Nature of the Christ continued

Translation of the postumous writings of Allan Kardec on the study of the nature of Jesus Christ

The Words of Jesus after His Death

Jesus answered him, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brothers and say to them: Father and your Father, to MY GOD and your God.” (John 20:17)

But Jesus came to them and said, "All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18, Appearance to the Apostles)

"Now you are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you the gift of my Father, which was promised to you. "(Luke, 24: 48 and 49. Apparition to the Apostles)

Then everything in the words of Jesus - whatever He said in life, death - accuses a duality of perfectly distinct entities, as well as the deep feeling of His inferiority and His subordination to the Supreme Being. By His insistence on asserting it spontaneously-without being embarrassed or provoked by anyone- He seems to want to protest in advance against the role attributed to Him after His prediction. If He had kept quiet about His personality, the field would have been open to all assumptions as well as to all systems. But the accuracy of His language eliminates all uncertainties. What greater authority can be sought than that of His own words? When He says categorically: I am or are not this or that, who would dare to arrogate the right to deny it, even if to put it higher than He Himself puts Himself? Who can rationally claim to be more enlightened than He is about His own nature? What interpretations may prevail against statements as formal and multiplied as these:

"I came not from myself, but he who sent me is the only true God.”

"I say what I have seen with my Father."

"It is not for me to grant you this; it shall be for them whom my Father hath prepared.”

"I go to my Father, because my Father is greater than I am.”

"Why do you call me good?" “Good there is but God alone.”

"I have not spoken for myself; my Father, who sent me, it was he who commanded me, by his command, what I should say.”

"The doctrine that I preach is not mine, but the one that sent me.”

"The word you have heard is not mine, but my Father's who sent me. “

"I do nothing of myself; I say only what my Father taught me.”

"I can do nothing of myself. “

"I do not care to do my will, but the will of the one who sent me.”

"I have told you the truth that I have learned from God. - My food is to do the will of him that sent me. - You who are the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. "My Father, into your hands I commend my soul.” “My Father, if it be possible, may I have this chalice to depart from me." - I am going up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. "

When we read such words, we wonder how it might have come to anyone's mind to attribute to them a meaning diametrically opposite to what they indicate so clearly, of conceiving a complete identification, of nature and of power, between the Lord and the one who declares himself his servant. In this great process, which lasts almost fifteen centuries, what are the pieces of conviction? The Gospels - there are no others - which, at the point of disagreement, do not give rise to any misunderstanding. What do they oppose to authentic documents, which cannot be disputed, without disputing the truthfulness of the evangelists and of Jesus himself, documents that rely on eyewitness accounts? A purely speculative theoretical doctrine, born three centuries later, from a controversy waged on the abstract nature of the Word - doctrine that was rigorously fought for many centuries and which only prevailed by the pressure of an absolute civil power.

Double Nature of Jesus

They could dispute that, because of the double nature of Jesus, his words expressed his feeling as a man and not as God. Without examining at this moment for which chaining of circumstances arrived at the hypothesis of this double nature much later, let us admit it for a moment and see if, instead of elucidating the question, it does not complicate it even more, to the point of making it insoluble: What would be human in Jesus was the body, the material part. From this point of view, we understand that he could have suffered and even suffered as a man. What is divine in him is the soul, the Spirit, the mind- finally the spiritual part of Being. If he felt and suffered as a man, he would think and speak as God. Did he speak as a human or as God? This is an important question, because of the exceptional authority of his teachings. If He spoke as a man, His words are controversial; if He spoke as God, they are indisputable and we must accept and conform to them, under penalty of desertion and heresy. The more orthodox will be the one who comes closest to them. Will they say that under his bodily wrappings, Jesus was not aware of his divine nature? But if He were so, He would not even have thought as God, His divine nature would have remained latent; only human nature would have presided over His mission, His moral acts, and His material acts. So it is impossible not to consider His divine nature during His life, without His authority weakening. But if He spoke as God, why this incessant protest against His divine nature which, in such a case, He could not ignore? Then He would have been mistaken - which would be little divine - or would have duly misled the world - which would still be less. We find it difficult to get out of this dilemma. If we admit that He spoke now as a man and prays as God, the question is complicated by the impossibility of separating what came from man and what came from God. Since He had motives for concealing His true nature during his mission, the simplest way would have been not to speak of it, or - as He did in other circumstances - to express Himself in a vague and symbolic way, on the points whose knowledge was reserved to the future. This is not the case here, since the above words are not ambiguous. Finally, in spite of all these considerations, if we could still suppose that, when He lived, He ignored His true nature, it can no longer be admitted, after his resurrection, that when He appears to His disciples, it is the man who speaks, it is the Spirit detached from matter, who has already regained the fullness of his spiritual capacities and the consciousness of his normal state, of His identification with divinity. However, it was then that He said: I go up to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God! The subordination of Jesus is still indicated by His very quality as mediator, which implies the existence of a distinct person. It is He who intercedes with his Father; who offers Himself as a sacrifice for the remission of sinners. Now if He were God Himself, or if He were all equal to God, He would not have to intercede, because no one intercedes with himself.