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Avatar – Even the Title
The scientific world of the West looks upon the word avatar as meaning “a visible manifestation or embodiment of an abstract concept; archetype.” The entertainment game world of the West views the term as meaning “a user in a multi-user virtual reality (or VR-like).” But the word “avatar” in Hindu mythology means “the descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god.” Dictionary.com. Thus, even the title shows the theme of the man from heaven coming down to people, taking on their form, and giving his life to save and rule them.
We have modernized and made it technical. Of course, the Christian view of the term is most perfectly embodied in Christ, who truly was from heaven, truly was perfect, truly was holy, truly was and is eternal in the heavens, having come down from heaven to take upon Himself the form of man and save and rule him.
But Christ didn’t just take on a temporary form of man; He became 100% man yet remained 100% God. This was the issue at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. There had been controversy before that year as to just how Christ, the Son of God & 2nd person of the Trinity, could be both God & man. Was He a 50%-50% type of being? Was there some kind of mixture? Or were the two substances, divine & human, completely separate? These were important questions because the bible requires that man, though created in the image of God, be seen as entirely different from God in His transcendent, incommunicable attributes. E.g., man has a soul that lasts forever & can discern good & evil, but he may not determine what good & evil are. That is God’s role, & it was the mixing of roles which got Adam & Eve & the entire human race in trouble in the Garden of Eden. Man has a beginning, God does not. Man knows things incompletely & imperfectly, God knows all things perfectly. Etc.
Here’s the statement on the matter from the Chalcedon Council:
“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως – in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter) the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence (hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.”
There are numerous important effects this doctrine of God & man have on every aspect of life – from science to politics to gender. R.J. Rushdoony has written on some of those effects in his book, The Foundations of Social Order: Studies in the Creeds and Councils of the Early Church.
Some of the key distinguishing features of Christ’s incarnation & every other religion which includes an Avatar: Christ did not act like a God while on earth but lived like a man, Christ’s incarnation was not caused by carnal action but by the Spirit of God, Christ retains a human body until today & through eternity but not a body like ours, & Christ shares with us the gift of a new body at the end of history.