Re-wording

[whomper]

Elsewhere in this forum, someone has a Signature with the creedal quotation, “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

This is one of my pet peeves! When Man continually tries to explain the Bible in modern words and practices, he more often than not changes meanings subtly. This is true of the above quotation.

The original is “… and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary…”. This is pretty strict in its meaning! The Holy Ghost did it! No other being did it. To change the phrases is to change the meaning.

“…by the *power *of the Holy Spirit” means that the Holy Spirit caused it, but allows that some *other *force *did *it - a human, for instance. While it doesn’t specifically say that a human did it, it allows that interpretation.

And it more subtly allows for a believer to question/doubt the ***power ***of our God to do anything He wants to do!

So by updating the wording and phrasology, this new creed allows people who cannot believe that a human being can come from anything other than a union between a human man and a human woman, to believe in the “incarnation” of Christ+!

But this new wording also allows people to equate Jesus as the Son of God to other preachers, such as Billy Graham, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swiggart, maybe even Mohammad. It’s just a wrong translation which weakens the original teaching.

God doesn’t change, but Man does! And Man often changes God. And that is the root of all our spiritual problems.

 

[HamtramckSteve]

The original is “… and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary…”. This is pretty strict in its meaning! The Holy Ghost did it! No other being did it. To change the phrases is to change the meaning.

I don’t know that the original is any more clear and free from misinterpretation.

The phrase “of the Virgin Mary” in the original leads one to think it’s describing “Holy Ghost,” not “incarnate.”

 

[NotWorthy]

What does the Creed say? “By the power of the Holy Spirit, He was conceived of the Virgin Mary…”

I don’t see what your problem is with this. There’s no way a Virgin can conceive by any other means than by God’s Will. But it also show’s mankind’s participation in the Incarnation.

I’m not sure I understand how this implies that Jesus is just another Billy Graham.

 

[whomper]

There’s no way a Virgin can conceive by any other means than by God’s Will. But it also show’s mankind’s participation in the Incarnation.

1. True, a virgin today can only conceive by God’s Will. Of course, the intent of the creed is to express that, in the case of Jesus, God did it Himself by way of the Holy Ghost - a form of our God.
2. “Mankind” participated only in that of BEING the Blessed Virgin. “Mankind” as a traditional male did NOT participate! This is the point!

Why change it to allow an interpretation that a man did the impregnating, even if under God’s Will?

You might think that Jesus had the traditional 23 pairs of chromosomes, rather than just the 23 from Mary. Until we can see scientific proof of the chromosome count, we can theorize for eons about this! And I’m not about to base my salvation on some human’s count of somebody else’s chromosomes! Besides, if you believe that our God can do anything He wants, why can’t it be accepted that Jesus might’ve had only 23, or that his 23 pairs were duplicates of Mary’s 23? Can’t God do anything? Can’t he make a virgin pregnant without involving the “sin of the flesh”? And does it really make any difference, as long as Jesus was the Christ+?

If Man did the impregnating, God didn’t do it, He just allowed it happen. Following this line of thought, all pregnancies can be construed to be God’s Will. And God never said this was true. He said only that **He **had made the Blessed Virgin “great with child” (my quotes).

If you say that Jesus was the product of a human man and a human woman, possesed of the Holy Spirit, you open man’s door to allow that any man can be so possessed - like Billy Graham, etc. And if Jesus was not conceived by the Holy Ghost (or Spirit), then Jesus is essentially just another human man, and the entire concept of Christianity is a fable! It’s no wonder that so many people around the world refuse to accept Jesus as the Incarnate God! We, as modern Christians, aren’t even supporting the concept ourselves!

Only if you accept the Immaculate Conception as being the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, will you be acknowleging the uniqueness of Jesus the Christ+ as being God Incarnate, and not just some human possessed of holy spirits! We’ve seen what happens when mortal man *thinks *he is acting under a command of God!

Don’t make Jesus solely a man by implying that He had a human father. He had a daddy in Joseph, yes. But no human father!

