Jon,
I sure won't lay claim to the clearest posts around here. I did not mean to imply that Jesus was only an idea. I believe that Jesus(or the Christ) was with the Father from the beginning. And I do believe He came as a very real physical man to walk on this earth. I was speaking of the "images" we tend to draw, carve, paint, etc. come from our own experience. When I meditate on something say like Jesus death on the cross, I am like most, I will try in my mind to "see" a physical Jesus, and that image comes from my own experience.
Same would be if I try to see ,say, John the Baptist. I believe he was a real person, and it was said he was a wild man, living off the land, so my "picture" of him would be of mangy hair, long beard, dirty fingernails(except when he was baptizing in the river of course) :o)etc. etc.
IF you assumed that Jesus was a real man, would you not expect Him to look like his environment? His people?
Yet now it is said:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
that is what I meant about becoming like Him, and not the other way around.
dan |
