Our first installment of the Thirty-Nine Articles series is producing lively and useful discussion. The one word "reconcile" (Article II) has produced some discussion, and the implications of that have reminded me of the threefold understanding of salvation that my friend, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon (Pastor of All Saints Antiochene Orthodox Church in Chicago and a Senior Editor of Touchstone), has brought up so many times, though I will mention these three things using my own words. In the Incarnation our Lord Jesus Christ has bridged the separation between God and man in three ways.
1. Separation by nature.
By taking human nature into His Divine Person, the Word (Logos) has bridged the separation between the Creator and our created human nature. The distinction between human nature and the Nature of God remains, and that is essential to the Mystery. The Divine Nature of the Word and the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth remain distinct, and yet both are fully present in one and the same Person. He is God the Son, and He is the Son of Man.
2. Separation by sin (Here the word "reconcile" apples directly)
This is where the crucial word "propitiation" comes in, as does the word "atonement." On the cross our Lord offered up Himself as the one true sacrifice for all human sin. We say it well in our Holy Communion, with words that summarize a major theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world..." He paid it all, as the word teleo ("It is finished" John 19:30) so clearly means.
3. Separation by death
In His resurrection on the first Easter Day, our Lord defeated, triumphed over and destroyed death. The full fruit of this victory He will share with us on the Last Day when He comes again in glory (I Cor. 15). He will give us immortality, making us partakers of the eternal and unending life of the Divine Nature (II Pet. 1:4).
Perhaps the value of the word "reconcile," as Article II uses it, becomes more clear in this threefold summary.
1. Separation by nature.
By taking human nature into His Divine Person, the Word (Logos) has bridged the separation between the Creator and our created human nature. The distinction between human nature and the Nature of God remains, and that is essential to the Mystery. The Divine Nature of the Word and the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth remain distinct, and yet both are fully present in one and the same Person. He is God the Son, and He is the Son of Man.
2. Separation by sin (Here the word "reconcile" apples directly)
This is where the crucial word "propitiation" comes in, as does the word "atonement." On the cross our Lord offered up Himself as the one true sacrifice for all human sin. We say it well in our Holy Communion, with words that summarize a major theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world..." He paid it all, as the word teleo ("It is finished" John 19:30) so clearly means.
3. Separation by death
In His resurrection on the first Easter Day, our Lord defeated, triumphed over and destroyed death. The full fruit of this victory He will share with us on the Last Day when He comes again in glory (I Cor. 15). He will give us immortality, making us partakers of the eternal and unending life of the Divine Nature (II Pet. 1:4).
Perhaps the value of the word "reconcile," as Article II uses it, becomes more clear in this threefold summary.
Reconciliation does not overcome separation; it overcomes hostility.
ReplyDeleteTo set up an analogy or a parallel between the Creator/creature distinction and the hostility resulting from sin is skating too close to the edge.
Charles Wesley's great line "God and sinners reconciled" in the Christmas hymn refers to what was implicit and potential in the Incarnation, but explicit and actual only in the Cross. And Wesley very correctly said "God and sinners," not "God and creatures."
LKW
True. But, point number two (right at the center), namely the Atonement, cannot exist alone. We need the bridging of uncreated and human natures in One Person, and we need the Resurrection. This is why I am happy to have the word "Reconcile," with its full meaning of the One Mediator between God and man (I Tim. 2:5) in Article II about the Incarnation. The point is why such a word belongs in the most exalted language about the Trinity and the Incarnation.
ReplyDeleteThe mor I think about it, the more I feel that the propitation/ reconciliation distinction is necessary to a balanced and full-orbed doctrine of atonement. To state it bluntly,
ReplyDeletePropitiation + reconciliation = atonement.
Here is a longish quotation from the (abridged) Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Geoffrey Bromiley, translator, the article being written by a German named Buechsel) Here goes:
"In the NT only Paul uses the term [katallage/katallassw]. God is not reconciled, nor does He reconcile Himself, but He Himself reconciles us or the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:18--19), while we are reconciled to God (Rom 5:10) or reconcile ourselves to him (2 Cor 5:20). Katallassein denotes a transformation of the state between God and us [here is an overlap between reconcile and propitiate, lkw] and therewith our own state, for by it we become new creatures, no longer ungodly or sinners, but justified, with God's love shed abroad in our hearts. God has not changed, but the change is in our relationship to him and consequently in our whole lives.....
"We" are said to be reconciled in Rom 5, and "the world" in 2 Cor 5....
The hostility between God and us is not mentioned [in either passage] but it obviously includes not only our enmity against God but also God's wrath against sin...." (end of quote)
Article II, as written, seems to imply that the gracious Son reconciled the angry Father. That places a strain on the Trinity itself and also leds into a crude doctrine of the Atonement which has brought this crucial truth (pun intended) into disrepute. The Article obscures the truth of Romans 3:25, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." (ESV).
