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1. Is there a significant difference in Christ's body before His resurrection and after that would have an effect on our view of how useful this transfiguration event is to our lives and how we are to understand what we will one day become? For example, Christ could walk through walls with His Resurrected body. 1b. Does the fact that He couldn't have done this in His pre-resurrected body (which was just like our bodies, in the likeness of sinful flesh, contra Aphthartodocetism) have any effect on how we look at what we will become (immortal, incorruptible)?

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POW, can you find some stuff on the transfiguration specifically? Something as theologically technical as possible? I am curious about that.

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Second, the Orthodox -- by whom I'm influenced and persuaded -- see the mystery of the economy being all throughout the earthly life of Christ.

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I suspect that you two are saying something subtly different.....


Starkman: This is close to the issue for me, for I don't think the transfiguration had much at all to do with what our bodies will become, but rather what we are in Him already...ready to be revealed at the last time. It's deeper than the "twinkling of an eye" second coming/rapture; THAT concept, too, is deeper than what it is usually promoted as.

chance: I have to agree with Starkman that the Transfiguration speaks more to our present life and that the mystery revealed in 1 Cor 15 speaks to what we will become when we are raised.

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3466 musterion {moos-tay'-ree-on}
from a derivative of muo (to shut the mouth); TDNT - 4:802,615; n n
AV - mystery 27; 27
1) hidden thing, secret, mystery
1a) generally mysteries, religious secrets, confided only to the initiated and not to ordinary mortals
1b) a hidden or secret thing, not obvious to the understanding
1c) a hidden purpose or counsel
1c1) secret will
1c1a) of men
1c1b) of God: the secret counsels which govern God in
dealing with the righteous, which are hidden from
ungodly and wicked men but plain to the godly
2) in rabbinic writings, it denotes the mystic or hidden sense
2a) of an OT saying
2b) of an image or form seen in a vision
2c) of a dream

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The reason I made 1b bold is that that one fits, in how I read on the topic, with matters of the economy.

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POW: the Orthodox -- by whom I'm influenced and persuaded -- see the mystery of the economy being all throughout the earthly life of Christ.

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In contrast to Western theology, so influenced by Scholasitic presupositions and habits of dividing everything into separate blocks, which are treated as if they could stand alone or be understood alone, the East --lets jsut say becasue its early, doesn't do that!

chance, when I wrote the words "mystery of the ecomony" I was using the 1b definition of mystery: "a . . .thing, not obvious to the understanding". The economy is certainly, certainly THAT.

Many of the quotes you ran in you long list were of the 1b usage. But I have to take, from the surface of what you presented (prof hat on, and being fair not to judge beyond the appearance of what is written) that you were not seeing the distinction.

And since THAT distinction is everything of what I had been saying, and to which you wanted to respond.... I think you missed the boat. Sorry.

Soem running thougts.....

* As per sacraments, the "holy mysteries" does not mean that someone misplaced them.

* ?ineffable mysteries" and "impenetrable mysteries"


Where Starkman says" what we are in Him already...ready to be revealed at the last time I take him to mean, in a way, the not obvious to the understanding" KIND OF, too. Not-uncovered, maybe. He said it better than I'm managing right now, saying: "what we are in Him already...ready to be revealed at the last time". (Could THAT, itself, from Starkmans's keyboard, be another sibliing of 1 Cor 15.)

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 12/22/2001 06:21:10 AM

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You liked what starkman had to say; but when you echoed with him you also seem to have not gotten all that he said. (We'll have to bow to starkman in the particulars; but either way I have to say that I found them subtly and importantly different.)


I suspect that you two are saying something subtly different.....


Starkman: This is close to the issue for me, for I don't think the transfiguration had much at all to do with what our bodies will become, but rather what we are in Him already...ready to be revealed at the last time. It's deeper than the "twinkling of an eye" second coming/rapture; THAT concept, too, is deeper than what it is usually promoted as.

chance: I have to agree with Starkman that the Transfiguration speaks more to our present life and that the mystery revealed in 1 Cor 15 speaks to what we will become when we are raised.

Do you see what I'm seeing, chance?

