The forbidden fruit irony, heresies concerning the nature of Christ and men’s denial of the

ordinary

Definition:

The incarnation in connection with the creation at God’s image both declare that

God intends to meet men not on an alien-exclusivist-demanding manner but on the ordinary

of existence.

Summary

Our ‘parents’ ate the fruit desiring to be like God. Ironically, they were God’s image.

The motif behind Heresies concerning the nature of Christ is one: God cannot be human. Be

the eating of the fruit or other extraordinary attempts to reach God, they all present men’s

incapability to commute with God where He is, on the ordinary of existence. Religion is not

humanity performing a supernatural effort to meet God but God supernaturally commuting

with humanity where they are, on the simplicity of ordinary life.

Introduction:

Naaman, a pagan used to the great demands of the gods to meet human needs, gets

shocked when Elisha, prophet of the Holy God, tells him that, if he wanted to be healed, he

should just take an ordinary, prolonged bath. No lonely hike to kill a mountain lion. No five

hundred foreskins. Too simple. No true God would be pleased with such lowly performance.

Therefore, the God of Israel is not true or, at least, not powerful. Naaman would not humble

himself by bathing in the waters of the Jordan. He headed back home. The servants

reasoned with him on the simplicity of the task and convinced him to try. The result? “His

flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.”i
 Naaman mindset is the same behind heresies concerning the nature of Christ: God

cannot be human, that is too humiliating. We may theoretically defend the Trinity’s

orthodox view, but it would be good to peruse our hearts to see if it is not heretic. As ‘sons

of Adam’ our hearts’ natural tendency is to that. The denial of the incarnation is intrinsically

connected with the original sin.

The original sin

“You will be like God”ii, this ambition lies at the bosom of every human being.

Augustine rightly prayed, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are

restless until they rest in You.” Taking this to a ubiquitous level, Bruce Marshall said: "The

young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.” iii We are all

seeking Godlikeness, the big mislead of the devil is guiding us to seek Him where He is not.

There is a deep sense of irony on the motivation of our ‘parents’ sin. “You will be like

God.” Were they not already like God? Seems that they were seeking to be what they

already were. Why? Are we not the same? Where do we seek God?

Jerusalem meets Athens

The progress of the gospel through the Mediterranean lead to a collision between

the Hebrew God and Greek philosophy. God, in Plato’s dualistic view, was the opposite of

what we experience in the material world: He was timeless, formless, emotionless... God

was alien to human finite, ordinary, inconstant, frail existence. To connect to god was to

transcend the finiteness and frailty of humanity and reach this apathetic, inhuman state of

godlikeness. To reach god is leave humanity and connect with the wholly other.
 The O.T God presented similarities with this Platonic Godiv: He does not change. He is

not like the inconstant and frail humanity. The problem is that Jerusalem is not Athens, in

Jerusalem things are and are not at the same time: The unchangeable God changes v , the

impassible God suffersvi . Jerusalem does not try to find a midterm on those issues, it

accepts it as it is. Contradictions are part of our finite understanding.

Christianity fostered but not without great pain and misunderstandings. Concepts do

not change easily. They can be changed in words, but to change it on the heart is a

completely different matter.

God incarnated: the most scandalous heresy

The problem between Incarnation and the Trinity is only one: God becoming human.

Humanity is the proper antithesis of Plato’s God, the expression of all that is unworthy and

must be abandoned in order to reach God. How can God become human? And, if the Three

are One, it is not Christ only the one being humanized, the whole Trinity is. If Christ is the

express image of God, what He isvii, then God is intrinsically connected with humanity.

This subverts deeply Plato’s god and our natural view of God. The suffering of Christ

is the suffering of the Trinity. His tears are God’s tears. His despair, God’s. His death is God’s

deathviii. That sounds to the platonic mind and to our natural heart the most aberrant of

heresies: God incarnated at the Cross.

