The Present Existence Of Christ's Human Nature

The view taken of the Christ of the past necessarily affects belief in

the Christ of the present. It is scarcely possible to realise the

present existence of a human Christ, unless the fact of His actual

human existence in the first century of our era be grasped. If He had

but one nature on earth, He has but one nature now in heaven. If the

historic Christ was monophysite, so also is the Christ to whom we pray.

In t is consequence consists the seriousness of modern monophysitism.

The present reality of His human nature is to-day even among His

followers doubted, obscured, or forgotten. Christ is to many spiritual

minds merely an ideal personality, a summary of their own ethical

ideals. They perhaps regard Him as a disembodied spirit or mysterious

influence. They rarely attain the catholic standpoint and see the

human nature as a psychic entity actually existent to-day. At any rate

the doctrine is not thought out to its consequences. The "perpetual

intercession" is, it is feared, little more than a phrase. That Christ

as man still intercedes for men is a verity not understood and only

half appreciated. Yet the official doctrine of orthodoxy teaches that

there is a full and true continuity of existence between the Christ of

Galilee and the Christ to whom we pray. The Church teaches that there

is somewhere, in some transcendent form of existence, a being with

perfect human mind, whose will in strength and scope is perfectly

proportioned to His knowledge, whose feelings are in perfect mutual

harmony, whose psychic nature finds outward expression in a glorified

body; that this perfect being once walked this earth, and yet had and

has the ground of His being in a divine personality. Such a Christ the

latent monophysitism of our thinking hides from our view.