Mother and Son

Mother and Son

Every once in a while a minister may proclaim a discourse which denies the true teaching of the humanity of Jesus.  This morning I heard a well-known TV evangelist speaking on the Blood of Christ indicating the salvation we received from the shedding of his blood, as he was crucified.  So far he is right.  However, as he spoke the message got my attention as the next pronouncement sounded a bit heretical.

It seemed to allude that the blood shed belonged to him alone as if he hadn’t inherited any from his Mother.  It was to indicate that the blood shed on the cross was his alone; divine and without any of the elements of his humanity.  Careful J_ _ _ _ _!  One of the earliest heresies is Docetism which denies the humanity of Jesus.  A heresy from the earliest days of Christianity claiming Jesus was not Incarnate but somehow originated without the physical process of being born in the womb and after nine months was born into the world as everyone else.

From “The Teaching of Christ” quoting; “Because He was to be our Savior, Jesus had to become like his brothers and sisters in every aspect.”  (Heb. 2: 17).  “He who is the image of the invisible God is Himself the perfect man…..(Col. 1: 15).  He worked with human hands, He taught with a human mind, acted by human choice, and loved with a human heart  Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in everything except sin.”  (Chapter 6; Jesus is Truly Man).  

This means that the blood that flowed throughout his body had elements of DNA that were human as well as Divine.  

“Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it.  Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communication with the members of the Church subject to him.”  (CCC 2089).

Throughout the ministry of Jesus both natures interacted with each other.  Jesus didn’t in some instances act only through His Divine Nature, and at other times acted only as a human being.  

Continuing with “The Teaching of Christ”  “he was filled with grace and holiness from the moment of the incarnation”  “In addition to the created powers that graced His humanity, Jesus, because of the personal union of His humanity with His divinity, exercised also divine power through His humanity.  For His reality served instrumentally the mercy and strength of His own divine nature .  Hence Jesus in His visible humanity, performed personally and authoritatively works that are proper to God.”

What this evangelist did is not uncommon to many non-Catholics; ignore the Blessed Mother of God once the creche is set up and she just becomes a figure to make the Holy Family visible until Christmas passes.  You never hear any or very few TV evangelists mention Mary more than that.  I believe it is their way of avoiding Catholicism of speaking of the Mother of God.  

No doubt outside of Catholics the rest would never say Jesus probably looked a lot like his Mother.  Why not?   She carried Him for nine months in her womb, gave natural birth, nursed him, and buried him as well.  If not having similar features as his mother whom did he take after?  So, we come back to his blood.  His human nature contained a human heart that pumped human blood throughout his human body.  Those attributes came through Mary.  That’s always been the natural human manner in human beings ever since our original parents.  The blood Jesus shed was human blood and not some idea the Docetism theory developed.  Remember, Jesus is one person but housed two natures.  That is the Hypostatic Union.

None of this denotes the Divinity of Jesus.  It gives credence to God using a human birth in order that we might believe that one like us, except sin, lived like us, performed human traits like us, and suffered pain like us.  He also died, as we will, to forgive us the freedom from our sin.  We deserved it but he became our sin.  This is the obvious difference between us. 

Ralph B. Hathaway, Humanity of Jesus - December 2021