This is the Word

John 1:1-18

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 nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it…

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth… And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

The prologue of John’s gospel is as majestic as it is mysterious. The Apostle is giving us a picture of deity, a view from eternity, as well as what it means for that Eternity to enter into time. John is telling us that God became man, and this message can find no more appropriate time of the year than Christmas. As we celebrate so many things: family, gifts, and love, let us remember the foundation of it all. God loved us so much that He gave us His son so that we might become His children. In response, we should show forth His son to the world so that they too might become children of God through faith in His name.

Christology and Reformation

I finally stopped ripping him off, and I decided to just come out and co-author a paper with Peter Escalante.  We were energized to take on the recent misuse of Christology in anti-Calvinist polemics.   The paper is over at the Credenda Agenda site now.  

The paper will read like inside baseball to a lot of y’all, and I apologize.  We felt that we needed to get down and dirty with a few points for the sake of those most intrigued by modern (and postmodern) “Christology.”  The thesis is actually pretty basic though- The traditional history is actually pretty close to correct when it comes to Christological theology.   The Reformed knew about this stuff and weren’t just poking their hands in the sand.

And most importantly, Christology should be about messiah and salvation.  Whenever other interests take up the majority of your interest, you’re misusing the categories.

Pre-fall Mediation

Of the similitude between Adam’s condition and our own, Calvin writes:

But if Adam’s hitherto innocent, and of an upright nature, had need of monitory signs to lead him to the knowledge of divine grace, how much more necessary are signs now, in this great imbecility of our nature, since we have fallen from the true light? Yet I am not dissatisfied with what has been handed down by some of the fathers, as Augustine and Eucherius, that the tree of life was a figure of Christ, inasmuch as he is the Eternal Word of God: it could not indeed be otherwise a symbol of life, than by representing him in figure. For we must maintain what is declared in the first chapter of John (John 1:1-3,) that the life of all things was included in the Word, but especially the life of men, which is conjoined with reason and intelligence. Wherefore, by this sign, Adam was admonished, that he could claim nothing for himself as if it were his own, in order that he might depend wholly upon the Son of God, and might not seek life anywhere but in him. But if he, at the time when he possessed life in safety, had it only as deposited in the word of God, and could not otherwise retain it, than by acknowledging that it was received from Him, whence may we recover it, after it has been lost? Let us know, therefore, that when we have departed from Christ, nothing remains for us but death.

This is intriguing for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Calvin takes it as axiomatic that life is not an inherent property of creation, but rather comes from the eternal Logos.  In Christ is the life of man, and in separation from Christ, there is only death.

The tree of life was a sign to teach and remind Adam of his dependence upon Christ.  Calvin states that if Adam’s upright nature was in need of this, then our fallen natures are even more in need.

And we also realize the need to give thanks.  Adam’s sin was essentially one of ingratitude.  We, however, are to be in an even greater position of gratitude, as we have been redeemed, as well as sustained.

Jesus Centered

I want to say that there was no new creation until Jesus. This seems self-evident to me, especially when we use both systematic and biblical theology together.

I suppose there is one sense where there were all sorts of new creations: Adam to Noah to Abraham, etc. but the big one, the decisive NEW- the one the Church brings- was first started in the incarnation of Christ.  He healed the fallen nature and started up the new humanity.

This is the biggest weakness of covenant theology in my opinion. It makes the Jesus-event just the caboose on the train. This is good when combating dispies, but it isn’t the full story at all.

There is a very real sense where Jesus makes all things new. Irenaeus knew this, and I think he’s fairly traditional.

Mercersburg and the New Human Race

Another difference [between Modern Theology and Mercersburg Theology] is in their central iea. Modern theology makes the atonement or death of Christ, Mercersburg the person of Chirst or the incarnation, its central idea. The importance of this difference can be seen in the fact, for instance, that the atonement itself, or justification by faith, cannot be maintained successfully by adopting the former. According to it, the atonement is made to rest primarily on what Christ has done, not on what he is. It apprehends Christ as a mere individual, God and man in one person, it is true, but yet as a mere individual. Mercersburg theology apprehends Christ as the embodiment of the universal life of humanity, the second Adam or federal head of the race’ and his obedience and death receive their atoning merits from this fact. When he was nailed to the cross, more than a mere individual was nailed to the cross– humanity itself– was nailed to the cross; consequently whatever merits attach to his suffering and death belong to the race as a whole– not to one individual simply– nor to a limited number of individuals– nor to all individuals numerically considered– but to humanity as a whole (which is something more, and deeper, and broader and more universal, than any number of mere individuals),– subject to appropriation by all who claim them for their individual wants.

If Christ had been a mere individual, one among many, no such universal atonement nor even a limited atonement, could have been possible. The merits of his death could apply no farther than to himself, and the idea of the atonement, as available for others, falls to the ground. The idea of one individual dying for the crimes of another individual, does not satisfy the demands of justice. The doctrine of the atonement must be apprehended in a profounder sense than this comes to, and this depends on a proper conception of the person of Christ.

Samuel Miller, A Treatise on Mercersburg Theology; or, Mercersburg and Modern Theology Compared pg. 19-21

Mercersburg and Incarnation

According to modern theology, the Son of God assumed our nature in order that through it, as a means to an end beyond himself, he might procure redemption for humanity as fallen in Adam. According to Mercersburg, the very assumption of that nature, in its sinless perfection, was itself the redemption of humanity. In him humanity stands redeemed already, as the source and fountain of the new race which proceeds from him. In him is our redemption, and by becoming one with him, it is all our own.

