The Doctrine of the Incarnations of God
Whether or not Jesus is God or an empowered representative serving on
God's behalf (which is closer to the Judaic concept of the messiah) and was
later deified by his followers, is subject to debate. In Acts 2:22, Peter
refers to Jesus as a "man certified by God." The doctrine of the godhood of
Jesus is questionable. (Matthew 12:18, 27:46; Mark 13:32; Luke 23:46; John
14:2, 17:21; Acts 2:22, 3:13).
Yes, Jesus says, "The Father and I are one" (John 10:30), but he also prays
with his disciples, "As You and I are one, let them (the disciples) also be
one in us" (John 17:21), implying this "oneness" is a relationship others
may also experience. The biblical phrase about Jesus sitting at the right
hand of God would also be meaningless if there were not two distinct
individuals--God and Jesus: the Lord and His servant.
Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way International, wrote an entire
book on the subject, entitled: Jesus Christ is not God.
In his 1983 essay "A Jewish Encounter with the Bhagavad-gita," Harold
Kasimow discusses ideas "which seem totally incompatible with the Jewish
tradition. The most striking example is the doctrine of incarnation, a
concept which is as central to the Gita as it is to Christianity. According
to the Gita, Krishna is an incarnation (avatar), or appearance of God in
human form.
"A study of the Jewish response to the Christian doctrine of incarnation
shows that Jews, and I may add, Muslims have not been able to reconcile this
idea with their own scriptural notion of God."
The existence of other sons of God--other messiahs and other incarnations of
God--has been dealt with by one of the 20th century's leading Protestant
theologians. Paul Tillich wrote in a 1978 essay, "Redemption of Other
Worlds":
"...a question arises which has been carefully avoided by many traditional
theologians...It is the problem of how to understand the meaning of the
symbol 'Christ' in light of the immensity of the universe...the infinitely
small part of the universe which man and his history constitute, and the
possibility of other 'worlds' in which divine self-manifestations may appear
and be received.
"Such developments become especially important if one considers that
biblical and related expectations envisaged the coming of the Messiah within
a cosmic frame. The universe will be reborn into a new eon. The function of
the bearer of the New Being is not only to save individuals and to transform
man's historical existence but to renew the universe. And the assumption is
that mankind and individual men are so dependent on the powers of the
universe, that salvation of the one without the other is unthinkable."
In other words, given the vastness of the universe and the possibility of
other worlds, how can the divine incarnation on this small speck of dust be
understood on a cosmic scale?
Tillich sees the basic answer to such questions "in the concept of essential
man appearing in a personal life under the conditions of existential
estrangement (from God)... The man...represents human history...he creates
the meaning of human history. It is the eternal relation of God to man which
is manifest in the Christ. At the same time, our basic answer leaves the
universe open for possible divine manifestations in other areas or periods
of being.
"Such possibilities cannot be denied. But they cannot be proved or
disproved. Incarnation is unique for the special group in which it happens,
but it is not unique in the sense that other singular incarnations for other
unique worlds are excluded.
"Man cannot claim that the infinite has entered the finite to overcome its
existential estrangement in mankind alone. Man cannot claim to occupy the
only possible place for Incarnation. Although statements about other worlds
and God's relation to them cannot be verified experientially, they are
important because they help to interpret the meaning of terms like
'mediator,' 'savior,' 'Incarnation,' 'the Messiah,' and ; 'the new eon.'
"Perhaps one can go a step further. The interdependence of everything with
everything else in the totality of being includes a participation of nature
in history and demands a participation of the universe in salvation.
"Therefore, if there are non-human 'worlds' in which existential
estrangement is not only real--as it is in the whole universe--but in which
there is also a type of awareness of this estrangement, such worlds cannot
be without the operation of saving power within them. Otherwise
self-destruction would be the inescapable consequence.
"The manifestation of saving power in one place implies that saving power is
operating in all places. The expectation of the Messiah as the bearer of the
New Being presupposes that 'God loves the universe,' even though in the
appearance of the Christ He actualizes this love for historical man alone."
Within the framework of Christian theology, then, Tillich sees the
possibility of other incarnations of God on other worlds, as well as the
salvation of nonhumans. This theology is almost Hindu in thought,
recognizing that God has indeed incarnated many times, and on many different
worlds, in many different universes. According to Hindu thought, there are
billions of worlds and universes, endlessly being created and destroyed in
time cycles lasting billions of years.
Today, our world is one. Nations are globally connected, as never before in
human history. This was not the case two thousand years ago, where
Palestine, China and South America were--for all intents and
purposes--separate worlds. Tillich's theology also opens up the possibility
of nonhuman--even animal--spirituality.
The Reverend Alvin Hart, an Episcopal priest in New York, says that John
14:6 is often mistranslated. The original Greek--ego emi ha hodos kai ha
alatheia kai ha zoa; oudeis erkatai pros ton patera ei ma di emou--should
read "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and none of you are coming to
the Father except through me."
According to Reverend Hart, "...the key word here is erketai. This is an
extremely present-tense form of the verb...You see? In Palestine, two
thousand years ago, Jesus was the guru. If he wanted to say that he would be
the teacher for all time, he would have used a word other than erkatai, but
he didn't."
Dr. Boyd Daniels of the American Bible Society concurs: "Oh, yes. The word
erketai is definitely the present tense form of the verb. Jesus was speaking
to his contemporaries."
According to the Book of Mormon, God Himself specifically refutes the
misconception that He can only make Himself known to one particular people
at one point in human history, and leave only one set of written scriptures:
"Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the
Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon
the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth
beneath; and i bring forth My word unto the children of men, yea, even upon
all the nations of the earth? Wherefore, murmur ye, because that ye shall
receive more of My word?
"Know ye that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am
God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the
same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall
run together, the testimony of the two nations shall run together also...And
because I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak
another; for My work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end
of man...
"Neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written. For I
command all men, both in the East and in the West, and in the North and in
the South, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words
which I speak unto them. For out of the books that will be written I will
judge the world..."
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