123. I. Theanthropic In Personality.

I. Theanthropic In Personality.

1. Permanent Duality of His Natures.—It is the doctrine of the Church, as definitely formulated in the Chalcedonian symbol, that the union of the two natures in Christ is forever an inseparable one. This, however, is not the present question. The point we here make is that the natures suffer no change in consequence of their union in Christ. This also is the doctrine of the Church, and, as we have already shown, is very fully and definitely expressed in the same Christological symbol. There is neither change nor mixture of the natures. The divine is not transmuted into the human; the human is not transmuted into the divine. There is no mixing of the natures, with a resultant third nature, or indefinable tertium quid—something neither human nor divine.

Christological speculation has not been entirely without the notion of such results of the divine incarnation. We may a contrary instance the monophysitic or Eutychian heresy, accord-ing to which the human nature was so changed by its union with the divine nature that it ceased to be human and really became divine. It would follow that there was but one nature in Christ. This is one of the errors which the Council of Chalcedon so formally excluded from the doctrine which it formulated. Without a personal union of the two unchanged natures in Christ the facts which appear in his life must remain without any satisfactory interpretation. There is in his life a mingling of human and divine facts. The human can have no ground in a purely divine nature; the divine, no ground in a purely human nature. The presence of two classes of facts, the human and the divine, in the one life of Christ imperatively requires the presence of both natures in the unity of his personality.

2. Communion of Attributes in His Personality.—There is in doctrinal Christology a distinction between the communion and the communication of attributes in Christ. The former means simply that the attributes of the two natures are common to the person of Christ; the latter, that each nature communicates its attributes to the other; particularly, that the divine nature imparts its attributes to the human nature. The theory is technically expressed as the communicatio idiomatum. This was really the monophysitic or Eutychian theory, previously noticed, and which we found to be excluded as a heresy from the doctrine of the Church. As a modern theory, it has its place mostly in the Lutheran theology. It is necessary to the doctrine of consubstantiation—the doctrine of the real presence of the body of Christ in the sacrament of the supper—as maintained in Lutheranism. As previously pointed out, the deification of the human nature of Christ cannot be reconciled with the human facts so thoroughly manifest in his life. This may here suffice, as we must again consider this theory. The communion of the attributes in Christ, in the sense that the attributes of the two natures are common to his personality, is clearly a truth of the Scriptures, and a truth necessary to the interpretation of the Christological facts which they contain. Such a communion is determined by the nature of the divine incarnation. Therein the personal Son took the nature of man into personal union with himself. The two natures, without change in either, were thus united in the personal oneness of the Christ. Therefore, as he thus unites in himself the two natures, he must possess the attributes of both in the unity of his personality. Accordingly, the Scriptures freely, and with frequent repetition, ascribe to him both human and divine facts. In the collection of separate utterances we find the ascription of attributes in the utmost extremes. Christ is an infant in the arms of Mary, and over all, God blessed forever; weary from his journey, and the upholder of all things; grows in stature and acquires knowledge in the manner of other children, and yet is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Often there are such ascriptions in the same verse or passage. Such are the paradoxes of Christology which find their interpretation in the theanthropic character of Christ.

3. Truth of a Theanthropic Personality.—As in his personality Christ possesses the attributes of both the divine nature and the human, so must he be a theanthropic person. As a person he is not God merely, nor man merely, but God-man. This must be the meaning of the orthodox creeds, for otherwise they would be self-contradictory. They ever confess the oneness of Christ in two distinct natures. With such a duality of natures he can be one only in his personality. Yet, with the confession of the one Christ in the two natures, the same creeds declare him to be God and man. We may instance the Chalcedonian symbol.^[581] The Christological symbol of the Methodist Episcopal Church is really the same.^[582] But the immediate connection denies to these terms, very God and very man, a definite personal meaning in their application to Christ ; for with this meaning the same symbol would confess him as one person, and also as two persons, and would be self-contradictory. Besides, it is not the meaning of either the Scriptures or the Christological symbols that in a personal sense Christ is very God and very man. This is really the Nestorian heresy, which the creeds so formally and thoroughly reject. Christ is very God and very man only in the sense that he possesses the two natures in the oneness of his personality. In his personal oneness he is simply and truly God-man.

^[581]“We . . . confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . truly God and truly man.”

^[582]“So that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were joined together in one person, . . . whereof is one Christ, very God and very man.”—Articles of Religion, article ii. The theanthropic personality of Christ is determined by the nature of the divine incarnation. This incarnation was a profound reality. Therein the divine Son took the nature of man into a most intimate, even a personal union with himself. With this union of the two natures in Christ there is for him both divine and human facts of consciousness. There is still a unity of consciousness, as a central reality of all personality, but for this consciousness in Christ there are new facts, which are determined by his human nature. We have no insight into this mystery. Indeed, as previously pointed out, we have no insight into the enshrinement of our own mind in a physical organism, or into the unity of our own consciousness in the mingling of the diverse forms of experience as determined by our sensuous, rational, and moral natures. But, if we accept the personal union of a human nature with the divine nature, we should not stumble at the new facts of consciousness. They lie in the mystery of the incarnation, but surely belong to its reality. The facts determine the theanthropic character of the Christ. In the truest, deepest sense he is personally God-man.

4. A Necessity to the Atonement.—Any other union of the divine nature with the human than that in a personal oneness must leave the human in its own complete and separate personality. What, then, is the offering or sacrifice in atonement for sin? A human being, a mere man. No gracious endowments or supernatural gifts could change the grade of his being. As the paschal lamb whose blood was shed in atonement for sin was a mere lamb, so Christ, who was sacrificed for the redemption of the world, would be a mere man. This would mean that Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, was a mere man (Ephesians 5:3); that our great High-priest, Jesus, the Son of God, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God in atonement for sin, was a mere man (Hebrews 4:14; Hebrews 9:14). We need not pause to show how utterly false such a view is to the profound meaning of these texts, and of many others like them. All the fundamental truths of Christian theology must pronounce such a mere human sacrifice utterly insufficient for the redemption of the world.

These consequences cannot be obviated by any appeal to the offices of the Son as our great High-priest in the offering up of Christ on the cross. There is no priesthood of the Son without his incarnation in a manner which unites the nature of man in personal oneness with himself. Besides, if we divide the Christ into distinct personalities, the one divine and the other human, even the priestly service of the divine could not change the character or grade of the human sacrifice; it would still be merely human. Nor can we, in this case, hold priest and sacrifice in any such duality. Christ is, at once, both priest and sacrifice: “Who needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.” “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 7:27; Hebrews 9:26). Thus the identity of priest and sacrifice in the atonement is definitely a truth of the Scriptures. Any such division of Christ into a divine priest and a human sacrifice is manifestly false to the Scriptures; and it is equally false to the catholic doctrine of his personality. In the hour of our redemption the Christ does not fall asunder into two persons, the one divine and the other human, while the divine in the office of high-priest offers up the human in atonement for sin; but the divine, incarnate in the human, offers up himself. Only thus can we secure the truth and reality of the atonement. The possibility of such an atonement lies in the theanthropic personality of Christ.