Christian Counseling Education: The Divine Element of the Incarnation

In the previous blog, we reviewed for Christian Counselors and other members of the faithful the central importance of the Logos becoming fully human.  In this segment, I would like to delve deeper into Christ’s divine nature.  This is the second piece of the puzzle to the central dogma of the Incarnation.  If Christ is only a man and not divine, then our religion is just a social philosophy on life without any true redeeming value.  Christian Counseling must emphasize both the divine and the human elements of Christ.

The Logos Became Man But Retained His Divine Nature

The phrase above is key.  The apostles and early Church emphasized that Christ was also God.  The Apostles and Nicene Creeds all emphatically exclaimed this doctrine.  Unlike the modernists and followers of Bultmann, there is no mythical language in these creeds but concrete statements of faith.
The Incarnation loses all spiritual value if Christ is merely a man born with the spirit of God.  Instead as Scripture and later the Church councils definitively proclaim, Christ retained his divine nature while adding upon a human nature.  Or as St. John so poetically writes, “The Logos became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us”.
Hence Christmas is not just the birth of a holy man or prophet who displayed the spirit of God but actually is the Logos Who has fused his nature with Jesus Christ to become both God and man.  Doubters and those without faith can deny the truth, but Christians are blessed with the gift of faith to see beyond the mere eyes of Jesus.  The believer understands that beyond those eyes is the King and Creator of the universe.

Heresies Against the Divinity of Christ

There are many heresies against the divinity of Christ.  From mere atheism and agnosticism to formal religions such as Islam and Judaism which formally reduce Christ to a mere man.  However, the most alarming heresy against the divinity of Christ and the miracle of the Incarnation stems from within.  Since the late Nineteenth Century, a Modernist movement has swept within the Church.  Amazingly, priests as Alfred Louisy and George Tyrell were among the first Catholics to deny the divinity of Christ.  These early modernists were condemned by St. Pope Pius X in his encyclical, “Pascendi“.  His holiness openly called these priests, wolves in sheep clothing and boldly stated, it is time to show the world who these men truly are, men who are badly disguised.
The modernist movement was far from just a Catholic event, it spilled into every venue of Christianity.  Rudolph Bultmann arrogantly defiled Scripture as he attempted to demytholize it. Obviously, Christ’s divinity was among the first to go in his ungodly enterprise.  Following in this great heretics wake, were supposed scholars who attempted to define what was ‘true’ and what was ‘false’ in the Bible.  This group became known as the Jesus Seminar.  There quest was for the historical Jesus and not the Jesus of faith.  As Christians we all know there is no such division for the Jesus of history is the Jesus of faith–Emmaneul–God is with us!
The current field of Christian theology continues to degrade as Process Theology, Liberation Theology, and various teachings of Paul Tillich continue to corrupt students on college campuses but Christians understand the true nature of the Incarnation and during Christmas, they give adoration to the Godman.
In the meantime, let us all offer up reparations to Christ’s Sacred Heart for these blasphemies, especially as enemies of faith bombard us with sacrilegious billboards that cry to Heaven for justice.  Let us ignore these pagans and focus as the shepherds did on the soon to be born King, who is our God forever and ever.

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Mark Moran, MA