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From the OCA site, observations on "Son of God"

Nicene Creed: ... came down from heaven ...

The affirmation that the Son has "come down from heaven and was incarnate" does not mean that the Son is located somewhere "up there" in the universe and then descended onto the planet earth. That He came "down from heaven" is the Biblical way of saying that the Son of God came from the totally "other" divine existence of God, outside the bounds and limits of all space and time located within the created, physical universe. In general we must remember again the symbolical character of all of our words and affirmations about God.

The affirmation that the Son came "down from heaven" also should not be interpreted in the sense that before the incarnation the Son of God was totally absent from the world. The Son was always "in the world" for the "world was made through Him" (Jn 1:10). He was always present in the world for He is personally the life and the light of man (1 Jn 4).

As "created in the image and likeness of God," every man -- just by being a man -- is already a reflection of the divine Son, who is Himself the uncreated image of God (Col 1:15 ; Heb 1:3). Thus, the Son, or Word, or Image, or Radiance of God, as He is called in Scriptures, was always "in the world" by being always present in every of his "created images," not only as their creator, but also as the one whose very being all creatures are made to share and to reflect. Thus, in his incarnation, the Son comes personally to the world and becomes Himself a man. But even before the incarnation He was always in the world by the presence and power of his creative actions in his creatures, particularly in man.

In addition to this, it is also Orthodox doctrine that the manifestation of God to the saints of the Old Testament, the so-called theophanies (which means divine manifestations), were manifestations of the Father, by, through and in his Son or Logos. Thus, for example, the manifestations to Moses, Elias or Isaiah are mediated by God's divine and uncreated Son.

It is the Orthodox teaching as well that the Word of God which came to the Old Testament prophets and saints, and the very words of the Old Testament Law of Moses, which are called in Hebrew the "words" and not as we say in English, the "commandments", are also revelations of God by his Son, the Divine Word. Thus, for example, we have Old Testamental witness to the revelation of God's Word, such as that of the Prophet Isaiah, in almost the same personalistic form as is found in the Christian gospel:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I propose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isa 55:10-11).

Thus, before His personal birth of the Virgin Mary as the man Jesus, the divine Son and Word of God was in the world by His presence and action in creation, particularly in man. He was present and active; also in the theophanies to the Old Testament saints; and in the words of the law and the prophets, both oral and scriptural.

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SONG: Creation Dream

centred on silence
counting on nothing
i saw you standing on the sea
and everything was
dark except for
sparks the wind struck from your hair
sparks that turned to
wings around you
angel voices mixed with seabird cries
fields of motion
surging outward
questions that contain their own replies...

you were dancing
i saw you dancing
throwing your arms toward the sky
fingers opening
like flares
stars were shooting everywhere
lines of power
bursting outward
along the channels of your song
mercury waves flashed
under your feet
shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn...

(Ottawa 20/12/78)

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Telos

(by Andrew Stephen Damick)

We were children of the time of the anti-telos,
the nihil ex nihilo, the horizon's end,
yet we fell, as though falling were somehow a cure for our lacking,
as though perhaps falling down or falling in love or being the fall guy
were an answer to the rough darkness.
These were small lies,
but they were indeed enough to keep us on the ground
and looking downward.
It only takes one lie believed, one eidolon worshipped.

You and I stood at the horizon's end, the end of history,
the end of the world, looking at the others there.
They saw the horizon and either dove forwards into the nothing that they
believed they saw or began dancing about in a hedonist's fury.
We tried to stop some of them, to pull them up to look with us and see
what there was to see, but they believed lies,
and we didn't have the Truth, anyway.
It only takes one lie believed.

Then, as a curtain is parted, the cool-clear sibilance of light of light
descended and was one of us.

The Truth had come to us. Why did we see him?
I don't know why we saw him, but we did.
And when the Truth comes to you,
you don't go through his wallet; you shake his hand and give him
that hug that you should be giving him.
And then there is no horizon, and the lies,
the words which contend with words, are gone.
For a word can always contend with a word, but what word
can contend with Life?

We knew the Life, the Truth, by means of the image.
We saw the Way by means of the image,
because he made the image himself.

