If Jesus is not the ground of Humanity and Salvation, then Who?

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I sincerely wish people could finally get this. I don’t say this in a patronizing way, or in a way where I am intending to insult those who have not gotten (or accepted) this yet; but my concern is that people are failing to appreciate the barthderspiegelconsistency with which they say that they affirm that Jesus is both fully man and fully God (the Chalcedon formula), and yet stop short, and don’t proceed to follow the logic of this to its conclusion. That is, as even John Calvin understood (in hisΒ mystical union with ChristΒ theology), without receiving through participation who we are as gift from the life of Christ for us, then we have no substantial ground upon which to live as redeemed human beings in right relation with God. In other words, as Protestant theology has always affirmed, salvation is something that comes from with-out us, and not from something intrinsic within us (like created grace or something); in order to radically affirm this, and the logical implications of Chalcedon (that Jesus is both fully man and God in his one life), we ought to accept something like what Karl Barth (through George Hunsinger) suggests here:

[…] To say that Jesus Christ is the “pioneer of faith” (Heb. 12:2), Barth suggests, is not to say that his faith is merely the exemplar of ours, but that it is the vicarious ground and source of our faith. “There is vicarious faith,” writes Barth, “… only in the form of the faith which Jesus Christ established for us all as theΒ archegos tes pisteosΒ (Heb. 12:2), who empowers us for our own faith, and summons us to it, even as he stands there in our stead with his faith. Through his faith, we are not only moved but liberated to believe for ourselves” (IV/4, 186). Our faith may be said to exist “as a predicate” of his in the sense that whatever is real and true “in this Subject” is the foundation for whatever is correspondingly real and true in us (cf. II/2, 539). In short, our subjective apprehension of God does not exist independently, but only insofar as its source, mediation, and ground are found in the humanity of Jesus Christ. [George Hunsinger,Β How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology,Β 96, Nook.]

One reason this matters, the existential reason, is that it keeps us from looking into the abyss of ourselves as the source of faith and trust towards God; something, that as us Reformed would like to emphasize, that is not present in us, but without us in a ground and life that is stable, secure, and free in itself–God’s life in Christ. If Jesus is not the ground of our humanity and salvation, then who is?

5 thoughts on “If Jesus is not the ground of Humanity and Salvation, then Who?”

  1. Yes! And let’s remember that Paul told the Athenians that we all “live and move and have our being in him.” That not only did the Son become Jesus, fully man and fully God, but that the incarnation continues! Jesus, the glorified, incarnate Son of God. And let’s dwell on John 14:20 – “…I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” This thing goes to the actual reality of our existence, which is grounded in Christ.

  3. I think I’m tracking with you. This reminds me of some comments I made in my sermon last Sunday on 1 John 4:12-21 with respect to verse 17. John’s comment “…as he is so also are we in this world” has far more to do with our union with Christ and our participation in the life of the Trinity than merely the fact that we both happened to be in the world. The grounds for our confidence in the day of judgment is the fact that we are in solidarity with one to whom all judgment has been given (Jn. 5.22).
    I’m slow, but seeking to learn. πŸ™‚

  4. Wayne,

    Yes, and more than an exemplary or impersonal solidarity, but in a way where our beings, are directly implicated and grounded in and through his for us. It is definitly a participationist model Barth, Torrance, and EC offers.

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