Omnipresent Body?? – February 8th, 2019
There is an interesting dispute among Lutherans and Presbyterians on this issue in regards to the Eucharist. Reformed accuse Lutherans of Eutychianism, and Lutherans accuse Reformed of Nestorianism.
Here is my take on this matter.
The creator of all things, God the Son, never stopped doing the business of God. He never ceased being the giver and source of all life to all things. His incarnation never stopped the energies and activities of God from being carried out through all creation, for the divinity of God the son is not limited or suppressed by His incarnation. Yet, Christ has two natures, one human, and one divine. Christ’s human nature is not omnipresent, as that would make his humanity something more than human. His human nature is limited, but the divine Son of God is not. It is the divinity of God that closes the gap between us, and his humanity.
To follow in that statement, the Eucharist does not allude to an omnipresence of his Human nature, for this would be an alteration of his human nature and subsequent inherent qualities attributed to humanity. Yet the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, God is multiplied without division, much like his energies existing through many and each individually. He is fully human, yet fully God, but one person. If Christ were the sun, the sun would only physically exist in one location, but his light (divinity) would emanate in all directions, without end or reduction.
Ultimately, the Eucharist, along with the Incarnation of Christ, are the great mysteries of our faith. We can only accept what is, but also what is not, and not succumb to an over intellectualization of God and the things of God, for he is not an object of our knowledge to be grasped and defined.
