4. The Eucharist and Eternal Life (1)

The other day, one of my friends who read the second issue of “The Estuary of Theology” asked me a question. The question was as to why the Eucharist could be said to be eternal life. I think it is better to try to answer it first and then to go on because answering this question will not make us go out of our way to discuss the four people standing by the cross but will be beneficial. I understand that the answer to the question has its entrance in the interpretation of Genesis. So, I would like to dig into this theme following the description of Genesis.

Genesis reads, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) This phrase means that in the beginning, God created his own place and the place for creations. After that, God prepared the place on the earth for creations first, which we can understand from the word of Jesus saying that he will go and prepare a place to take people to the heavens.* Then I have noticed that the following phrase expresses the divine state of stillness before the triune Godhead begins to move: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2) The expression, “The earth was without form and void,” implies the state of stillness of the ardour-like mind of mercy of the heavenly Father, and the expression, “darkness was upon the face of the deep,” suggests the Son, the Word, is in silence when the Father is in this state. We can infer this from the following words which express the beginning of the move of God in contrast.

*  “In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:2-3)

“And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3) The word, “God said,” means that the mind of the Father moved and has become his will. Then, it became the word, “Let there be light”, and “there was light”, that is, the will of the Father was fulfilled by the Son, the Word. This is the same as what the beginning of the Gospel of John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) Just as Jesus said, “[E]ven though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:38), the Father and the Son are bound with each other with an inseparable bond.

In contrast to the Father and the Son, who are tightly united with each other and are in silence, we can envisage an image of the Holy Spirit being alone though he is the triune God in the description: “[T]he Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2) I noticed that this image of the Holy Spirit overlaps with the image of the man who was brought to the huge garden of Eden, where four rivers flowed. He tilled and kept it alone (cf. Genesis 2:8-15). Then, I realized that the word of God: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18) is told about two persons, the Holy Spirit and the man.

This word of God was uttered at the moment the mercy of God stimulated the mind of God for the sake of greater good and has become the word of God. When God used the term, “a helper fit for him”, “a helper” was already there. It is the Son, who makes the will of the Father a word and fulfils it. The Son was indeed “a helper fit for him” for the Father. Therefore, God created man after the image of the Son. Then God intended to give the same bond as the inseparable bond between the Father and the Son to the relationship between the Holy Spirit and man so that everyone may make up the relationship of “God and a man and his neighbour” and this relationship may become completed as the likeness of God the Trinity. Completion as the likeness of God the Trinity means that people are in the state where, in the relationship between the Holy Spirit and a man and his neighbour which includes the same bond as that between the Father and the Son, the free minds of the three persons fully desire to become one like God and the desire is fulfilled.

Genesis reads, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) The phrase, “in his own image,” indicates the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the phrase, “in the image of God,” indicates the relationship within the triune Godhead. God created man male and female so that he could give these divine relationships to humanity.

As the Bible reads, “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.” (Genesis 1:3-4), the move of God, which begins with the mind of the Father moving and becoming his will, is a series of acts in which the will of the Father expressed by the phrase, “God said,” is fulfilled by the word and the deed of the Son expressed by the phrase, “‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” and is completed by the recognition given by the Holy Spirit as it reads, “God saw that the light was good.” God is one God who acts essentially by three persons. On the other hand, also the move made by man is a series of acts in which his/her mind becomes his/her will, then his/her will is fulfilled by his/her word and deed and ends up with the recognition. Man is an image of one God acting essentially with a similar process of thinking and practising to that of God by one person. This essential resemblance to God enables people to receive the divine gift by which God and a man and his neighbour become one.

In other words, the very existence of man proves the fact that God is triune and is the mirror reflecting this fact. This human characteristic given by God is linked to the hope for sharing the sense of oneness of people when they get involved with others. This hope comes from the fact that God is one God composed of three persons. As Genesis chapter 2 says, at first God created man single so that the man, through the experience of a one-to-one interaction with God, could memorize the move of the triune Godhead as an actual experience and it may remain in the memories of all people through the first man.

For this reason, “[t]he LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15) The action of tilling and the mission of keeping are the true purposes of the word of God: “[L]et them have dominion.” (Genesis 1:26) Then, God, while the man was alone, made the true meaning of domination remain in his memory of the actual experience, giving the opportunity to have the experience as follows.

It is written that after God said, “I will make him a helper fit for him.” he (out of the ground) “formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19) From this episode, we learn that for God the meaning of the word, “[L]et them have dominion,” was to give names to the living creatures to take care of them and to keep them. However, as it is written in the next phrase: “The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.” (Genesis2:20), God made the man experience the fact that he could never find his helper among those whom he dominated. The man and the woman, who were both made from the man later, equally inherited the memory of this experience together with other memories and have it as the memory they actually experienced.

To be continued

Oct. 2019 in Hiroshima

Maria K