 

[NotWorthy]

1. True, a virgin today can only conceive by God’s Will. Of course, the intent of the creed is to express that, in the case of Jesus, God did it Himself by way of the Holy Ghost - a form of our God.
2. “Mankind” participated only in that of BEING the Blessed Virgin. “Mankind” as a traditional male did NOT participate! This is the point!

Why change it to allow an interpretation that a man did the impregnating, even if under God’s Will?

But man CANNOT impregnate a virgin, or else she wouldn’t be a virgin anymore.

 

[NotWorthy]

Only if you accept the Immaculate Conception as being the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, will you be acknowleging the uniqueness of Jesus the Christ+ as being God Incarnate, and not just some human possessed of holy spirits! We’ve seen what happens when mortal man *thinks *he is acting under a command of God!

Don’t make Jesus solely a man by implying that He had a human father. He had a daddy in Joseph, yes. But no human father!

I didn’t imply it, or even considered it able to be implied. Jesus probably shared Mary’s and only Mary’s chromosones, so one would think they looked almost identical.

But the Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with Jesus (and yet it has everything to do with Him at the same time!). The IC was the conception of Mary, not Jesus. You’re talking of two events.

 

[whomper]

But man CANNOT impregnate a virgin, or else she wouldn’t be a virgin anymore.

Of course a man can impregnate a virgin, if he is the first man she “knew”! If the first time she was “active”, she became pregnant, then she was a virgin before she was impregnated. She didn’t lose her virginity until ***after/during ***she was “known” in some form, pregnation notwithstanding.

 

[whomper]

Jesus probably shared Mary’s and only Mary’s chromosones, so one would think they looked almost identical.

Here’s where there’s scientific confusion. If Jesus had only Mary’s genes, how could he appear to be a male? Obviously, a continuing argument for divine intervention. But this isn’t my point to argue…

But the Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with Jesus

I stand corrected. Oops.

 

[PraRFLEsEkHm]

You forgot "VERITAS!"

 

[PraRFLEsEkHm]

Personally I think this describes the Incarnation perfectly.

Because It was by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it was also through the cooperation of man. BOTH man and God played a part.

Because Mary was asked if she would participate.

Therefore, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He became incarnate - through the cooperation of Mary. It neither states that anyone else “did” anything but cooperate with the Power of the Holy Spirit, or that any other power but the Holy Spirits was involved…

“…by the power of the Holy Spirit” means that the Holy Spirit caused it, but allows that some other force did it - a human, for instance. While it doesn’t specifically say that a human did it, it allows that interpretation.

I do not understand where any other interpretation is possible?

“For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

Veritas!

It states “OF the Virgin Mary” - not because of, it also states “Came down from heaven” depicting that He is, in fact, God - and that is that. At the end, “and was made man” - by the power of the Holy Spirit, of Mary who was (is) a Virgin.

 

[GeorgiaPeach]

Speak of the devil.

I don’t understand the problem. They both refer to the same scripture:

Luke 1:35 And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

 

[Ron_Conte]

The Second Person of the Trinity incarnated himself.
The Third Person of the Trinity created the human nature for the incarnation.

It cannot be the case that the Third Person incarnated the Second Persons,
because God is active, not passive. The Second Person cannot be the
passive object of an act by the Third Person.

 

[whomper]

The Second Person of the Trinity incarnated himself.
The Third Person of the Trinity created the human nature for the incarnation.

It cannot be the case that the Third Person incarnated the Second Persons,
because God is active, not passive. The Second Person cannot be the
passive object of an act by the Third Person.

Well, duh! You’ve separated the Trinity into such as most Protestants won’t have any problem understanding you. But as all 3 parts of the Trinity existed before the world began, one cannot create the other. It’s a matter of manifestation, not creation.

Going back to a couple of previous posts, which do not accept my contention that the change in wording changed the belief:
You are basing your understanding on current wording and not looking at the wording of the earlier translations.
The priest performs weddings in the name of the Trinity and by the power of the state to do such marriages. Just because a man does something by the power of the spirit, does not mean the spirit did it. It means it has authority to do it but has no physical presence to do it; but the action is by the man.

