Christ's Nature and the Immaculate Conception

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Christ assumed our nature - its weaknesses, its wants and desires. Yet he did this without sinning. Was He created in the same humanity of Adam? If so, would He have died if He had not been crucified? My readings of the Church fathers and the catechism say ‘Yes!’ And how is this humanity of Christ in comparison to Immaculate Nature of the Virgin Mary? The Catholic Church teaches she was born without original sin . . . so does that mean she too had our nature, its wants and desires, etc. without sin . . . ? So, how is the human nature of Mary different than the human nature of Christ?

Sorry if this makes little sense.

rusty
 
Jesus assumed a perfect human nature, as was originally created with Adam and Eve before their fall into sin. He received His human nature from His mother, Mary, who also had a perfect human nature untainted by original sin. Neither Mary nor Jesus had the sinful nature the rest of us are born with, so they didn’t have disordered desires or a propensity to sin. But Jesus got hungry and tired just like the rest of us because He had a human body with the same needs ours have.
 
Veritas41 said:
Jesus assumed a perfect human nature, as was originally created with Adam and Eve before their fall into sin.
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Can you point me to some Church documents, either from the Fathers or the CCC that say this? 'Cause I can’t find them myself. From all that I’ve read, Christ assumed our nature. If he hadn’t assumed our nature, he could not have redeemed our nature. I’m thinking of CCC paragraphs 457-460.
He received His human nature from His mother, Mary, who also had a perfect human nature untainted by original sin.
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When someone says that Mary and Christ had ‘perfect human nature’ - does this mean that they were not subject to death? For the wages of sin is death? I’m just confused. Sorry.
Neither Mary nor Jesus had the sinful nature the rest of us are born with, so they didn’t have disordered desires or a propensity to sin. But Jesus got hungry and tired just like the rest of us because He had a human body with the same needs ours have.
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One explanation I’ve heard is that Christ’s nature, though subject to the temporal punishments of Adam’s sin in his body, was not subject to the corruption of the human soul. Is this correct???

rusty
 
Tertullian wrote,

Quote:​

Now, it would not contribute to the purpose of Christ’s abolishing sin in the flesh, if He did not abolish it in that flesh in which was the nature of sin, nor (would it conduce) to His glory. For surely it would have been no strange thing if He had removed the stain of sin in some better flesh, and one which should possess a different, even a sinless, nature! Then, you say, if He took our flesh, Christ’s was a sinful one. Do not, however, fetter with mystery a sense which is quite intelligible. **For in putting on our flesh, He made it His own; in making it His own, He made it sinless. **A word of caution, however, must be addressed to all who refuse to believe that our flesh was in Christ on the ground that it came not of the seed of a human father, let them remember that Adam himself received this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father. As earth was converted into this flesh of ours without the seed of a human father, so also was it quite possible for the Son of God to take to Himself the substance of the selfsame flesh, without a human father’s agency.
newadvent.org/fathers/0315.htm
 
I had to do some digging to find an answer for you, since like you I couldn’t find it in the Catechism or other sources I usually rely on (a strange thing for the Catechism not to be explicit on):
The following website has information taken from Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, and it lists all the things the Church teaches about Jesus, and it states that it is *de fide *(infallible teaching) that Jesus was born with a human nature free from original sin:

catholictreasury.info/lord.htm

The next reference is from the EWTN website, which is orthodox Catholic, and if you check the article in this link and look under “Christ’s Humanity In the Pauline Epistles,” you will see some Scripture cited to show the sinlessness of Christ’s human nature.

Jesus would not have had to have a sinful nature in order to redeem us from ours --just the opposite – perfection was required for Him to be the perfect sacrifice. This is prefigured in the OT animal sacrifices, where animals without any spot or blemish were the only ones acceptable for sacrifice.
ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/CE_CHRIS.HTM
 
When someone says that Mary and Christ had ‘perfect human nature’ - does this mean that they were not subject to death? For the wages of sin is death? I’m just confused. Sorry.

I didn’t answer these questions in my other post, so I’m adding this one. No need to apologize – it can be confusing 🙂 Yes, since Mary and Jesus had perfect human natures, they were not subject to death. Jesus *chose *to die --He didn’t die as a natural consequence of original sin. With Mary, the Church is silent on whether or not she died, but the consensus has been that she, too, *chose *to die in imitation of her Son, but as a Catholic you are not required to believe that. Some believe she didn’t die before being assumed into heaven. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they, too, would not have suffered physical death, either.

One explanation I’ve heard is that Christ’s nature, though subject to the temporal punishments of Adam’s sin in his body, was not subject to the corruption of the human soul. Is this correct???
Are you referring to the original punishment God inflicted upon Adam – that he would have to work with hard physical labor in order to till the earth? Jesus would have been subject to that, because that would be external to His nature – fallen creation–but He wouldn’t have suffered illness and death, since those are the result of original sin. And His human soul would not be subject to corruption, either, which is another consequence of original sin.
 
Hey Rusty!

Can you be more specific for me since I am not as bright as the EO posters on this forum or the Catholic posters. Can you boil it down to simple terms for me?

One thing at a time?
 
John 1:4
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

John 14:6 (King James Version)
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

John 10:17-18 (King James Version)

17Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

Jesus did not sin and is therefore not subject to death. In fact, Jesus voluntary gave up his life.

John 11:25a “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Those of us who sin fall short of God’s glory, and yet Jesus is the “brightness of his glory”.

Hebrews 1:3
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
 
Hi Damascus, I think Rusty is simply asking what exactly in relation to original sin was Jesus subject to? I think it is possible that Jesus would allow himself to catch a cold or be beat up by the school bully. The fact that Jesus grew up tells me that he understands human physical weakness. Jesus would be subject to the external things like sweating from work, the need to take a bath, hunger, tiredness, pain and so on. But, since he was God himself in the flesh, he could not be born seperated from himself. I think we all are born seperated from God. How can God be seperated from himself?

Luke 2:52
And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Hebrews 4:15 (King James Version)
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

I understand the word tempted here to mean tested.

want of strength, weakness, infirmity

a) of the body
  1. its native weakness and frailty
  2. feebleness of health or sickness
    blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?strongs=769
 
I’ve been doing some more reading, I think I’ve got a better grasp (but not complete on such a subject!).

Christ was born in our nature. This is an explicit Church teaching. “How can he heal that which he does not assume?” He took on our human weaknesses, but not the ‘vicious weaknesses’ (as Gregory of Nyssa puts it) or moral weakness. Like us, he was subject to both birth and to death. I can’t find an official Church teaching that says Christ would not have aged and died naturally if He had not completed the work on the cross. It may be a pious opinion, but it doesn’t make much sense in the enonomy of the Incarnation.

Mary, by a singular act of God, was given the grace of being created without the ‘vicious weaknesses’ that came because of man’s sin. But she was subject to the temporal punishment given to man.

rusty
 
Thanks Dan, I think I get it now.

My 2 cents: Mary could have sinned but did not. Not because she was divine, since she was not divine, but because she was filled overflowing with the Holy Spirit and a blueprint of what Gods creation was meant to be, unlike Adam and Eve who were disobedient to Gods plan.
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             Jesus could not sin being God.
Maybe I am still not getting the point, but thats my 2 cents.

Yet on they both had the same “problems” or as was stated “temporal” issues to deal with. Pain, suffering, ect.

I do not even try to speculate on “if Jesus had not been on the Cross”

Because it would be contrary to reason, which is contrary to truth which would be contrary to being God who is truth.
 
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