The Incorruptible Soul for the Corruptible Soul

Mark A. Smith

5 days ago6 min read

THE SYMBOL OF CHALCEDON

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one person and one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ

Again, the definition continues in detail, stating the intention behind “consubstantial with the Father touching His deity and the consubstantial with us touching His humanity.” It is also important to remind ourselves that this confession should only apply to His appearing in the flesh according to His first coming for the purpose of securing salvation for the elect (2Cor.5:16; 1Jn.4:2; 2Tim.4:8). He had to carry the likeness of our sinful flesh to be the sufficient Mediator of the new covenant (Rom.8:3-4; Phil.2:6-8). But He is the image of the invisible God by means of the soul of His own incorruptible deity (Heb.1:3; Col.1:19; 2:9), which means He existed in the flesh by soul and spirit as deity. His humanity doesn’t corrupt nor mix with the soul of His deity (Isa.1:14; Zech.11:8; Jer.32:41; Heb.4:12; 7:26). In that, the corruption has divided soul and spirit because of sin in us, the soul and spirit of Christ cannot be divided in His death (Lk.23:46; James 2:26). The fullness of His deity must be united for Him to impart eternal life into the being of our corruptible souls in their existence and conception under sin (1Cor.15:45; Rom.7:14; Ps.51:5-6).

Therefore, though He appeared in the likeness of our sinful flesh, which is absolutely corruptible, the curse of its death could not corrupt the deity of His soul because of the glory of His spirit (Rom.8:10-11; Acts 2:24; Gal.3:13). Though He was born of the flesh “under the law” (Gal.4:4), He was not conceived under sin but by the Holy Spirit as the seed of the eternal Word. Sin never had dominion over Him to fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Heb.4:15; 1Jn.2:16; Gal.5:16). So then, there are two distinct natures in one and the same person that by no means divides the eternal Being of His existence. In the flesh, He is the Son, but in the eternal Spirit, He is the Word as one and the same person in perfect communion with the Father and the Spirit (Jn.1:1-3). He is the infallible, inerrant, and perfect Word in human form. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever in the eternal form of the Spirit (Heb.13:8; Phil.2:6; Jn.1:18; 3:13 nkjv). He is the Word who became flesh, not the Son who became flesh (Jn.1:14), and through the flesh as the last Adam, He has become the life-giving spirit to the soul and being of every man born of Adam that repents of the human corruptibility to put on the incorruptibility of His image in His death and resurrection life as the image of our sacrifice (Rom.8:29-30; 12:1-2; Gen.4:3-7; Col.2:11-15).

Christ is the Son in His begottenness, according to the flesh, so that He can be both David’s son and David’s Lord (Matt.22:41-46; 2Tim.2:8; Rom.1:3; Jn.7:42; Gen.3:15; Heb.1:5; 5:5; 7:28). The perfection of His High Priestly office didn’t begin until His death and resurrection was perfected in His ascension (Heb.9:11; 10:14; 11:40). Therefore, the begottenness can only apply to His existence in the flesh as a son born unto us and in His death as the Son received for us and in His resurrection and ascension as the Son perfected for us by which we are adopted through this begottenness into our eternal state of grace. This is the gospel applied to us while it is still called Today (Ps.2:7-8; Heb.3:7, 13, 15; 4:7; 2Cor.6:1-2).

So He is the first and the last of all who are saved while the days are still begotten of the Ancient of Days (Isa.44:6; Rev.1:11, 17; 2:8; 22:12-13; 1Pet.1:3-5. 22-25; 2:6-10). His begottenness is essential to the life of the new man and as image of the new creation (2Cor.3:17-18), for the blood of the natural man defiles the image of Abel’s offering, for though it was the prescribed covering that substituted for mercy until grace would come through Jesus Christ (Jn.1:17), the covering of that image was corruptible and could not eternally atone for sin once and for all but was a ransom of time by mercy alone (Jude 23; Gen.3:21-22). Therefore, the image of God in the first and natural man was eternally lost to the dominion and power of sin that corrupts everything in the spiritual death of Adam as the representative of the human race (Gen.4:10; Num.35:33; Ezk.36:18; Job 19:24; Jer.17:1; 1Cor.15:21-22, 45-49).

Therefore, Christ alone is the incorruptible seed of the image of that substitutional sacrifice that atones for sin in the common man. The image of the heavenly race, then, is only to be found in Him, who conforms us to that image through His death and resurrection life (Rom.8:29; 12:2; 3:10, 21). All those who the Father has begotten through Him are born of the Spirit that abides in the heavenly race (Jn.3:3-8). The law of the Spirit of life cancels out the law of sin and death that corrupts the flesh and the spirit of the earth that covers it (Ecc.3:18-22/emphasis:v.21). A ransom doesn’t atone for sins committed in the flesh, but it does atone for the time God gives, by the mercy and goodwill of that blood (Lk.2:14; Eph.6:7; Phil.1:15), while it is still called Today (Eph.5:15-17; Col.4:2-6; Isa.43:3; Hos.13:14; Matt.20:28; 1Tim.2:6; Acts 17:29-31; Heb.12:22-24). Christ’s blood conforms us to the incorruptible image of God (Rom.1:22-23, 25; Jn.8:44; Ps.51:5-6), through the surety of that blood, in that, through His soul (being God in the flesh), He became the life-giving spirit to our souls that cling to the spirit of the dust of death as the incorruptible soul for a corruptible soul (Isa.53:10-12; Ps.22:15; 44:25; 119:25; Lk.10:11).

The outline plan of Catholicism had already been sketched in the first century, but it was in the second and third that the solid building reared itself. This generalization is as true of creeds and liturgies as it is of other expressions of the Catholic spirit.

As we pick our way through the confusing territory ahead of us, we shall be in danger of getting lost unless we have a clear idea of what we are looking for. [...] All too often, however, they are vitiated by being based on premisses which must to-day be considered obsolete, and in consequence it is imperative to go over the ground again in detail. The lessons learned in the previous chapter, for example, involve a radical change in the perspective of credal studies. It is not unlikely that they will encourage, even compel, a complete reorientation of outlook in certain directions.

It would clearly be rash, for instance, to take it for granted nowadays that stereotyped official formulae emerged, even locally, at a relatively early date. [...] The East may have been slower, but Rome, according to men like the German Kattenbusch and the English Burn, could boast of a firmly established, dominant credal form before the epoch of the heretic Marcion, that is, before the ͗forties of the second century. An hypothesis like this cannot be dismissed out of hand, but its plausibility largely depended on two tacit assumptions, first, that the “rule of faith” was identical with the creed, and, secondly, that a declaratory creed at all periods featured in the service of baptism. Once the precariousness of these assumptions is grasped, it becomes possible to approach the evidence without preconceived ideas and appraise it for what it is worth, without always suspecting the lurking presence of an official formula. In itself the theory of the sudden codification of the Church’s belief, even in so go-ahead a community as that of Rome, shortly after a.d. 100 is improbable, especially in view of the extreme fluidity of the forms it assumed in the preceding decades and the gradualness with which other aspects of the liturgy settled down. Indeed, if the history of the liturgy provides a proper parallel, we should expect that the formulation of a number of distinctive types of confession, existing side by side in friendly competition and without any hard-and-fast rigidity of wording, would be the natural second stage in the development of creeds.