Samuel Miller, A Treatise on Mercersburg Theology; or, Mercersburg and Modern Theology Compared pg. 23

Mercersburg Christology

By the Christological principle we understand the idea of an eternal union of God and man in the person of Christ as the medium of God’s self-communication and self-revelation to the world, and the consummation of all his ways and works. This implies on the one hand that Christ is the principle of the divine constitution of the world, and that in him, as St. Paul says, all things consist or hold together. He is not an accident or an afterthought in the divine world-plan, but its central and determinative idea, the real root as well as the culminating head of all things. It implies that Christ is the principle of all sound knowledge of God and of his ways and works. We can only know God aright in the light and inspiration of Christ. It follows, then, that the conception of love must be the determinative principle in any true or christian doctrine of God. No doctrine of God would be christian at all that is ruled by any other conception; as, for instance, the conception of sovereignty, of honor, or of glory.

William Rupp, The Reformed Quarterly, 1891, (p. 46).

And also:

But while the Holy Ghost is the agent in the work of regeneration, as above said, he is not the originator of the new life which he therefore communicates to the human soul. He does not create it ex nihilo just before planting it in the soul. The Spirit is not the author but the giver of life; and the life which he gives is that of Christ, the exalted and glorified God-man. Christ is the sole fountain of spiritual life for the whole human race. We must observe, however, that the new life thus lodged in man is not to be regarded as holding in separation from Christ after it has come to exist in the human soul. On the contrary it forms a perpetual bond of union between Christ and the soul’ so that the soul is in Christ as the branch is in the vine, or as the members of the human body are in the body, ‘Ye in me, and I in you.’

John Swander, The Mercersburg Theology (pg. 141-143).

Simplicity and Communicatio

The doctrine of divine simplicity is a necessary description of God’s infinity. It states that all attributes of the divine nature are coextensive with that nature and indeed, they are the nature. There is nothing between the attributes and the nature. There is nothing that separates them, for that something would need to be other than divine in order to maintain the distinction. Since this is unthinkable- that is, since all the divine attributes are infinite and omni- well, omni-everything- the confession of simplicity is a proper conclusion of the via negativa.

This doctrine is very useful because it helps keep our dogmatic speech orderly and consistent. It forbids any talk of disharmony among the divine attributes, and it forbids giving primacy to any one of the attributes. It should likewise be applied in other loci of systematics to continue to preserve consistency and harmony.

My roommate recently pointed out that divine simplicity is particularly effective as a critique against the position, often espoused by Lutherans, that in the person of Christ there is a communication of attributes. This position argues that the divine gives some of its qualities to the human, and the human gives some of its qualities to the divine. This has long been criticized by Calvinists as a confusion of the natures, even tending towards Eutychianism, and I think the charge basically sticks. To go further, though, divine simplicity forbids the giving of some attributes, but not others because again, all of the attributes are equal with the essence. Therefore, it is simply not possible to affirm the communication of omnipresence, but not the communication of infinity. Ubiquity cannot be communicated without also communicating eternality, and this would be nothing more than to make the created the Creator.

And so we see how Christology affects Theology and how Theology affects Christology.

Zanchi: For It Was the Blood of God

‘When therefore the fullnesse of time was come’, wherein the promise of redemption made unto the first man was to be accomplished by the second, God, the everlasting Father, sent his onely begotten Sonne and eternal and therefore true God, of the same nature with the Father, made of a woman alone, and without the seede of a man and therefore true man, but without sine and so true Christ, made subject to the lawe and therefore circumcised, that he in most perfect obedience might fulfill that law in the name of us all, made obedient to his Father even unto death, namely for us (for he, being without sinne, deserved not to die) that he might redeeme those which were under the law and all the elect even by his obedience, by his death and bloodshedding, that is, by a sacrifice of exceeding vertue (for it was the blood of God) and a most effectual antilutro, ransome, that he might, I saie, redeeme us from sinne to the old image of God and to perfect righteousness, yeah, from death to eternal life, and from the kingdome of Satan to the kingdome of God; and that we might receive adoption of children and so in the ende bee taken into full and perfect possession of the heavenlie inheritance as sonnes and lawfull heires.  And lastile, that he might gather together all thinges in heaven and in earth under one head and ioyne them to himselfe for the glorie of God the Father.

~ Confessions of the Christian Religion XI.1

From John Donne’s La Corona

LA CORONA.

Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
Weaved in my lone devout melancholy,
Thou which of good hast, yea, art treasury,
All changing unchanged Ancient of days.
But do not with a vile crown of frail bays
Reward my Muse’s white sincerity ;
But what Thy thorny crown gain’d, that give me,
A crown of glory, which doth flower always.
The ends crown our works, but Thou crown’st our ends,
For at our ends begins our endless rest.
The first last end, now zealously possess’d,
With a strong sober thirst my soul attends.
‘Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high ;
Salvation to all that will is nigh.

ANNUNCIATION.

Salvation to all that will is nigh ;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo ! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb ; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother ;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived ; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother,
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room
Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb.

NATIVITY.

Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-beloved imprisonment.
There he hath made himself to his intent
Weak enough, now into our world to come.
But O !  for thee, for Him, hath th’ inn no room ?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from th’ orient,
Stars, and wise men will travel to prevent
The effects of Herod’s jealous general doom.
See’st thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eye, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie ?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee ?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.