Jesus, Burning Bush?

[Unvrsl_Sldr]

I know a Protestant friend that believes that Jesus is the physical manafestation of God. He states that Jesus is the Burning Bush from the OT and walked around the Garden of Eden and wrestled Jacob?

What does the church teach about this?

thanks

 

[Apologia100]

Jesus did NOT wrestle with Jacob. It was an angel, not God.

 

[Salmon]

Unvrsl_Sldr:

I know a Protestant friend that believes that Jesus is the physical manafestation of God. He states that Jesus is the Burning Bush from the OT and walked around the Garden of Eden and wrestled Jacob?

What does the church teach about this?

thanks

I know of no Church teaching that invalidates this perspective.

Some thoughts:
Does God the Father have a body?
Were Adam & Eve and Moses given the Word of God?

It would appear that one could meditate a long time on these two verses:

Gen 2:7 : then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

John 20:22 : When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.

In regard to Jacob wrestling with an angel, scripture is not specific in identifying Jacob’s opponent:

Gen 32:24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ 27So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ 28Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ 29Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

I had always been taught that the “man” was an angel, and perhaps it was. It remains a bit of a curiosity, tho. Jacob was renamed Israel by someone who had authority and wished to test him…not defeat him.

Peace in Christ…Salmon

 

[Poisson]

Unvrsl_Sldr:

I know a Protestant friend that believes that Jesus is the physical manafestation of God. He states that Jesus is the Burning Bush from the OT and walked around the Garden of Eden and wrestled Jacob?

What does the church teach about this?

thanks

Sounds like a Pentacostle variant usually referred to as Oneness Pentacostles which esentially denies the trinity. I think it’s the same as the heresy known as Modalism.

 

[Melchior]

Unvrsl_Sldr:

I know a Protestant friend that believes that Jesus is the physical manafestation of God. He states that Jesus is the Burning Bush from the OT and walked around the Garden of Eden and wrestled Jacob?

What does the church teach about this?

thanks

The burning bush makes perfect sense and I am sure he is right. Since that is who Jesus claimed to be. When Moses asked God who He should say sent Him, God replie “I AM that I AM”. Jesus claimed to be the one who spoke to Moses in the bush by saying “Before Abraham was I AM”. Using these very specific words He was saying that He, God the Son, was the member of the Trinity who spoke to Moses.

I don’t know about the the Jacob thing, but I think it is well within orthodoxy to say that it was indeed a Theophany. So Jacob did in fact struggle with God who took a Theophanic form. I don’t think it is clear whether it was the Father or the Son.

Of course your friends “physical manifestation” thing will need clarification. He could either be a Protestant who used bad wording or He could be a cultist like Poission pointed out. These oneness Pentacostals (Modalists) deny the Trinity and believe there is only one person to God who “manifests” himself in three different forms at different times.

Mel

 

[Chris_Burgwald]

Apologia100:

Jesus did NOT wrestle with Jacob. It was an angel, not God.

Actually, a lot of people argue that it was God who wrestled with Jacob. To give one example, check out the entry on Jacob in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia:

newadvent.org/cathen/08261a.htm

This position makes sense especially in light of the meaning of his new name which he is given at the conclusion of the episode: Israel, “the one who wrestled with God”.

 

[Della]

Jesus most certainly was not incarnated as a bush! The bush was an ordinary desert plant in which the glory of God was manifested for Moses to see and hear Him.

A better interpretation is that the bush was a type and a prefigure of the Virgin who carried the glory of God within her while remaining a pure virgin (not consumed by the flames).

 

[Dr.Colossus]

The one present in the burning bush was God. Not God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, but the fullness of the Almighty. Christ was present, as well as the Holy Spirit because the Three are One. The problem with your friend’s interpretation is that it limits God. His suggestion is that the only physical manifestation of God is Jesus Christ. He believes for some reason that God the Father is not able to display His glory in physical form, which is untrue. God the Father may have no body, but the bush did not become His body. It was a conduit through which the glory of the Most High flowed.

 

[RobedWithLight]

Dr. Colossus:

The problem with your friend’s interpretation is that it limits God. His suggestion is that the only physical manifestation of God is Jesus Christ. He believes for some reason that God the Father is not able to display His glory in physical form, which is untrue. God the Father may have no body, but the bush did not become His body. It was a conduit through which the glory of the Most High flowed.

It is reminiscent of Jesus-only Oneness Pentecostalism, a modern variant of the ancient heresy of Sabellianism, as it implicitly denies the existence of the Trinity.

Gerry

 

[jeffreedy789]

ya, his argument smacks of modalism. the burning bush was just God’s way of getting moses’s attention so He could talk to Him. the burning bush wasn’t God. there are many theories about the man who wrestled jacob, and the men who visited abraham to tell him that he was to have a son, etc. we don’t know who they were exactly. some theories say they were pre-incarnational visits from Christ. but it’s a bit modalistic to say that when God comes to earth, He’s Jesus.

 

[Todd_Easton]

Unvrsl_Sldr:

I know a Protestant friend that believes that Jesus is the physical manafestation of God. He states that Jesus is the Burning Bush from the OT and walked around the Garden of Eden and wrestled Jacob?

What does the church teach about this?

thanks

The Church teaches that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Bless Trinity, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…

Writing about A.D. 155, St. Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, arguing for the Catholic belief of the plurality of Divine Persons in the Godhead, identifies the Divine Person (God) who spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush and who wrestled with Jacob, as the Divine Person (God) who became incarnate as Jesus Christ but Justin points out that this Divine Person (God) who spoke to Moses and wrestled with Jacob is different from the Divine Person (God) who is the Creator of all things. See chapters LV - LXIV, especially chapter LX… www.newadvent.org/fathers/0128.htm

 

[Veector]

The one present in the burning bush was God. Not God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, but the fullness of the Almighty. Christ was present, as well as the Holy Spirit because the Three are One. The problem with your friend’s interpretation is that it limits God. His suggestion is that the only physical manifestation of God is Jesus Christ. He believes for some reason that God the Father is not able to display His glory in physical form, which is untrue. God the Father may have no body, but the bush did not become His body. It was a conduit through which the glory of the Most High flowed.

I agree with you, sir, that we shouldn’t say it was just Jesus who spoke to Moses. After all, we believe in a united/undivided Trinity.

 

[Wesrock]

Jesus most certainly was not incarnated as a bush! The bush was an ordinary desert plant in which the glory of God was manifested for Moses to see and hear Him.

A better interpretation is that the bush was a type and a prefigure of the Virgin who carried the glory of God within her while remaining a pure virgin (not consumed by the flames).

Some Church Fathers, such as Jusyin Martyr, recognized the Word speaking in all of God’s theophanies to man, from the appearance to Abraham, and the burning bush, and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. I don’t think Jesus incarnated as a bush, only that the theophanies were made to man through the Son and Word of God.

 

[Nelka]

Ver. 2. The Lord appeared. That is, and angel representing God, and speaking in his name. (Challoner) (Acts vii. 30; Galatians iii. 19.) — The apparitions of God to the patriarchs are generally understood in this sense. (St. Augustine, de Trin. iii. 11.) (Worthington) — Yet many of the Fathers suppose, that this angel was no other than the Son of God, the angel of the great council, (Malachias iii. 1,) and St. Augustine (q. 2, in Ex.) does not disapprove of this opinion. (Calmet) — Not burnt. Thus the Hebrews were afflicted, but not destroyed. (Menochius) — God is styled a consuming fire, Deuteronomy iv. 24. He appeared in fire again, chap. xxiv. 17. (Calmet)