Jesus Had To Be A True Human Male and True God

By: Rev. Jack Cascione
This article is written in reply to Rev. Mark Eddy who takes issue with the
Nov. 19, 2002 Reclaim News Article titled, "Woman Lobbies LCMS Commission
About Removing 'Men' From Creed"

Dear Rev. Mark Eddy:

While I certainly appreciate some of your very fine theological insights about keeping the word "men" in the Nicene Creed, the article in question never claimed to be a thorough examination of the subject.

You claim the article was off the mark because I failed to say that the removal of "men" from the Nicene Creed leads to a Calvinistic limited atonement.  However, the article stated, "The male gender is maintained in Romans 5:12 in order to demonstrate the total salvation achieved by Christ." To my understanding, keeping "total salvation achieved by Christ" means I must reject a limited atonement.  Just two days after this article was written, I also published on Reclaim News, "Second, the omission of the word 'men' severs the incarnation of Christ from His atoning work."

If we leave out the word "men" in the Nicene Creed, you are quite correct when you say, "If we simply confess that the Son of God 'for us and for our salvation came down from heaven,' the question is raised 'who is US?'  Is 'us' only the elect (as Calvin taught) or is 'us' what the Nicene Creed really means 'us human beings,' which agrees with the biblical teaching of universal atonement.  Jesus died for 'all' not just for 'us' believers who might be confessing the Creed."

Should I now conclude that you are in error because you failed to mention that maintaining the word "men" in the Nicene Creed also maintains the doctrine of objective justification?  "Who for us men" means Christ died for all mankind.  However, "Who for us" implies that he only died for the believers.  We have clergy in our own LCMS who believe that Romans 4:25 teaches Christ only justifies those with faith when it says, "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." They falsely claim the word "our" only means believers and not all mankind. Keeping, "for us men" in the Creed helps avoid the misinterpretation often
leveled at Rom. 4:25.

You have another objection when I write that the removal of the word "men" from the Nicene Creed must inevitably change the identity of Who came to save us.  You write: "This is not a logical conclusion.  The Nicene Creed clearly teaches 'Who came to save us.' He is 'God from God, Light from Light, very God from very God ...incarnate of the Virgin Mary . . . ."

Again, you missed my point.  We all know that the Nicene Creed says these things about Jesus.  I'm saying that not only must we know who Jesus is but that He had to be a human male in order to accomplish His work of salvation. His gender cannot be incidental to His saving the human race.  Christ had to be a human male because Adam was a male.  Removing "men" from the Nicene Creed removes the necessity of Christ coming to save all human males, which means Christ saved, all people.  In Adam, all die. In Christ, all live. Feminist theology attacks the necessity of Christ being a human male and likes to call God "mother" instead of "Father."

Now we get to your real issue with the article.  I wrote, "God did not say that Eve was the final cause of the fall, but that Adam was the final cause of damnation, even though Eve was also guilty.  Adam was ultimately responsible."

You respond, "Where does this new doctrine come from? Where does the Bible say that Adam is 'the final cause of damnation?' If a person is damned, he is damned for his own sins. It is true that we all received a sinful nature from Adam. But that is not the cause of our damnation. God damns a person because that person is sinful. 'The soul that sins shall die' (Ezek. 18:4). We cannot blame Adam for our sinful nature.  Our sinful nature is truly sinful and deserves damnation all by itself."

I beg to differ.  I certainly do blame Adam for my sinful nature.  Now you accuse me of inventing a new doctrine because I say that Adam caused the fall of the human race!  Yes, the sins that I commit are the sins that I do and not Adam.  But where did my original sin come from?  Why does the Bible say that in Adam all die?  If you don't like the phrase that Adam is the final cause of sin, who else do you think is the reason that all people are sinful?

"1] Here we must confess, as Paul says in Rom. 5, 11, that sin originated [and entered the world] from one man Adam, by whose disobedience all men were made sinners, [and] subject to death and the devil. This is called original or capital sin."  (Concordia Triglotta Smalcald Articles Part III Art. I Page 477)

"66] But what is the old man? It is that which is born in us from Adam, angry, hateful, envious, unchaste, stingy, lazy, haughty, yea, unbelieving, infected with all vices, and having by nature nothing good in it." (Concordia Triglotta Large Catechism, Lord's Prayer Fourth Petition page 717)

I keep speaking about Adam as representing the entire human race and you keep rejecting that argument.  In the article, I repeatedly said that Eve sinned, but the Bible holds Adam to a higher accountability than Eve according to Roman 5:12 and I Tim. 2:14.

"It is the plain teaching of Scripture that in relation to the man, the woman is in a position of subordination.  Both the order of creation and the order established after the Fall assign her that position." Pieper Vol. I page 524

Men and women cannot be equally responsible before God, because God placed man in authority over woman.

The Bible teaches that sin entered the world by one man.  Eve sinned, but she is not the subject of Romans chapter 5:12ff.   The dichotomy is drawn between Adam and Christ not between Eve and Christ.

You are correct when you say that Eve had no mother.  If you don't care for the etymology of the word "woman" being from the womb of man, I can't make a doctrine out of that.  Adam's rib is not really a womb.  Yet, we do have to say that Eve was made from Adam and her origin is from Adam.

I'm going to extend the following chiasm that you don't like or agree with:

The devil, a fallen angel, tempts Eve who then tempts Adam.  At the resurrection, the angels give the Gospel to Mary who gives it to the Apostles.  The progression of the Fall is from a fallen angel, to a woman, to a man.  The progression of the saving message of the Gospel is from an angel, to a woman, to a man.

Yes, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are the Gospel.  But you are mistaken in your claim that subject of creation in the Creed is Law. Creation is Law and Gospel.  Dr. Robert Preus, along with Dr. Norbert Mueller, sat in on my theological review before graduating from the Seminary.  One of the questions from Preus was, "Is creation Law or Gospel?" I responded, "Law."  Mueller agreed.  Preus said we were both wrong.  He said, "Creation is Law and Gospel."

The primary emphasis in the Creeds in the use of the word, "created" is the Gospel.  When both Law and Gospel are presented, the Gospel must predominate.

Obviously I'm not going to press the etymology of the English word "woman" as a doctrinal position.  I offered it more in terms of speculation and observation.  However, you consistently reject my position that it was necessary for Jesus take on the form of a human male because Adam was a human male.

You know that the first meaning of the Greek word "men" in the Nicene Creed is "man or men." Your argument from the Greek is quite useless here because you separate the grammar from the facts of the Bible.  Jesus was a human male and He had to be a human male in order to save the human race.  He had to be the new Adam.

My position, which is not as important as the issue of objective justification stated above, is that the phrase "who for us men" must be maintained in order to affirm Christ's gender.  He is the God/man who died for all men, which must include all women and children.

Adam, the man, not Eve, the woman, is the type of Christ.

December 4, 2002