For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face:
Now I know in part;
but then shall I know even as also I am known.

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...We agree on some basics.

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Yes we do. Should we attempt to list them?

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...I shun the whole Acts-nine thing.

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What? I didn't get that impression from what you said in the last pages of The Church Started With Paul thread. I thought you affirmed that God first revealed the mystery to Paul and that before Christ made it known to him it had yet to be revealed.

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...I hope that the artistic, literary take I've put below will be interesting reading.

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Perhaps. We'll see.

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Starkman: what we are in Him already...ready to be revealed at the last time.
chance: putting on incorruption/immortality
PoW: Now I'm thinking that you just aren't reading carefully enough to wee where you both agree. (Pardon my playing this a bit, OK?)

Starkman says "ARE..then REVEALED" and you say PUT ON later. You both agree that IT is then or later. Then or later; take your pick. But it is the SAME "IT."

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Yes, as I said previously, I agree with what Starkman said even though I used different words to say the same thing.

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chance: The lack of any idea of our putting on incorruption/immortality in the Transfiguration is what I see as the crucial difference between the two.
PoW: I have never thought of the Transfiguration as being part of the saving of us, in the same way as is the cross, the grave, Christ's suffering, etc. So far, I know it to be (1) a revelation of what is to be (which mostly remains hidden), and (2) a revelation of the Glory of God in Christ (which was hidden and was revealed on Tabor).

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I agree

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The Festal Menaion liturgical texts say: Being complete God, Thou hast become complete man, bringing together manhood and the complete Godhead in Thy Person which Moses and Elijah saw on Mount Tabor in the two natures. Such hymns are of a genre, that, sung in the context of Christian worship, speak to the uniting of the now and the not yet that come together in the Church, and especially in Holy Communion. So if I see mention of a completing of humanity with respect to the Transfiguration I might not jump to the point of assuming that the EO liturgy teaches some physical change (as Paul does in 1 Cor 15 of us for someday!) which then has to be figured out whether anything "went back" to the old way or not after Moses and Elijah left... Were this Northern European hymnody one could expect the Nominalistic treatment of every detail, and the Scholastic attempts to figure out everything from rationalizing tools. But this is Eastern; and that is different. In liturgical hymns the pleroma/fulness aspect and the "today" (would eternal significance be a good way of explaining, or a fair one--I don't know) aspect are evident. Like how the EO liturgy declares "Today Christ is born." There are ways that that is WAY more "true" than to say Christ was born 2000 years ago. Piety is (maybe) its own way of thinking and making meaning.

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When reading that liturgical text with that understanding I have no problem with that.

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So....reading this, " As we go beforehand to meet the all-holy, glorious Transfiguration, on this present day we glorify Christ who refigured our nature with the fire of the Godhead and made it blaze with incorruption as at first. " we can see that the focus in not a Western medical examination. The emphasis is on something beyond exhaustive explanation or even inquiry. Christ "refigured" our nature! Verbs like "blaze" link the literal events of that meeting on Tabor with the enormous meaning that is behind Christ's work as a whole.

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I think I understand that kind of language. What is not so clear to me is what is meant by "refigured" and "incorruption as at first". By "refigured" is the text refering to Christ's work bringing humanity (or the "nature" of humanity) out of the old Adamic solidarity (the first Adam) and into the new Adamic solidarity (the last Adam) or something like that? Does "incorruption as at first" refer to Adam and Eve before they both fell? I like to think of Christ as being the last Adam who ate from the Tree of Life and that is what we will become. Not just Adam prior to his making a choice but as Adam having eaten from the Tree of Life.

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Depending on your personality and lifestyle, chance, you may or may not easily follow what I'm saying.

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What is your impression based upon on my queries made immediately above?

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I see your habits for theology -- as I read them -- as being pretty mechanical and literalistic.

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I'll be the first to admit that I have come from a theological background that interprets Scripture in a pretty mechanical and literalistic fashion. I am attempting to learn more from those who have not looked at Scripture in such a way. For example, Chris Hall's book Reading Scripture With the Church Fathers is the next book on my list and I have talked with Sanders about this (literalistic interpretations) for at least an hour or two one-on-one.

