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60 The Incorruptible God?

The Incorruptible God?

Terry Anderson

P roponents of a multi-person God almost Perplexed by this inscrutable Trinitar-
never attempt to explain how the preexistent ian idea the ordinary pew-sitter is committed
Son of God was separated from his to this puzzle: Even though God can’t die and
“godpower” or “essence” to become a man. Fre- God knows all and God is all-powerful these
quently they dismiss the problem as beyond all characteristics don’t matter because God be-
comprehension. They begin with the assumption came a man and left all that behind. So it is
that since the Trinity exists this transition from said that the immortal became mortal and
God to man must have happened. There is no died.
need to question its logic.
But what about incorruptibility?
Maybe the Son had a robe and the robe
had all the power. Then he removed the robe and In Romans the first chapter, God in-
“poof,” he shed his power. Then the Father and dicts the human race for rejecting His knowl-
the Holy Spirit put their heads together and said edge and creative powers. God complains
let’s make the Son into a sperm, and you, Holy that man, in his rush to reject God and rely on
Spirit, take the sperm and place it inside the his own wisdom, refashioned God to be like
woman Mary. So we assume that the “Son mem- the creation, like animals and corruptible
ber” of the Triune [or Biune] Godhead must man. Now isn’t that exactly what the propo-
have temporarily ceased to exist at the God level. nents of Trinitarian orthodoxy do in stating
For some 30 years then we had a Binitarian God- that Jesus was the preexistent God? They
head. Is this getting a little complex and clinical? made God corruptible. This corresponds also
Sorry, but to unravel the Trinitarian [or to the Trinitarian claims of dualism -- the con-
Binitarian] thinking there is no way around com- cept of two natures in Jesus which harmo-
plexity for it is inconceivable and confusing to nizes with the pagan philosophies of the time.
begin with. We still have the problem of incorruptibility,
though. This is a very challenging difficulty
All the attributes which make God spe- because we can’t get from point A (God) to
cial and unique have to be temporarily put on the point B (man) without the meaning of both
shelf if one is to believe in Jesus Christ as a real words -- God and man -- being destroyed.
human being. The immutability, omniscience, This is the same problem we have with im-
omnipresence and immortality of God have to be mortality (”tis mystery all -- the immortal
suspended for a time. The claim by some Trini- dies,” as the famous hymn tells us).
tarians is that when the God-Son became the
Man-Son then all these God traits were left be- How, if Jesus was God, could he have
hind. The eternal Son became mortal man in a become corruptible and not done horrific
transitory form awaiting his return to the God- damage to Paul’s statement about God’s in-
head. corruptibility? We know that God did not al-
low Jesus to see corruption, meaning that if

The Berean Voice September-October 2002