The heresies concerning the nature of Christ are, therefore, not a matter of

convenience, but on its deep sense an attempt to preserve God’s holiness. To preserve God

as God and not as inherently connected with miserable humanity. If we analyze deeply our

hearts, instead of rage against those heresies we will perceive sympathy towards it, even a
species of identification. We may theoretically declare to believe on the Biblical and correct

doctrine of the Trinity. The question is: Does our hearts believe on it and its radical

implications?

Double denial

This brings us back to Eden. Why did our ‘parents’ fall? They heard the

‘sophisticated’ speech of the serpent and abandoned the ‘simplicity of the gospel’: God

commuting with them in the garden amidst the simplicity of the ordinary working and

keeping of the garden. Maybe as Naaman, they expected a more ostentatious God. It could

not be that simple, they may have thought. By eating the fruit, they denied God’s words and

themselves.

To deny the image is to deny the portrayed. By denying themselves, our parents

denied God. When we deny the two-sided nature of Christ, we deny God and ourselves. We

fall on the same lie of the serpent: you need more in order to be like God. We forget that we

already are God’s image. If the perfect Adam ix was the correct image of God, Christ

incarnated on the imperfect humanity post-fall is God’s demonstration that the ’image’ is

not to be abandoned but restored.

Restored for what?

Returning to our essence

If we follow the Bible plot, we will see a pattern: Community, Land, God abiding with

the community in the land. The community love each other, work and keep the land, and

commute with God. God nurtures the community, blesses the land and makes Himself

present. Isaiah’s prophecies concerning the end time of rest are profoundly related with the
landx. There is no ethereal eschatological existence. There is no content freed from form.

What we have is physicality and community: God abiding with his people in a physical

environment. Genesis begins with the creation of “heavens and earth”, revelation ends with

“new heavens and new earth.”

The argument here presented is that God’s incarnation, rather than a denial of

humanity is in fact its validation. Being so, the invitation of the gospel is not to inhumanity,

apathy, and disconnection from the ephemeral reality of ordinary existence. The gospel

rather invites us to embrace finite humanity and love it with all our heart, soul, strength and

mindxi because, in loving mankind, we are practicing our love of God xii. As Jesus said,

“whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me xiii.”

Acknowledgments

For the sake of conciseness and lack of time, some points were sub stated:

 By no means we deny God’s totally other nature and that there is more to know and

experiment of God than only the ordinary of life. He is Holy, Holy, Holy. No one can

enter on His mind or command Him what to do. What he purposes, He

accomplishes. That’s Biblical, relenting and correct.

 We recognize that even though God is man, He is not xiv. The play with Jesus’ words

about loving God wholly as loving humanity wholly intends to emphasize the

unbreakable connection between humanity and divinity. By no means we intend to

say that if we do philanthropy, we are loving God. Loving God and loving humanity

can’t be separated, that’s the point.

 We do affirm the corrosive effects of sin in humanity and embracing them are by no

means loving God. Sin dehumanizes, God restores.

iii
“The world, The flesh, and Father Smith”, Bruce Marshall

iv
Psalm 102:27; Isaiah 43:10; Malachi 3:6

v
Exodus 32:14

vi
Genesis 6:6

vii
Hebrews 1:3

viii
Of course, this does not mean that the Trinity died, the Bible is clear that Christ is the only one who did it. The

experience of death however cannot be fully experienced but in community. Death is tasted not only by the one who

dies but also by those who stay. To taste death on its fullness (perishment and grief), more than one is needed.

ix
Male and female, Genesis 5:1-3

x
Isaiah 65:21-25

xi
Luke 10:27

No, I am not twisting the commandment. The love of God is primal. There can be no true love outside of a love wholly

dedicated to God. The point is that, especially after incarnation, God and humanity cannot be separated (2 Peter 1:

3,4; Ephesians 3:15-19). There are no different kinds of love, there is the fountain and the flow. Loving God wholly is

the fountain which the flow leads us to love humanity wholly.

xii
1 John 4:12

xiii
Matthew 25:40

xiv
Numbers 23:19