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I haven't seen you easily slide from one thing to another and back again. And your treatment of definitions follows this line too. Fine.

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Fine? Really?

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So let me dip into what I'm really good at -- art. The language of "blaze" is like the music track of a movie, or the choice of colors used in an expressionistic portrait. Those colors are not literal, and more than the music really was playing on that street when "Rocky" ran down it. The Eastern hymnographers had/have that flexibility of views that enables them to take on huge themes! Well, that prepares them as theologians too, to approach matters like the Transfiguration in ways that us Midwesterners find difficult. So when they sing " our nature. . .made it blaze with incorruption as at first. " they can be said to be being BOTH realistic AND symbolic. Just like a painting can be both realistic and symbolic, or both realistic and expressionistic. (Good photos can bridge these styles too. Maybe I ought to teach art appreciation in a Seminary. )

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I think that pretty much goes without saying. If someone's hymns or words are symbolic or expressionistic, but not realistic, than their symbolism and expressionism is useless. For symbols and expressions to be useful they must be reality-depicting.

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When it says "Wishing to better the nature he took from Adam, Christ now ascends Tabor, baring his Godhead to his initiates. ", it does not necessarily (speaking as an art critic, and that is all!) mean that the baring of his Godhead (which is literally true--the baring) itself bettered our nature. Equally workable from that form of expression is that both were going on at the same time. (which is also literally true--the economy of salvation was an ongoing thing from the Annunciation all the way through the Ascension, and includes the Second coming)

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I completely agree

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chance, you mentioned a definition of economy. The EO have the concept of the Economic Trinity, and speak of the mysteries of the "economy of salvation." AS I SAID ABOVE, "the Orthodox . . .see the mystery of the economy being all throughout the earthly life of Christ." "All throughout the earthly life of Christ" is significant.

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Oh, the economic Trinity! OK. That makes more sense.

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You didn't pick up on what I meant by: "In contrast to Western theology, so influenced by Scholastic presuppositions and habits of dividing everything into separate blocks, which are treated as if they could stand alone or be understood alone..." You asked: "How does this relate to the discussion?" As above, "the Orthodox (Eastern Church Fathers) see the mystery of the economy being all throughout the earthly life of Christ." They do not divide theology into separately functioning sections. They do not divide, for example, salvation from justification from sanctification. if anything, for them Christology is the key; but everything else is connected. As I answered you in an earlier post on this thread, I don't know "whether the transfiguration 'struck a blow' for redemption." I don't know. But the relatedness of the Transfiguration to the whole of the economy of salvation is very interesting.

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I don't know either. At this time I doubt the Treansfiguration had anything to do with our salvation. Seems to me to have more to do with Peter, James and John and their confidence in Christ thatn anything regarding Christ's work of salvation.

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I wrote: "chance, when I wrote the words 'mystery of the economy' I was using the 1b definition of mystery: "a . . .thing, not obvious to the understanding". The economy is certainly, certainly THAT." So, to unpack a bit, I'm saying that what God in Christ did to save mankind is spread all across the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth. And I'm saying that even pinning down an event does not reveal easily the total significance of that event. It is a mystery. you can look right at the cross and never really calculate everything that went on there. (Then there is the logical possibility of how one event relates to and amplifies another -- logical possibility -- and any speculation quickly becomes geometric in scale.)

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That makes sense. I'll try looking at it that way for a while.

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chance said of a mystery: "It is specifically 'a hidden or secret thing...' BECAUSE it is hidden or secret it is 'not obvious to the understanding.'"

But, the OTHER option is that BECAUSE it is NOT OBVIOUS to the understanding... THEN it is hidden or secret. (As in the mystery of the cross!!!)

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Yeah, I think you may have stated the significance of that definition of mystery in a better way. I believe that fits well passages like Eph 5:32; 2 Thess 2:7; 1 Tim 3:16; Rev 1:20; 17:5,7. I now think that may work better for 1 Cor 15:51 also and am willing to concede that it does.



chance

A God who has fixed every detail beforehand may retire or die --Markus Barth

Edited by - chance on 12/29/2001 04:28:51 AM