So there is a degree of overlap between the two concepts, which I cheerfully acknowledge. But the distinction is important.
However, I cannot buy the comparison of the Creator/creature distinction with the estrangement effected by sin. The first of these is not only insurmountable but is also morally innocent. To make such an analogy has the insidious effect of minimizing sin.
"Oh well, we are only human."
LKW
However, I cannot buy the comparison of the Creator/creature distinction with the estrangement effected by sin.
ReplyDeleteBut, it is not a comparison. It is, by God's initiative, the necessary first step in Mediation. By the time we get to "Propitiation + reconciliation = atonement" we have established Who alone is able to make it happen. Anyone can die on a cross; but there is only Mediator between God and man.
Ephesians 2: 14-18 shows that reconciliation does overcome separation. "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us...that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross...for through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."
ReplyDeleteA notation in my Bible states that the Greek word for reconciliation signifies "to change thoroughly from." God is not reconciled... the sinner is.
Christ as our peace harps back to the peace-offering found in chapter 3 of Leviticus. In Christ God and the sinner meet in peace.
Susan
Susan writes (in a very good comment),
ReplyDelete"Ephesians 2: 14-18 shows that reconciliation does overcome separation."
Depends on what you mean by "separation."
If separation is a metaphor for the estrangement and hostility resulting from the Fall, then you are right.
If separation simply refers to the transcendence of the Creator over His creation, that's another matter altogether, so I am compelled to differ with all my might.
The work of Christ resolved (and still resolves) the former, but not the latter.
Confusion of these two categories leads into Gnosticism and all manner of heresy.
The hostility of the creaturely rebel to his Creator must be overcome and can be overcome only through the Cross. The "infinite qualitative distinction" between Creator and creature, being rooted in the Divine Will, must be protected in order to preserve both the Creator's glory and the creature's moral freedom.
LKW
In response to LKW: "The infinite qualitative distinction" between God and mankind was not being referred to in my comment. I have been studying Rev. Francis J. Hall's Dogmatic Theology series (currently in Book 5). God is infinite, self-existent, indivisible, and His presence transcends all space and substance. He is the Cause of the world, the fundamental postulate of all reason, and nothing can escape His energy or continue without Him. We are created to glorify Him; that is our ultimate purpose.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to note that according to Hall, the Son (our only Mediator) is not revealed as a consequence of the Fall in Scripture.
Susan
Susan, you bring up an old and interesting debate among theologians. Was the Incarnation contingent on the Fall or not? In other words, if Adam had never sinned, would Christ have still been born? A number of theologians speculate that the Incarnation would still have come to pass, even if the world had not been invaded by Satan and mankind had remained in its original innocent and righteous state. This view sees the Incarnation more as the culmination of Creation than as a remedy for sin.
ReplyDeleteIt is a nice thought, but has the fatal flaw of minimizing the significance of the Fall. It also minimizes or de-emphasizes God's primeval blessing in pronouncing His creation as "very good" (although that blessing can be seen as a promise of the Incarnation).
Western theology (I believe Duns Scotus is an exception but I could be wrong) generally sees the Incarnation as a remedy for the Fall. That is how the Easter Liturgy can speak of Adam's fall as "felix culpa," O happy fault, for it triggered the Incarnation which otherwise would not have come to pass.
John Milton carries this to an extreme in the last book of Paradise Lost, when Adam is told of the Incarnation in the future and in his delight exclaims that he is not longer sorry for his sin, since it has such a beneficial result.
I would surmise that Hall was trying to straddle trhe fence and split the difference between the two views. Obviously, he did not come to grips with the Scriptural evidence, "Christ Jesus came into the world to ave sinners."
The tragic reality is that the Fall did occur. This must mean that as interesting as this is (to some people!), the question can only be idle and unprofitable speculation.
LKW
I have always found the question itself to be more than interesting. Why, after all, was man made in God's image? However, God knows all things, and knew in eternity, or before all worlds, that the Incarnation would be our salvation from sin and death. That it is also the means of glorification for the children of God, however, justifies the question.
ReplyDeleteIn response to DKW's statement: "Obviously he did not come to grips with the Scriptural evidence, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," I can not make such a strong assertion about Hall. It seems to me that he is simply observing that Scripture does not reveal the Son as a "consequence" of the Fall. In pondering Hall's observation, it has occurred to me that perhaps the reason for this is that our Father intends each of us, His children, to meet Christ in response to the recognition of our own individual sinfulness and need for Him rather than the general sinful nature of mankind beginning with the Fall. Yet who am I to make such an assumption? We are all just seekers... finite and unable to comprehend the big picture... but with faith and grace we are allowed to paint a few brushstrokes.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Fr Hart, it is true that God knew from eternity that His Son would be our salvation. I think what may be important to consider is the freedom He allows us in choosing to love Him. After all, pure love can not be forced and what is the image of God but the impulse of love Itself?
