nobody expects the cyber inquisition, part II

After an awkward pause, Uncle Jim, one of my regular readers and steadiest commenters spoke up and said:

i think what you’re seeing in the lack of comments here is what i’m experiencing. i’ve read through this several time and don’t know where i land on some of them - so i think is a good thought provoking post, just not an easy one to respond to.

Thanks for responding anyway, Uncle Jim. Sorry to have caused an awkward silence; the main target of the original Cyber Inquisition post is the questionaire itself, because many of the questions were difficult to understand from the limited context provided. For example (all answers are on a scale of 1-5, from Agree to Disagree):

Salvation will ultimately involve an escape from physical reality. I wasn’t sure how to read this one. It seems to presume that physical reality was something which ought to be escaped, and therefore bad. There is certainly much that is evil in our present physical experience. But the New Testament also talks about a new heaven and a new earth, describes the new Jerusalem in very vivid, non-abstract terms, and speaks of a new body at the resurrection of all the saints. So there is much of what we now experience that we will escape, but I can’t get an escape from mere physical reality out of the Bible.

Jesus’ humanity was absorbed to produce one new divine nature. The notion of separating body, mind, spirit, soul is a very Greek, dissectionist idea. It certainly wasn’t the Jewish mode of thought. I lean toward the Jewish view because there are so many things in nature which, while they may have distinct parts, are parts of a single whole with somewhat fuzzy boundaries between the two. Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” Can you take me to a vinyard and show me where the vine ends and the branches begin? And yet it’s clear that when we refer to Jesus we are talking about a person distinct from ourselves, and vice versa. The use of the word “absorbed” is what confuses me on this question. I honestly can’t remember how I answered this one, and I’m still not sure how to answer it now. Everything about Jesus was divine. And he was distinctly human.

Jesus did not have two natures (human and divine) he had one new composite nature. See my response to the previous question. Perhaps I could agree to this notion based on the “Jewishness” of my views, but only with the caveat that this assertion could be used to support neither the notion that Jesus was not human, nor that he was not divine. He was both.

Only Jesus’ human nature died on on the cross. Man is comprised of a physical body and an eternal soul. When I die, it is the physical body that dies. If I go to hell, then my soul endures another death. For the record, I believe that Christ did endure hell; it was part and parcel of his atonement for the sin of all of us. This hell began for Him even before he breathed his last, for he cried out, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?” There is no better description of hell. I also believe that this very fact shattered the gates of hell as he rescued all those whose place in hell was reserved, past, present and future. There is a part of Handel’s Messiah in which the spirits of those who sought to slay him exulted in their mockery: “He trusted in God; let Him deliver him, if He delight in him.” We know that God did not deliver Christ from death on the cross, so this deliverance must refer to the other death.

PS. I don’t know whether my use of the term “Inquisition” is offensive to any of my readers, whether they count themselves spiritual offspring of those who inquired or of those who answered with loss, agony or their lives. I certainly do not intend any offense to anyone in this regard. The Grand Inquisition happened a long time ago, and I don’t know anyone alive who suffered under it, nor do I know anybody who longs to bring it back.