difference with Tixeront and “the modern theologians,” the question of the periodization of church history, in particular the so-called limit to the “age of the Fathers.” Although “the age of the Apostles” is unique, ending with the death of the last Apostle, St John the Theologian, there is no reason to close “the patristic epoch” at some specific time. The Orthodox Church has not. To end “the patristic era” with St Cyril of Alexandria or St John of Damascus in the East or with Pope St Gregory in the West is wholly arbitrary. Neither is there any reason to agree with the opinion that it has been succeeded by “the age of the schoolmen” which many interpret as an essential step forward. Of course, if such periodization implies a difference between the Fathers and the Schoolmen (“the Scholastics”), we concur 14 . |
| Rev. 14:6), which is the reality to which all things in the Old and New Testament Scriptures are mere promises. Just as the Law was a “shadow of the good things to come” (Heb. 10:1), so the Gospel is a “shadow of the mysteries of Christ,” that is, “what John calls the eternal gospel, clearly provides both the mysteries presented by Christ’s words and the things of which his acts were symbols, to those who consider ’all things face to face’ concerning the Son of God Himself” (Comm. in John. I, 40 FC). What specifically are these “mysteries” to which Origen refers? The “mysteries” of “the eternal gospel?” They are the fulfillment, the reality adumbrated by the Lord’s first coming (De Princ. IV, iii, 13) 178 . As Daniélou puts it, the “mysteries of Christ” or “the eternal gospel” are “the secrets of the beginning and of the end of all things, and of the heavenly and infernal worlds; in short, a gnosis in the strict sense.” 179 For Origen, then, the “letter” of the Scriptures has no real value, save as it gives a certain form and direction to his speculations. As history, the Scriptures have no interest for him, because, as Fr Florovsky once remarked, Origen looked upon history as “unproductive.” The creation, and everything in it, are but symbols behind which lurks permanent realities, and even the Incarnation – and the Church, the Sacraments, the Scriptures, the whole economy – cannot be regarded as a permanent achievement. “The fulness of creation had been already realized by divine fiat in eternity once and for all. The process of history could have for him but a ’symbolic’ meaning.” 180 Thus, C. W. MacLeod is right that with Origen, the allegorical mentality “governs his whole conception of the religious life; with Gregory of Nyssa, it is rather a literary form.” 181 Also, that “what sets apart Gregory’s treatment of allegory is the attempt to find a structure and sequence in the text with which he deals. Allegory becomes a literary form then, insofar as Gregory seeks to create a coherent scheme in his allegorical works,” such as his Commentary on the Song of Songs 182 . |
| But the Bible and Qur " an are both full of verses saying that God speaks and hears, so why is it absurd to say this of God " s Spirit? 3. Can one use «akouo» (hear) and «laleo» (speak) for a spiritual being? Dr. Bucaille claims that the Greek words akouo (hear) and laleo (speak), printed in boldfaced type in John 16:13–14 above, have a material character and could not be used for the Holy Spirit. He says, «The two Greek verbs akouo and laleo define concrete actions which can only be applied to a being with hearing and speech organs. It is consequently impossible to apply them to the Holy Spirit». From this he reasons that these passages could only be speaking about another man or prophet coming. When we consult a Classical Greek Dictionary we see that Dr. Bucaille is correct for early Classical Greek usage . In the Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol 2, p-172, edited by Colin Brown it says: «Akouo (from Homer in the 10th century BC on) means to hear and refers primarily to the perception of sounds by the sense of hearing.» That agrees 100% with Bucaille, but then the dictionary goes on to say, «Hearing, however, covers not only sense perception but also the apprehension and acceptance by the mind of the content of what is heard. This led to differences of linguistic usage which are discussed below in connection with Heb. shama and which also occur in secular Greek .» But! and it is a big but. We are not speaking of 950 BC. We are dealing with the Koine dialect of Greek used by the man in the street and in the business world of the 1st century AD. We saw on pages 4 and 5 that the meaning of a word is determined by its usage in the context of sentences and paragraphs at the time of writing. Therefore, we will examine the Gospel-New Testament as a source of Christian Greek usage. We will examine the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Torah-Old Testament made by the Jews from Hebrew around 200 BC, as a source of Jewish usage. And for Islamic usage we shall also examine the Quranic words for speaking and hearing as applied to God. |
| Now, whereas the Lord said unto Moses (Ex.33:20), There shall no Man see my Face and live, this is to be understood of this present Life, and of this corruptible Body, not as yet glorified; and before that ultimate and most perfect Redemption. But after that complete Glorification, in the future and eternal Life, after the Day of Judgment, God will so clothe us with Light, that we shall be able to behold the Light of God: According to the Psalmist (Ps.36:9), With thee is the Fountain of Life, and in thy Light shall we see Light. And this Light, as it shall be plainly and fully beheld, will entirely satisfy us, and gratify, to the utmost, all our Desires of Wisdom and Beauty. For all Good is contained in the Contemplation and Profession of the supreme Good; and the Perfection of Happiness, in the complete Enjoyment of it: As the divine Psalmist declareth (Ps.17:15), When I awake up after thy Likeness, I shall be satisfied with it. Part II. – Of hope Question 1. What is Hope? Answer. Hope is a true Confidence in God, bestowed on the Heart of Man by the divine Enlightening and Inspiration, that he might never despair of God’s Grace and Favour in granting his Petitions, whether they be for Pardon of his Sins, or for any other spiritual or temporal Good. Concerning which the Apostle sayeth thus (Heb.10:35), Cast not away, therefore, your Confidence, which hath great Recompense of Reward. And elsewhere (Rom.8:24), We are saved by Hope; but Hope that is seen is not Hope; for what a Man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we, through Patience, wait for it. Question 2. Whence have we this sure and certain Hope? Answer. All our Hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ; as the Apostle sayeth (1Tim.1:1), By the Commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Hope. Because from him we receive all things: as Christ himself teacheth (John.14:13), Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. |
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