The early wording stated without equivocation that the Holy Ghost incarnated itself into Jesus. And since the Holy Ghost is the same as God, and since Jesus existed with God and the Holy Ghost from all time, it’s only the FORM of MAN which was what we call the incarnation. And to keep people from believing that more than one incarnation could come along, there was no physical activity in the exchange of genetic material or physical presense involved. That’s the difference between God doing it and God having some man do it and then invading the subsequent body and taking it over.

The entire point of this argument is that today’s modern man has trouble understanding how God could come to earth in human form and violate all the scientific evidence to date. By changing old wording to conform to that which modern man wants, the theology has been weakened. A weakened Jesus invites satellite religions who think they know what’s what, but in reality they don’t.

True, it’s their soles at jeopardy. Who’s to say what will happen to them?

But since I’ve not convinced you, I guess we don’t need to go any further?

 

[PraRFLEsEkHm]

Well, duh! You’ve separated the Trinity into such as most Protestants won’t have any problem understanding you. But as all 3 parts of the Trinity existed before the world began, one cannot create the other. It’s a matter of manifestation, not creation.

I will second that, from the CCC:

724 In Mary, the Holy Spirit manifests the Son of the Father, now become the Son of the Virgin. She is the burning bush of the definitive theophany. Filled with the Holy Spirit she makes the Word visible in the humility of his flesh. It is to the poor and the first representatives of the gentiles that she makes him known.

466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed “that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.” Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."

But since I’ve not convinced you, I guess we don’t need to go any further?

Actually, I did read the original. It seems to me that MORE is open to interpretation there.

“… and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary…”.

could (and I believe was by some) interpreted as was mentioned above:

It cannot be the case that the Third Person incarnated the Second Persons,

As well as the interpretation that Mary was the initiator of the event thereby making her a Deity.

Personally, i don’t think there can be a short statement that covers the entire event without room for interpretation. It simply covers too much ground. However, the form we have now comes as close as is possible.

In my opinion.

Peace

John

 

[puzzleannie]

What does the Creed say? “By the power of the Holy Spirit, He was conceived of the Virgin Mary…”

I.

that is the English for how one describes the parentage of anyone: by (sire) of [or out of] (mother). It is a bit archaic, but you will see it in references such as those books that list British peers and royalty (and even in records of breeding of horses). It is a precice, if dated, English usage. would like to see the Latin. the issue at hand is not the wording of the Creed, which is precise and correct, but our modern day lack of appreciation of our own English language into which the prayer has been translated.

 

[NotWorthy]

Of course a man can impregnate a virgin, if he is the first man she “knew”! If the first time she was “active”, she became pregnant, then she was a virgin before she was impregnated. She didn’t lose her virginity until ***after/during ***she was “known” in some form, pregnation notwithstanding.

No, a virgin is not a virgin at conception. She has been de-flowered (is that the best term?) prior to conception, even if its only mere minutes, and she could no longer be called “Virgin Mary”, as our Blessed Mother is called. She could be called “Then Virgin Mary”, but not retain the title of BVM.

 

[whomper]

No, a virgin is not a virgin at conception. She has been de-flowered (is that the best term?) prior to conception, even if its only mere minutes

Somehow, I doubt that the term needs to be so accutely defined! “Mere minutes” is of no importance here.

AMOF, the BVM retained her own title even after she bore children fathered in the normal manner. Her title applied only to her status as mother of the Christ+.

But we digress! The matter of the BVM is not the primary concern in this discussion! Talk about complexity!

 

[Verbum_Caro]

The early wording stated without equivocation that the Holy Ghost incarnated itself into Jesus.

Whomper,

Surely that is a typo, no? You didn’t mean to write that, did you?

VC

 

[whomper]

"whomper:

the Holy Ghost incarnated itself into Jesus.

Surely that is a typo, no? You didn’t mean to write that, did you?

Since the Holy Ghost is God, and God came to earth in the human form of Jesus, where’s the typo? This is the essense of the Incarnation and the Trinity.

 

[Ron_Conte]

The Second Person is incarnate, the First and Third Persons are not,
even though God has one Nature and that one Nature is united to the human nature of Christ.