Condensed Divinty

Coffee had only recently released my mind from its morning fog as I dove into the beginning chapters of Genesis Unbound. In his discussion of reshit, in chapter four, Sailhamer described "the beginning" as an indeterminate time period rather than as one exact instance. Here he placed room for the existence of what has loving been called "Ye Ole Big Bang." Now he is not endorsing such a theory, but merely points out as Galileo had once long ago that Scripture is not about how the heavens go. So having drifted into a mental tangent, I stared at the printed page.

For some Modern Minds, it is an easy and reasonable assumption that the universe at one point was bound up within a super condensed mass. All of creation, matter and energy, knit up all warm and tight. Then ! Universe, baby!

Now the point here is not to consider creation as wonderful as such a thought is. Truly, my point is not even to consider God as the Creator. Instead, I want you to consider God incarnate.

The point of Christianity is not to be like Jesus and then go to heaven. The point of Christianity is that humanity is a sadly and sorry lot in need or repair. God then acted to restore humanity. This action is multifaceted as the problem is certainly multifaceted. Again, the intention here is not to discuss that today, but to consider how amazing the incarnation is. The incarnation means explicitly, that God took up humanity. An infinite, eternal, ever-present, all-powerful, self-sustaining Being, took on finite, temporal, present, weak and needy. This is not a juxtaposition of natures. We do not see a hobbled together Jesus in Scripture as though God adopted the man Jesus and overpowered him. Nor do we see God using Jesus like a sock-puppet as though God only places His hand up into Jesus to talk to us and interact with us. Rather what we see is that God humbled Himself by taking on the corruptible nature of humanity.

Does this mean He left some part of His divinity at the "Throne of Heaven?" No. Rather, quite the opposite. He brings it all with Him. Just as I could no more only take part of myself to France, but the whole of myself to anywhere I go. God then, in taking on humanity, added it to Himself. His divinity then is not replaced, nor set aside, but condensed. How mighty is this God we worship? Mighty enough to move from omnipresence into presence. I should likely point out that I am not a modalist. I firmly hold that even in the Incarnation God (He whom we call Father) is still reigning in heaven. We call Jesus the Son of God then not because the Father shacked up with Mary and bore a half-man, half-God being like Hercules. We call Him Son because being God, he came forward from the Father who sits above all time and creation to penetrate and enter this temporal existence for the expressed purpose of fixing humanity. Furthermore, we call Him Son because it beautifully captures that God is knowable. He is not some distant tyrant, nor is He some aloof artist unknowable and unreachable. Knowing the Son, who condensed all it is to be God within a human existence, is to know the Father, who Scripture describes as always presiding over Heaven and Earth. This is not multiple gods, but one mighty and awesome God.

The wonder of this moment hit me not because I had never considered the Inc. I am astonished that someone would be very comfortable in holding to the inanimate, unintelligent, unliving material of this universe being so condensed, yet the notion of God, an infinite, living, and omnipotent being could be capable of a seemingly similar thing is ridiculous or possibly even unconsidered.