DOES THIS HELP? IT DOES NOT ADDRESS IT HEAD ON...BUT, ONE CAN THEN ASK HOW "RULING" IS RELATED TO CHRIST'S HUMANITY.

I DON'T KNOW.

The Heidelberg Catechism   Part II: Deliverance: God the Son Lord's Day 19 Q & A 50 Q. Why the next words:    "and is seated at the right hand of God"? A. Christ ascended to heaven,    there to show that he is head of his church,^1       and that the Father rules all things through him.^2    ^1 Eph. 1:20-23; Col. 1:18    ^2 Matt. 28:18; John 5:22-23

still don't know...

Belgic Confession:

Article 19: The Two Natures of Christ

We believe that by being thus conceived
the person of the Son has been inseparably united
and joined together
with human nature,
     in such a way that there are not two Sons of God,
     nor two persons,
     but two natures united in a single person,
     with each nature retaining its own distinct properties.

Thus his divine nature has always remained uncreated,
     without beginning of days or end of life,^44
     filling heaven and earth.

His human nature has not lost its properties
but continues to have those of a creature—
     it has a beginning of days;
     it is of a finite nature
     and retains all that belongs to a real body.
     And even though he,
     by his resurrection,
     gave it immortality,
     that nonetheless did not change
     the reality of his human nature;
     for our salvation and resurrection
     depend also on the reality of his body.

But these two natures
are so united together in one person
that they are not even separated by his death.

So then,
what he committed to his Father when he died
was a real human spirit which left his body.
But meanwhile his divine nature remained
united with his human nature
     even when he was lying in the grave;
and his deity never ceased to be in him,
     just as it was in him when he was a little child,
     though for a while it did not show itself as such.

These are the reasons why we confess him
to be true God and true man—
     true God in order to conquer death
          by his power,
     and true man that he might die for us
          in the weakness of his flesh.

Post Edited (On Vacation) : 2/20/2008 5:10:25 PM (GMT-6)

Found...

http://www.myocn.net/index.php/20071220558/OCN-Reading-Room/Regular-Contributor-Weekly-Column/The-Incarnation-Its-meaning-and-purpose.html

"Christ has joined himself forever to the Creation..."

The doctrine of "deification" in Maximus is based upon the fundamental patristic presupposition that communion with God does not diminish or destroy humanity but makes it fully human. In Christ the hypostatic union the communication of idioms (perichõresis tõn idiõmatõn). The characteristics of divinity and humanity express themselves "in communion with each other" (Chalcedonian definition), and human actions, "energies," have God Himself as their personal agent. Therefore, it can be said that "God was born," that Mary is the Theotokos, and that the "Logos was crucified" while birth and death remain purely human realities. But it can and must also be said that a man rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father having acquired characteristics, which "naturally" belong to God alone: immortality and glory. Through Christ’s humanity deified according to its hypostatic union with the Logos, all members of the Body of Christ have access to "deification" by grace through the operation of the Spirit in Christ’s Church.

Quote:

For Christ’s humanity itself, en-hypostasized as it is in the Logos and thus having become truly God’s humanity, did not become "God by essence;" it was penetrated with the divine energy — through the circumin-cessio idiomatum — and, in it, our own humanity finds access to God in His energies. The energies, therefore, are never considered as divine emanations or as a diminished God. They are divine life as given by God to His creatures; and they are God; for in His Son, He truly gave Himself for our salvation.

http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/byzantine_theology_j_meyendorf.htm

En-hypostasized in the Logos, Christ’s humanity, in virtue of the "communication of idioms," is penetrated with divine "energy." It is therefore a deified humanity, which however does not in any way lose its human characteristics. It is quite to the contrary. These characteristics become even more real and authentic by contact with the divine model according to which they were created. In this deified humanity of Christ’s, man is called to participate, and to share in its deification. This is the meaning of sacramental life and the basis of Christian spirituality. The Christian is called not to an "imitation" of Jesus — a purely extrinsic and moral act — but, as Nicholas Cabasilas puts it, to "life in Christ" through baptism, chrismation, and the Eucharist

I don't think I've answered Harold's question.

But I asked a few others.

"that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." It's important to remember that scripture says nothing of his "sonship" prior to creation. We use the term "son" to distinguish him from the Father, even sans creation. But in doing so, I'm just using the distinguishing term for convenience sake. Christ was said to have been "born/begotten" in his incarnation and his ressurection. The same is true of us. These are the only senses that I'm aware of whereby scripture speaks of the sans-creational beloved of the Father as being a "son."

Post Edited (Sahid) : 2/23/2008 1:29:36 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Sahid) : 3/24/2008 5:50:49 PM (GMT-5)

At the Annunciation - The Cause of All Things

March 24, 2008 by fatherstephen

I treasure the small volume of George Gabriel,  Mary the Untrodden Portal of God. Gabriel occasionally strikes hard at the West and the book would perhaps be strengthened with a less combative approach to the differences of East and West in the faith (my own opinion), but I liked the book and found Gabriel addressing many things, well foot-noted, that are not found in many other places. I share an excerpt.

From eternity, God provided for a communion with His creation that would remain forever. In that communion mankind would attain to the eternal theosis for which it was made. The communion, of course, is the Incarnation through the Ever-Virgin. Mankind’s existence and, therefore, that of all creation is inexorably tied to Mary because she was always to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word. The fathers say that neither the course of human events nor necessity of any kind forced the Uncreated One to join to Himself a creaturely mode of existence. God did not become flesh because some actions of the devil or of man made it necessary, but because it was the divine plan and mystery from before the ages. Despite the works of Satan and the coming of sin into the world, the eternal will of God was undeterred, and it moved forward.

History and the course of human events were the occasion and not the cause of the Incarnation. The Incarnation did not take place for the Crucifixion; the Crucifixion took place so the Incarnation and the eternal communion of God and man could be fulfilled despite Satan, sin, and death. Explaining that there was no necessity in God the Father that required the death of His Son, St. Gregory the Theologian says of the Father “neither asked for Him nor demanded Him, but accepts [His death] on account of the economy [of the Incarnation] and because mankind must be sanctified by the humanity of God.” St. Gregory is telling us that, from before the ages, it was the divine will for mankind to be sanctified and made immortal by communion with the humanity of the Incarnate God, but corruptibility and death came and stood in the way.  By His Passion and Resurrection, Jesus Christ destroyed these obstacles and saved, that is, preserved, mankind for the Incarnation’s eternal communion of the God-Man and immortal men. St. John of Damascus repreats the same idea that the Incarnation is a prior and indeed ontological purpose in itself, and that redemption is the means to that end. Thus, he says the Holy Virgin “came to serve in the salvation of the world so that the ancient will of God for the Incarnation of the Word and our own theosis may be fulfilled through her.”

It seems worthwhile to me, for us to meditate on the fullness of our salvation which is to be accomplished in God’s great Pascha. Indeed, it seems to me that everything always was about Pascha - the “Lamb was slain before the foundation of the earth” (Rev. 13:8) We are approaching the end of all things - and, I should add, their beginning as well.

Reposted from a year ago.

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/at-the-annunciation-the-cause-of-all-things/

Post Edited (readingagoodbook) : 3/24/2008 10:36:48 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Joe McCowan) : 3/26/2008 1:51:24 PM (GMT-5)