Susan
I think what may be important to consider is the freedom He allows us in choosing to love Him.
ReplyDeleteAs long as we bear in mind what the Fall has done to our freedom. Without His grace, we cannot choose to love God.
As I was walking my dog this morning at 6 am, it suddenly occurred to me that there is an analogy between the question of the Incarnation's contingency on the Fall and the supralapsarian/infralapsarian debate.
ReplyDeleteIn both cases, the first position moves the Christian message away from its soteriological center. This reduces the Gospel to hardly any more than a footnote to theosophical speculation.
There is more to the Incarnation than what happened at Bethlehem; the Incarnation is Cross as well as Crib. Was the bloody sacrifice at Calvary something that would have occurred had there been no Fall?
Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa Theologica:
"There are different opinions about this question. For some say that even if man had not sinned, the Son of Man would have become incarnate. Others assert the contrary, and seemingly our assent ought rather to be given to this opinion.
For such things as spring from God's will, and beyond the creature's due, can be made known to us only through being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence, since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of Incarnation, it is more in accordance with this to say that the work of Incarnation was ordained by God as a remedy for sin; so that, had sin not existed, Incarnation would not have been. And yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not existed, God could have become incarnate."
(Note Aquinas's explicit Blblicism).
When Aquinas and Calvin agree on something, I am loth to argue with them.
LKW
Yes, Fr Hart, it is only by supernatural grace that we may discern Him. Job 11: 7-9 points out that if the unaided natural capacity is referred to, man cannot by searching find out God. Isaiah 7:9... Except ye believe, ye shall not understand. Faith is the key, as Hall states: faith is the assent of the intellect to the authority of another, a sure confidence divinely imparted, an assurance informed by love, and a means by which we rationally discern divine things that lie beyond our present vision.
ReplyDeleteMy experience is that God opens our individual hearts to His Truth, but for me it entailed no small amount of private loss which precipitated an emptiness of the soul beyond description... a type of personal fall, if you will, by which I do not mean in any way to discount the Fall in Genesis. We are all fallen sinners, but God meets us one-on-one in our hearts.
Susan
Susan writes:
ReplyDelete"It seems to me that he is simply observing that Scripture does not reveal the Son as a "consequence" of the Fall."
Are you sure you are quoting Hall accurately here? Hall, being exceedingling orthodox, would not consider the Son to be the "consequence of the Fall" or anything else. The Son is the second person of the Trinity, co-equal to rhe Father and the Spirit, and being God, none are the "consequence" of anything whatever.
I thought you were talking about the Incarnation. Am I wrong?
If you think my assertion is strong, then try this one on, from Thomas Aquinas:
" Augustine says (De Verb. Apost. viii, 2), expounding what is set down in Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost"; "Therefore, if man had not sinned, the Son of Man would not have come." And on 1 Timothy 1:15, "Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners," a gloss says, "There was no cause of Christ's coming into the world, except to save sinners. Take away diseases, take away wounds, and there is no need of medicine."
Aquinas writes further:
"I answer that, There are different opinions about this question. For some say that even if man had not sinned, the Son of Man would have become incarnate. Others assert the contrary, and seemingly our assent ought rather to be given to this opinion."
Aquinas continues:
"For such things as spring from God's will, and beyond the creature's due, can be made known to us only through being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence, since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of Incarnation, it is more in accordance with this to say that the work of Incarnation was ordained by God as a remedy for sin; so that, had sin not existed, Incarnation would not have been."
Aquinas concedes:
"And yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not existed, God could have become incarnate. "
(I sent this quote in an earlier post, which seems to have disappeared into cyberspace.)
LKW
In response to LKW, here is the exact quote from Volume 5 of Hall's Dogmatic Theology series entitled "Creation and Man," pages 67-68: The Incarnation constitutes a critical moment in the mediatorial drama, and one which was willed from eternity; but whether it pertains to what is called the antecedent will of God, or was willed as a consequence of the Fall, is not revealed." Hall continues, "The need of mediation, however, grows out of the coming into being of creatures, and the Son of God is the one and only Mediator."
ReplyDeleteThat Christ came to save sinners is altogether obvious. I am certainly no scholar of Holy Scripture and am very much a fledgling in the realm of theological studies, but I cannot recall an incident in the New Testament where Christ is recorded saying that He came as a result/consequence of the Fall per se. Please correct me if I am in error. In Matt 5:17-18 Christ states: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
A note in my Bible reads thus: "He brought out by His redemption all who believe from the place of servants under the law into the place of sons... He mediated by His blood the New Covenant of assurance and grace in which all believers stand, so establishing the "law of Christ" with its precepts of higher exaltation made possible by the indwelling Spirit." What I see is a gradual unfolding of God's purpose for mankind. The Fall was certainly pivotal. The Incarnation was significant on many levels... not only as a remedy for mankind's initial separation from God but also as a remedy for the long history of Israel's repeated violations of the "Law," or perhaps I should say multitude of laws outlined in the Torah. Being rejected by the lost sheep of Israel, the King of Israel (Christ) then turned to the Gentiles.
