*I am going to start doing a new series here; it is going to be called “Repost Sundays,” and it will entail me, obviously, reposting previous posts from various blogs I have done in the past. The first one, to kick this off, is taken from my most recent blog, to this one, The Evangelical Calvinist. In this post, I am highlighting the centrality that the vicarious humanity of Christ should take for us as we conceive of a doctrine of God, and how that impinges upon our soteriology.
A Evangelical Calvinism is committed to the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ, in a rather literal and stipulated way. In other words, Jesusβ humanity βfor usβ is the locus wherein the divine/human (both Godward/manward) reconciliation takes place (both βobjectively/subjectivelyβ). It is this belief that renders Evangelical Calvinism, Calvinist; in the sense that Godβs choice βfor usβ is made in the affirmative through the Sonβs election of our humanity for Himself [this is what the mirifica commutatio ‘wonderful exchange’ is about]. This also βpersonalisesβ grace (grace being Godβs choice for us in the Incarnation), so that the communication and response of salvation that inheres between man and God; does so (first) through the triune reconciling work of the Son and the recreative activity of the Holy Spirit. Here is how TF Torrance articulates some thoughts on the vicarious action of the Son:
. . . But this economic condescension has its counterpart in a movement of prokope. The fathers have in mind here the Lukan account of the obedience and development of the child Jesus who βcut his way forwardβ (prokopte) as he grew in wisdom and favour with God and with man (Luke 2.52). In other words Jesusβ growth in wisdom was regarded as opening up a way for man to rise to true knowledge of the Father. Jesus Christ is not only the Truth who has accommodated himself to us in order to reveal himself, not only the Word become flesh, but he is also Man hearing and obeying that Word, apprehending that Truth throughout his life on earth, so that he provides for us in his own obedient sonship within our human nature the Way whereby we are carried up to knowledge of God the Father. βWe understand by Way that prokope to perfection which is made stage by stage, and in regular order, through the works of righteousness and the illumination of knowledge, ever longing after what is before, and reaching forth unto those things which remain, until we shall have reached the blessed end, the knowledge of God, which the Lord through himself bestows on them that have trusted in him. For our Lord is an essentially good Way, where erring and straying are unknown, to that which is essentially good, to the Father. For no one, he says, comes to the Father but through me. Such is our way up to God through the Sonβ (De Spiritu Sancto I8.I8). [T. F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1966), 38-9]
It is all fine and good for Jesus to know God, to please God, to believe God and be the righteous one on our behalf, but where does that leave me the individual? How does “he provides for us in his own obedient sonship within our human nature the Way whereby we are carried up to knowledge of God the Father.” This sounds great except evangelicals don’t know how this works. We want to know how. How do I appropriate this from Jesus?
Americans are not satisfied with ” opening up a way for man to rise to true knowledge of the Father.” We want to rise up to knowledge of the Father. We as individuals. This needs further explication in order to satisfy the individualistic impulse of Western Christians.
Jon,
This is an important point to develop; one that is worthy of a PhD dissertation π . I do agree that TFT’s approach, and this is the charge against him (and even Barth at points), is that he so objectifies humanity that he lives no space for individuals to have any kind of real space. But, I think pressing the reality and creativity and otherness of the Holy Spirit is where this aspect can be remedied. Our individuality, or particularity as persons is tied into Christ’s particularity as the human; just as his humanity finds its ground by its Spirit anointed shape. There is more that needs to be said on that, and I hope to in days to come.
I should clarify, I don’t actually think that TFT over-objectifies humanity; but that there is more work required, constructively, to open up and develop what TFT only left implicit in this regard in his work. That’s what my friend Myk Habets seeks to do a bit in his disseration now published as “Theosis In The Theology Of Thomas Torrance.”
All the more reason for you to move forward on the PHD. I understand the current challenges to taking that step. Have to trust that God will provide.
I would really like to get Myk’s book on Theosis, but right now it is at least $80. So many good books are overpriced for the academic market and made more difficult for others to acquire.
One of the local seminaries has it, but last I checked it was loaned out for some time. Theosis is a subject I want to explore in greater detail – among a thousand others. π
As much as we all know we are “in Christ” we still relate to God as separate individuals on a day to day basis. At least that is how I hear evangelicals speaking. So yes, finding our particularity in Christ through the Spirit and Christ in us involves kind of a revolution of the mind. I know Christ is in me through His indwelling Spirit, and I am in Him through the same Spirit, but exactly how that affects my life as I go through every day is where the perceptual gap occurs. The charismatics will look to experiential phenomenon. The evangelicals will take it on faith and look to measure their behavior against the scriptures for fruit. Classic Calvinists will look to see how well they are fulfilling the law in the newness of a regenerated life. How does an Evangelical Calvinist see the presence of Christ is us as we live both in Christ and for Christ? I think Gal. 2:20 plays a part here.
So how does Christ in me affect this interaction on your blog. The Classic Calvinist leaning on determinism says that God wills it and thus is comforted in being in the will of God. The Arminian says it is according to my free will therefore it is acceptable within God’s general will since it is not sin.
Torrance says that we have to look to the anhypostatis/enhypostasis understanding of the incarnation in order to understand God’s action and our action in relationship to Him. It will be a long time before those two words are part of the evangelical general vocabulary. π I like his point about it not being the monergism that diminishes humanity nor the synergism that give part to each, but all of divinity and all of humanity. Colyer pp. 120-121. “Jesus Christ is engaged in personalising and humanising (never depersonalising and dehumanising) activity, so that in all our relations with him we are made more truly and fully human in our personal response of faith than ever before.” p.121. This frees me to be human and to embrace the fullness of human activity in the goodness and grace of Christ, without giving license to sin, yet not looking over my shoulder to see if everything is God’s will.
@Jon,
Yes, trusting the Lord for the PhD! I think it will happen, not sure exactly how or when at the moment. First things, first, though; I desperately need a job (within the next month or two, or we are going to have to take some drastic financial steps … please keep us in prayer on that!).
Yes, academic books are ridiculously priced; frustrating, really! I did a book review for Myk’s book for his journal which he edits from his school in New Zealand if you’d like me to email that to you. And then Jason at Per Crucem ad Lucem blog (in my blogroll) once did a good review of Myk’s book at his blog as well (you might want to check that out).
Ah yes, an/enhypostasis, $2 words that will scare most Christian folk way, post haste π ! But very important as Colyer points out (nice quote). Yes, Christ simply makes us more human than less; this is what grace is all about.
There is a level of abstraction in regards to the existential living out that inheres in conceiving of humanity in the dynamic terms that TFT ant that tradition offers. I think we need to have a strong pneumatology in place, and have a doctrine of God that supplies the right trinitarian resources for working out a christological anthropology. There is work to be done here. But as far as the usual matrices used, the one’s you note, for “proving” a genuine spirituality; I think these are all faulty and unfortunately inward curved focal points. How do we know that we’ve been touched by God in Christ? I would imagine its that we love one another, not keep some laws or deliberate “freely” our every move. And of course love needs to be defined too; not a warm gushy feeling, but an active event that inheres in every step that we take in the Spirit. How does this look? Probably different for each of us. More to be done and said. Night π .