Christology – orthopraxy.com

His Opponents Became His Trumpets

This is amazing: while our Lord was calling Himself Son of Man, His enemies had unwittingly made Him God, the forgiver of sins! Thinking they had trapped Him with their strategy, it was He Who had confused them with their own strategy. And by confusing them with their own strategy, He made them testify to His truth. Their evil thinking was their bitter bondage, and to make sure that they would not escape their bondage, our Lord strengthened it for them by strengthening the paralytic and saying: ‘Get up; take your stretcher and go home.’ It would be impossible for them to retract their testimony that He is God, because He had in fact forgiven sins. Nor could it be proved that He had not forgiven sins, because He had in fact restored limbs.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, Homily on Our Lord in Selected Prose Works.

The fullness of God and Man

“We must, then, maintain that Christ has two energies in virtue of His double nature. For things that have diverse natures, have also different energies, and things that have diverse energies, have also different natures.” – St. John Damascene

Christ, fully God, fully Man

“O faithful, let us acclaim the lover of the Trinity, great Maximos who taught the God-inspired Faith, that Christ is to be glorified in two natures, wills and energies: and let us cry to him: Rejoice, O herald of the Faith.” – Kontakion to St. Maximus the Confessor

Christology Explained Simply

“He being one Son, dual in Nature, not dual in Person. Wherefore, do we confess, preaching the truth that Christ our God is perfect God and perfect Man.” – (Troparion of the Resurrection on the Feast of the Holy Forefathers).

Comment: It has been said many times that if one attended all the unabbreviated services of the Church – the full cycle of Holy Week, marriages, funerals, makings of catechumens, etc., this would teach one the entire doctrine of the Church, for nothing is rightly believed that is not prayed, and nothing is rightly prayed that cannot be believed. -DD