Misters
Harper and McFarland fielded a question today (18 Sept. 2019) on Exploring
the Word on American Family Radio about the quote above from the Lord Jesus
as He hung on the Holy Cross. The hemmed
and hawed as they tried to explain what this could mean, and finally settled rather
uneasily on the answer that Christ must have for a time been completely sundered
from the Father. Again, and we say this
with sadness, the Protestants are muddling through these questions for no good reason. The Holy Fathers are right here, ready to
help us. They have already answered
these questions, if we would simply take the time to learn what they said and
wrote.
The
answer to this question about the meaning of Christ’s lament (Matt. 27:46) given
by Mr Harper and Mr McFarland is wrong. There
has never been, and will never be, division within the Holy Trinity. Their mix-up over this is likely because of an
error in their Christology; they seem to have accepted the Monophysite heresy
that Christ has only one nature, a divine nature, and not two (human and
divine). If there was only one nature in
Christ, then, yes, their answer is the logical conclusion: There would have been a disruption of the perfect
communion within the Godhead. However,
since there are two natures, not one, united without confusion in the One Person
of Jesus Christ, then it is His human nature that suffered separation from God,
while His divine nature remained impassibly united to the Father and the Holy
Ghost. Here is what St Cyril of
Alexandria (+444) writes:
"We
say that he 'suffered and rose again.' We do not mean that God the Word
suffered in his Deity . . . for the Deity is impassible because it is
incorporeal. But the body which had become his own body suffered these things,
and therefore he himself is said to have suffered them for us. The impassible
[God] was in the body which suffered" (Bettenson, Documents of the
Christian Church, 2nd Ed., 1963 p.67).
There
is no need for these kinds of misunderstandings, but they will continue amongst
our Protestant friends until they stop relying on their own private
interpretations of the Holy Scriptures and begin trusting those precious
vessels of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, whom God
has raised up precisely to keep us from straying from the Truth.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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