How could God's form be seen prior to His incarnation?
score:7
Methinks that the problem lies with this statement:
I stated that He entered into the physical world in His incarnation.
Your multiple examples demonstrate that God did manifest a physical form before He was incarnated in Jesus. However, this physical form wasn't necessarily human flesh and blood. Quite possibly a human appearance, like the angels (Mark 16:5-6 as an example), but not necessarily human "material", so to speak.
So, in essence, God may have had a flesh-and-blood body only after the incarnation, but there's no reason He couldn't have had a physical form (that looked like a human) before the incarnation.
Upvote:0
You're thinking of God the father, when in reality Jesus was the one walking with Abraham and wrestling with Jacob.
The word "God" used in Genesis is translated from the Hebrew word "Elohim" which is a plural referring to multiple Gods. We see why in Colossians 1 The Supremacy of Christ. In this chapter the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ created everything and sustains everything.
Jesus is God's Word, when God has something to say or do, He sends Jesus.
Upvote:0
Exodus 33:20 NET But he added, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.”
How does a God who can not be approached safely interact with man? Every instance of God communicating with men in some physical sense would require Him to assume some form that enabled that communication.
Quotes from Tektonics Article
Quote
Dunn puts it succinctly: "What pre-Christian Judaism said of Wisdom and Philo also of the Logos, Paul and the others say of Jesus. The role that Proverbs, ben Sira, etc. ascribe to Wisdom, these earliest Christians ascribe to Jesus." [James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making,167] This conception of Wisdom parallels a less significant, general Jewish explanation of how a transcendent God could participate in a temporal creation. The Aramaic Targums resolved this problem by equating God with His Word; thus, in the Targums, Exodus 19:17, rather than saying the people went out to meet God, it says that the people went out to meet the word of God, or Memra.
Quote
Nor is a trinitarian concept entirely foreign to Judaism. O'Neill [JCO.WD, 94] records the words of the Jewish historian Philo, a contemporary of Jesus, who laid out this exposition upon the three men who came to visit Abraham in Genesis 18:2, and were presumed to be divine figures: ”...the one in the middle is the Father of the Universe, who in the sacred scriptures is called by his proper name, I am that I am; and the beings on each side are those most ancient powers which are always close to the living God, one of which is called his creative power, and the other his royal power.”
No one would question that Philo was a Jewish monotheist; yet here we have an exposition perfectly compatible with the Trinity: the Father, The Creative Power (the Son, or the Word), and the Royal Power (the Holy Spirit).
More post
- 📝 Can or should a consecrated Host be adored by way of a live Eucharistic televised broadcast?
- 📝 Is Ecclesiology more closely related to Christology or Pneumatology?
- 📝 Does the Bible ever reference dancing angels?
- 📝 Wilhelm Gesenius' vowel pointing of the tetragrammaton YHWH
- 📝 Mere Christianity Book I Chapters 1 and 2: How would Lewis explain morality being inherently known but also taught?
- 📝 Where in the Catechism can one read about sins of omission?
- 📝 Did GOD create pathogens after the sin of Adam and Eve?
- 📝 What is the Roman Catholic point of view regarding spies who commit suicide in order to avoid capture?
- 📝 How do protestant youth group ministers reach apathetic parents of religious education students?
- 📝 Did William Cowper believe himself to be saved at the end of his life?
- 📝 Church Fathers on Sola Scriptura
- 📝 What is the Biblical basis for Total Depravity?
- 📝 Does Mary possess the episcopal dignity like that of a bishop to "lay hands" to confer the gifts of the Holy Spirit not possessed by ordinary priest?
- 📝 Biblical basis for two aspects of the Gap Theory
- 📝 How do Biblical Unitarians, who deny the Son's pre-existence, understand Hebrews 1:2's "through whom He made the universe"?
- 📝 What does the Catholic church say about the book of Ezekiel, chapter 23
- 📝 When is "Thanks Be to God" said in the mass?
- 📝 When and why did Protestantism begin moving away from liturgy?
- 📝 From a Catholic perspective, why did Jesus address Martha in Luke 10:41 by repeating her name?
- 📝 What is an overview of beliefs on how one can lose salvation?
- 📝 What is a spirit attachment?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church consider not administering a feeding tube passive euthanasia?
- 📝 Why is Hebrews considered inerrant?
- 📝 Have Jehovah's Witnesses' top leadership made a "vow of poverty"?
- 📝 Early Christian Reaction to Muhammad
- 📝 According to Catholicism did Pope Linus know that he was the Pope and Head of the Church?
- 📝 What exactly are 'private vows'?
- 📝 Were the councils of the 4th and 5th centuries primarily to deal with Apocryphal writings?
- 📝 What, historically, was the stance of the Catholic Church about the duty to obey non-Christian governments?
- 📝 Does worship bring joy to God?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How could God's form be seen prior to His incarnation?
- 📝 According to Ravi Zacharias's apologetic argument, how could love have existed prior to the fall?
- 📝 How could Christ offer His blood to those under the Law, when He was forbidden by heritage?
- 📝 How were people saved prior to 33 AD?
- 📝 How could Jacob wrestle with God if no one can see God and live?
- 📝 How could Jesus be born during the reign of Herod, and when Quirinius was governor of Syria, if those periods were not contemporary?
- 📝 If God set the maximum age to 120, then how could Jacob be 130 years old?
- 📝 How would Reformed Christians deal with h*m*sexual marriage of individuals prior to their conversion to Christianity?
- 📝 How could Stephen be stoned without a trial and conviction in front of the Roman Governor?
- 📝 How could a loving, just, merciful God have created such an unfair test for humans?
- 📝 How long did it take to form the Biblical canon?
- 📝 How could animals have gotten all around the world after the flood?
- 📝 How could a sinless Mary die?
- 📝 How could Jesus' audience hear Jesus without audio installation?
- 📝 How do Christians reconcile God's omnipotence with his omniscience?
- 📝 How could Jesus get followers so easily?
- 📝 How have Protestants explained how Jesus could be born of mankind and be sinless?
- 📝 How could a seventh-century heretic have possessed papal infallibility?
- 📝 How could Jesus be surprised?
- 📝 How could Jesus be descended from the royal line of David if he was born of the Virgin Birth?
- 📝 In Mormonism, how is the doctrine of Adam & Eve inability to have children prior to the Fall explained?
- 📝 A problem with Purgatory: How could Jesus say what he did to the repentant criminal on a cross next to him if Purgatory existed?
- 📝 How similar was the resurrected body of Jesus to his physical human body?
- 📝 How could God be around Satan?
- 📝 The Pope is resigning. How does a living pope confer his authority?
- 📝 How could the Egyptian magicians do what God did through Moses?
- 📝 How did the Catholic Church function logistically/liturgically prior to the invention of the printing press?
- 📝 How could Cain have built Enoch?
- 📝 How did Gideon win his battle against the Midianites?
- 📝 What could be the reason for Jesus not telling His disciples to write down whatever He was teaching them?