Article 2 – Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man


“The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.” – BOD

I personally think it’s significant that Christ is second in order when dealing with the articles of faith. I will acknowledge my ignorance here, I don’t know if theology is in the habit of ordering things in a particular way when it comes to doctrinal statements such as the articles of religion. However like I said, I do feel it’s significant. Here we are, we just started to look at our doctrinal standards and the second statement that we encounter is one that is essential to salvation. I know it’s not soteirology (the study of salvation), but we have clearly defined here that man is sinful and that God reached down into humanity by myteriously joining with humanity in the personhood of Christ.
The mystery of Christ is one that is always under attack. One just needs to read the Jesus seminar people and see the nature of the struggle. Our modern mindset doesn’t have a place for mystery. I personally feel that it is incapable of accepting something as mystery and seeing the beauty in it in fact even in this post-industrial society (I refuse to use post-modern but that’s another post) we cannot see the beauty of mystery. Like most doctrines this is one that I struggled with, and in-fact helped to remove me for a time from the UMC. Now I have grown more in understanding, and after incorporating some previous life experience into my theology I see the explicit need for a savior for humanity.

In the world of the internet I am probably considered a troll in some level. I’m not a mean one, posting randomly only trying to promote myself and my blog. I’m more of troll that reads multiple bogs without ever posting a comment, so when I do post one it tends to be a step of faith for me. Part of this is because I’ve been so tiered of discussing things at school. However there has been one particular blog I’ve read that was run by an atheist. This individual has numerous problems, relational, sexual, and substance issues pervade this person’s life. Yet they (because most of the people who posted were atheist) are militantly against God, and particular Christ or any concept of Christ. I honestly don’t understand this. A person who experiences the darker side of life should be one who is able to acknowledge that something is deeply wrong with humanity. The majority of atheists (this individual in particular) are modernist who believe that humanity is essentially good. If things are crashing down around you and you’ve been hurt multiple times, how can you believe that humanity is essentially good? How can you not say that there is something literally screwed up with humanity? How can you not say that humanity needs a savior and needs one now? How can you ignore the call and offer of Christ?

Comments

Art said…
Humanity truly needs the savior. Amen! And I love that Jesus Rocks pic. I have a T-shirt with that on it:)
3:03 PM
wes said…
Thanks, I found that pic on the web and thought it fit my personality quite well :)
9:34 AM
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