(urth) christ, already

[Jeff Wilson]

On 12/15/2010 6:17 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
> Strangely enough, I think that's actually a point of debate in the
> history of theology: namely, does the universe only need one redeemer?
> Does every planet need its own Christ? Would every iteration of a
> cyclical universe need its own Christ to be saved? Or was one enough to
> get the job done, as it were? Seems like I remember reading once that
> this argument has popped up a number of times in places FAR removed from
> science fiction. (I'm no theology expert, so I couldn't tell you where I
> read this.)
>
> As for separating Christ from Jesus, though...for a Christian, that's
> splitting hairs, isn't it? Christ/"annointed one"/the "Messiah" isn't an
> abstraction. It had an actual, personal, historical occurrence in Jesus
> of Nazareth and that SPECIFIC instantiation matters. I mean, if Christ
> is the Word/Logos made flesh, then the flesh of Jesus isn't an
> accidental property. The whole point was that god became a specific,
> historical man, not just a man in general.

I think this is best explained by reconciliation between the former and 
new covenants; Jesus as the sacrfice of God's essence validates the new 
covenant for all time on its own terms, but He is born of David's line 
in the final generation of the Temple to honor the old covenant and 
dissolve it on its own terms so the Israelites can enjoy the kingdom of 
heaven like the rest of mankind, rather than continuing to atone for all 
the broken covenants past.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >