Discussion on comparing "human relations" to God
▲From the Old Testament to the New Testament, we see the face of God shown to people: the first is "kings and ministers". Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis first name the creator of the heavens and earth, and then gradually reveal God as the Father.
God became flesh and directly intervened in "human relations".
It is to enable people to understand God’s will and achieve salvation.
But that doesn’t mean God became a human being…
The first draft of this article was reviewed by theologian Dr. Yu Zhongmin. He said that most people today may not understand "human relations" very well, so it would be better to give a brief explanation first. What the doctor said makes sense. In fact, in today's terms, "human relations" refers to interpersonal relationships and the principles of life; people are family-centered, and clan relationships and other relationships develop from this.
"The Analects of Confucius" "Weizi" states "Lun Zhonglun", and "The Rites and Sacrifice System" states "There are ten ethics in heavenly sacrifices". The note states: "Lun is also the same as righteousness. Yi is also the same as reason." "Mencius" "Li Lou" chapter says: "Observe human relations", note: "Lun, preface." Preface is the principle, and observing human relations means understanding the principles of human affairs. Talking about "human relations" means talking about people's duties, categories, affinities, etc. The so-called order of elders and younger ones, distinction between men and women, restraint of closeness and distance, and the way for people to get along with each other are the so-called "ethics".
Looking at "Human Relations" from the Bible
"There are five ways to achieve perfection in the world. Therefore, there are three ways to practice them. They are: ruler and minister, father and son, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, and friendship. The five ways to achieve perfection in the world are those who are knowledgeable, benevolent, and brave. Those who are wise, benevolent, and brave are the principles of excellence in the world. Virtue. Therefore, those who practice it are the same." (Chapter 20 of "The Doctrine of the Mean") This is the five ethics of Confucianism, and it is also the ethical framework of China and the world. Human beings survive in these five basic relationships. These five relationships are the norms of human ethics, and no mortal can exist without them.
Human relationships are mostly based on irreplaceable blood ties. Among the five Chinese ethics, father and son, husband and wife, and brothers belong to the ethics of blood, while monarchs, ministers, and friends belong to the ethics of politics and society, and there are differences between closeness and distance. To sum up, the most basic condition of human relations is established in the relationship between husband and wife, and only then can there be the reproduction of father and son, Kundi and other races. Just as God declared to the first couple after creating man:"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." (Genesis 1:28)
The most basic element of human relations is the union of men and women; first there are husband and wife, and then there are other human relations such as parent-child, brother, etc. This is an unbreakable law established by God Himself. No one in the world can escape from this law, and it can even continue to the underworld (refer to Luke Chapter 16:19-31, the rich man still cares for his five brothers in the underworld).
This unbreakable ethical phenomenon is forged by blood and culture. Although there are subtle differences due to language, race and region, it generally develops under the same concept. When God performs salvation, he also enters the human world through this ethical channel. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, we see the face of God shown to man: the first is "king and ministers." Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis first point out the relationship between the creator and the creation, and then gradually reveal God as the heavenly Father.
The relationship between the Israelites and God, from kings and ministers to father and son, is not revealed much in the Old Testament, with only a few records (refer to 1 Chronicles 29:10; Psalm 68:5, 89:26; Isaiah 9 :6, 64:8; Jeremiah 3:19, 31:9; Malachi 2:10). There are countless passages in the New Testament that mention God as Father, or that Christ regards God as Father. Since the birth of Jesus, the concepts of Heavenly Father and Fatherhood have become more popular among people.
The human relationship between husband and wife is the most basic relationship between human beings. The Bible also has a lot of ink on the meaning of husband and wife, which first appears in the Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon). The description of the love between men and women deeply touches on the connotation of the third relationship in human relations. Most theologians interpret this book in an allegorical way, that is, chapters 1 to 3 of the Song of Songs are interpreted as "the love between Christ and the church", and chapter 8 is "the love of the church for Christ." In the New Testament, Christ typifies the bridegroom (refer to Matthew 9:15, 25:1-13); the church typifies the bride (refer to John 3:29; Revelation 18:23, 19:7, 21:9, 22:17).
As for friendship, the Bible also mentions it. In the Old Testament, God called Moses and Abraham friends (see Exodus 33:11; Isaiah 41:8). But in the New Testament, Christ came into the world as a man and became a friend who laid down his life for others (see John 15:13-15; James 2:23). In this way, it is very clear to use human relations to explain the relationship between man and God, and it also confirms people's understanding of God. It is implicit that "human relations" are used to imitate God, and it is a vague concept based on imagination. For example, when people think of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, they will unconsciously compare it to the relationship between human beings.
The fallacy of comparing "human relations" to God
Since the distance between God and man is far away, and the difference between man and God is even more unimaginable, in order for God to be present in the world, he must be understood by man, so he came to the world in the form of incarnation to shorten the distance between God and man, and there is the so-called "Anthropomorphism" or "Anthropomorphism" is only a way of God's presence to humans, not the true image of God. The Lord once said: "God is Spirit" (see John 4:24), and humans cannot imitate God in a fixed image. However, God is present in humans and sometimes appears in human form. Therefore, in Ezekiel 1:26, the prophet mentions: "having a form like a human being", which should be the origin of the earliest anthropomorphism.
"And above their heads in the firmament was the likeness of a throne like a sapphire stone; and above the likeness of the throne there was the likeness of a man. And I saw from His waist upwards something like shining gold, and round about it was the likeness of fire; and And I saw a shape like fire from the waist down, and there was a brightness all around. Just like the shape of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the shape of the brightness around him. When I saw this, I fell down to the ground. And I heard the voice of someone speaking.” (Ezekiel 1:26-28)
However, the Greek philosopher Xenophanes (570-475 BC) and scholars of Judaism and Islam do not agree with the "anthropomorphism" theory and believe that the almighty God should not be compared to the human image or mind. In fact, people have never really seen God. What the prophet Isaiah saw was only God’s clothes (refer to Isaiah 6:1), and Moses could only see God’s back (refer to Exodus 33:20 -23), rather than the whole picture of God.
When God appeared to people in the Old Testament era, he mostly used natural forces, such as fire, lightning, and earthquakes (God appeared to the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings Chapter 19). God really officially showed himself to people through Jesus. The incarnation of Christ (see John 1:18). All "anthropomorphisms" are human imagination, used to implement people's virtual expectations of God's image.
▲After people enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they no longer marry, and the relationships between father and son and between husband and wife disappear. Therefore, all discussions and thoughts involving God conceived in terms of human relations are fallacious.
The human relationship derived from human blood (refer to John 1:13) is naturally misappropriated to compare the relationship between the "Trinity" true God, thus causing serious misleading. Even the "Trinity" doctrine recognized by the church, if carefully studied, also vaguely projects some flavor of human ethics.
The doctrine of the "Trinity" first took shape in the third century AD. By the eighth century AD, it had been confirmed and accepted by the church at that time. In 1054 AD, the Greek Church and the Roman Catholic Church split, and the Greek Church was officially named the Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Eastern Church. One of the reasons for the schism is that the two churches have different opinions on the "I believe in the Holy Spirit" part of the Nicene Creed. The part about the Holy Spirit in the Roman Catholic Nicene Creed is: "Proceed from the Father and the Son. ”, but the Greek church objected to adding the words “and the Son”, which shows that the Greek Orthodox Church regards the Father as the highest authority, followed by the Son, and then the Holy Spirit. In this way, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of the "Trinity" are placed in a high and low order, and the Father is respected as the highest level. In addition to doctrinal explanations, such a situation should be more or less influenced by the concept of father and son in human ethics, and is implicitly interpreted in terms of human relationships.
The pronouns for God in the Bible are always male He (He), so the mural "God Created Adam" painted by Michelangelo on the roof of the Vatican Church is an old man with a beard. However, with the rise of feminism in the modern church, it has actually raised objections; it believes that God should also be a woman, and advocates that God can also be called She (She); this is a reflection of the two genders designed by God for the inheritance and reproduction of mankind, and reflects them back to the Creator. In fact, It's disrespectful.
God originally created man in his own image (Genesis 1:26 should refer to human nature), but man instead advocates "anthropomorphizing God": God can "hear", "see", and "Walking" etc. Of course, God's incarnation directly intervenes in "human relations" in order to make people understand God's will and achieve salvation, but it does not mean that God has become a human being. Although God created all things (including humans), he is above all things; God created time and space, but he transcends the limitations of time and space; God is a spirit, a transcendent existence, and cannot be tied to "human relations."
Man has misunderstood God
Since the time of the apostles, the "three major creeds" (the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed) that have been agreed upon by the church through many meetings throughout the ages are all necessary and can comprehensively and concisely explain people's faith. But when it comes to the person, attributes, and deeds of the "Trinity" true God, people can only know and be convinced from the parts of the Bible that are actively revealed by God.
Regarding the order of arrangement of the "Trinity", people should not make any unreasonable remarks. Man is so insignificant compared to God. Man is a creature, and God is the Creator. How can a created man make rash comments about the Creator, let alone impose human ethics on God? Strictly speaking, this is blasphemy and disrespect. But when people think this way, they simply forget that God is a transcendent being and that God is not included in human relations. Although Christ once intervened in the world of human relations when he became flesh, after He completed his mission of redemption and was resurrected and ascended to heaven, he returned to his true Godhood. People can no longer view Christ in terms of human relations. If you continue to insist on the fictional argument of "anthropomorphism", think too much and go too far, it will become a narrow "anthropomorphism".
There is another specific example to illustrate. In the Gospel of Luke, "The Sadducees refute the resurrection", the dialogue between the Lord and the Sadducees:
"The Sadducees always said that there is no resurrection. Some of them came to Jesus and asked, 'Teacher, Moses wrote for us: If a man dies having a wife and has no children, his brother shall take his wife as his brother's wife. There were seven brothers, and the first married him and died without children; the second and the third also married him; and those seven men all married him and died without children. The woman also died. So, whose wife will she be when she is resurrected? Because all seven of them were married to her."
Jesus said, "People of this world marry and are given in marriage; but those who are reckoned worthy of that world, and those who are raised from the dead, neither marry nor are given in given; for they cannot die any more, like the angels; but they who are resurrected , as the Son of God. As for the resurrection of the dead, Moses made it clear when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob in the chapter on the bush. God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living; for with Him all people are alive. ’” (Luke 20:27-38)
From this dialogue, we can see how serious the mistake is in imposing a human ethics point of view on God. Regarding the human relationship established by marriage between the sexes, if one day in heaven there will still be relationships between men and women, all kinds of doubts will arise. Christ clearly revealed here: After people enter the kingdom of heaven, they must immediately change and lose their gender. Once the righteousness between man and woman and husband and wife among the five human relations is lost, the rest of the human relations will have a domino effect and fall down. Therefore, verse 36 says that man “can no longer die, and is the same as the angels (neutral), and since he is a resurrected man, he is the son of God.” People no longer marry, and the relationships between father and son and husband and wife in human relations will disappear. This is an earth-shaking change that no one in this world can imagine. If this is the case, can people still think about God based on human ethics? At that time, there will be only one relationship between man and God: everyone is the son of God (there is no male or female). Therefore, all discussions and thoughts involving God conceived in terms of human relations are fallacious. All human thinking patterns in time and space cannot be applied to the kingdom of heaven at all, let alone false claims of "divine ethics." God can declare His great love to man through “human ethics,” but people cannot use human ethics to impose arbitrary impositions on God’s person.
Author profile
Pastor Yin Ying is a writer who loves literature, nature and praising the Creator. He is also an editor, publisher and communication worker. He once served as corporate editor and president of church news weekly, producer and administrative director of radio and television programs, and pastored the church for more than 20 years. He is the author of many works such as "Return to the Pastoral", "The Bitter Cup and Feast of the Soul", "The Temptation of Stones", "The Footprints of Jesus", "Meditations under the Cross", etc.