His Incarnation seems to solve not only the big problem of the Fall but also other issues summoning from it. God's purposes are ultimately beyond our finite minds to fully perceive... but I believe we were created to glorify Him forever.
Susan
Susan quotes Hall:
ReplyDelete"but whether it pertains to what is called the antecedent will of God, or was willed as a consequence of the Fall, is not revealed."
Okay, discussion is finished, class is dismissed. To pursue the subject further is to attempt to know more than God meant for us to know. Remember how Adam and Eve got into trouble?
Hall continues, "The need of mediation, however, grows out of the coming into being of creatures, and the Son of God is the one and only Mediator."
This again overlooks Biblical data. Pre-fallen man, being the Image of God, had close fellowship and immediate access to God and had no need for a Mediator. See Psalm 8:3--6, where man's pre-fall status is described as "a little lower than the angels," which some translate as "a little lower than God."
Susan writes further:
"I cannot recall an incident in the New Testament where Christ is recorded saying that He came as a result/consequence of the Fall per se."
Well, two texts leap to mind.
Luke 19:10. "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." (The condition of "lostness" is the most direct result of the Fall.)
John 10:10b "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "Life" is obviously the antonym for death, the result of the Fall. The KJV over-translates this text with "more abundantly," (possibly implying that sinners already had life and Jesus will give them more of the same). The first half of 10:10 makes the sinner's condition ("dead in trespasses and sins") quite clear. Our Lord was saying, I have come to deliver them from the power of death, which come over them through the Fall.
Otherwise, Susan, you have made some good comments.
Fr Hart: I have no objection to seeing the "image and likeness of God" in Gen 1:26 as a foreshadowing of the Incarnation. Could we not also see the "without form and void" as a foreshadowing of the Fall? But if the Fall had never occurred and (God forbid!) the Incarnation had never taken place, Adam would still have been God's image and likeness.
LKW
LKW,
ReplyDeleteMatt 10: 5-6: "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Matt 15: 24: "But he answered and said I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
It seems that Jesus was initially sent to minister to the Chosen people of God who were lost rather than the entire fallen peoples of the world. Being rejected by the Israelites, he then healed the daughter of a Gentile in Matt 15: 21-18. Why? Because of the faith of her mother who addressed Him as Lord.
Matt 21: 43: "Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."
I do not dispute the truth of John 3:16-17. God sent His Son to save the world. But I also see a temporal chain of events leading up to this truth, and that chain shows that all fallen humans were not, at the beginning of Christ's ministry, included in the big plan.
I understand that class has been dismissed...
Susan
The mother of the Gentile girl was foreshadowed by Old Testament examples, such as Naaman the Syrian.
ReplyDeleteThere was no change of plan. The prophets had foretold all along that God's salvation would extend to all nations. Neither was Christ's ministry rejected by the Jews. Rather, He used them (for who were His disciples and apostles, but good Jewish believers?) to lay the foundation for the same Church that was going to include all believers from all nations. The Epistle to the Ephesians explains this Divine plan as God's eternal purpose.
Fr Hart,
ReplyDeleteStudy notes in my Bible indicate that the Gentile Church, corporately (Jew and Gentile), is not in Old Testament prophecy. That the Gentiles were to be saved was prophesied (Hosea 1:10, Hosea 2:23). The salvation of a remnant of the Israelites was also prophesied (Isaiah 10:20). The study notes continue: “The mystery hid in God was the divine purpose to make in Jew and Gentile a wholly new thing – “the church, which is his (Christ’s) body,” formed by the baptism with the Holy Spirit and in which the earthly distinction of Jew and Gentile disappears (Eph. 2: 14-15). The revelation of this mystery, which was foretold but not explained by Christ (Matt 16:18) was committed to Paul.”
Hence there was no change of plan, but the plan had not been fully revealed in the OT. It is of course understood that God does not change, but the purpose of the Incarnation may have been (in addition to being a remedy for the Fall) the formation of the church.
Fr Hart, Christ’s ministry was rejected by many Jews – as noted in a quote below:
Unfortunately, many people who were ethnically Jewish did not recognize Jesus’ role as Messiah and so did not accept Christianity, the completed form of Judaism. Instead, they stayed with a partial, incomplete form of Judaism. Other Jews (the apostles and their followers) did recognize that Jesus was the Messiah and embraced the new, completed form of Judaism.
Thanks for continuing this discussion.
Susan