In chapter 5 of Geerhardus Vos’ Biblical Theology (pp. 343ff), the focus is on the various aspects of Jesus’ revelation during his public ministry. Vos argues that the revelation mediated by Jesus is often mistakenly confined to his earthly life, ignoring his pre-existence and post-existence, both of which are integral to the comprehensive scheme of divine revelation.

Vos outlines that Jesus’ earthly revelation functioned within a specific framework, implying limitations that did not exist in his pre-existent and post-existent states. These limitations were not due to any inadequacy in Jesus’ knowledge or power but were part of a divine scheme that required a progressive unfolding of revelation. Vos emphasizes that Jesus did not intend to reveal the entire volume of divine truth during his earthly ministry but functioned as a pivotal link within the continuum of revelation that includes both the Old and New Testaments.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:04:31 The Revelation of Jesus
• 00:20:57 The Generation of the Son
• 00:32:51 The Son as a Divine Person
• 00:44:07 Jesus’ Post-Existence
• 00:48:25 The Progressive Covenantal Character of Christ’s Ministry
• 00:55:24 Beyond the Incarnation
• 01:01:34 Kenosis
• 01:08:20 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

In this installment of Vos Group, Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey discuss pp. 330–333 of Geerhardus Vos’ book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. In this section, Vos focuses on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, a pivotal event in the Gospels. Vos examines various interpretations and challenges to the historicity and objectivity of this event, discussing theories that view it as mythological or parabolic. He argues for its historical and objective reality, using scriptural references such as Matthew 12:29 to support his view. Vos emphasizes the dual nature of the event as both a temptation by Satan and a probation by God, underscoring its importance in the Messianic mission of Jesus. He contrasts this with the temptation of Adam in Genesis, noting differences in their respective contexts and purposes. Vos also explores the implications of the event on the understanding of Jesus’ sinlessness and His role in atonement. Throughout, he maintains a theological perspective that situates the temptation within the broader narrative of redemption and Christ’s mission.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:06:31 Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness
• 00:10:46 Myth and the Liberal Interpretation of Scripture
• 00:19:08 Matthew 12 and the Binding of the Strong Man
• 00:27:16 Eschatology and the Kingdom of God
• 00:30:28 The Impeccability of Jesus
• 00:51:34 Jesus Historically Casts Out Demons
• 00:53:28 The Holy Spirit, Messianic Sonship, and the Kingdom of God
• 00:59:00 Practical Applications of Jesus’ Temptation
• 01:05:34 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey reflect on the recent Reformed Forum Theology Conference on J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism before turning to a discussion of their new booklet, Unfolding Redemption: Exploring the History and Order of Salvation.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:35 Reflecting on the 2023 Reformed Forum Conference
• 00:08:27 Machen and Denominational History
• 00:17:02 The Church and Culture
• 00:28:09 The History and Order of Salvation
• 00:35:41 The Unchanging Person of the Son
• 00:42:29 Jesus Declared to Be the Son of God in Power
• 00:55:05 The Benefits of Adoption
• 01:07:44 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We conclude our discussion of chapter 17, “The Atonement Through Christ.”

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. In chapter 17, “The Atonement Through Christ,” we begin to discuss what the atonement means, the need for the atonement, and how satisfaction of God is made through the atonement.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. In chapter 16, “The Offices of Christ,” we delve into the topic of the threefold offices of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. Chapter 15, “The States of Christ,” is where Berkhof considers Christ in his state of humiliation and exaltation. This episode we discuss Christ’s state of humiliation.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. Chapter 14 brings us to a new section called, “The Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ.” Berkhof first deals with a discussion of “The Names and Natures of Christ.”

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

We turn to pp. 305–306 of Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss revelation connected with the nativity. Throughout history, God interprets his supernatural works with his inspired Word. At this critical moment in history, the coming of Christ the redeemer, the Lord reveals himself further to his people.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 03:23 The New Testament and Critical Scholarship
• 12:20 The Incarnation and the History of Special Revelation
• 19:43 Dogmatic Considerations Regarding the Pre-Existent Messiah
• 37:46 Supernatural Acts in History
• 49:14 The Prophecy of Zacharias
• 54:48 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Ryan Noha and Camden Bucey speak with Lane Tipton on the heels of recording the sixth course in our Fellowship in Reformed Apologetics: “Christology and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics.”

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 09:00 Van Til’s Christology and Hermeneutics
• 12:53 The Great Debate Today and Other Books on the Subject
• 20:58 Going Deeper than Evidences
• 30:36 Modern Christologies
• 36:41 Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology
• 45:14 Christology and Hermeneutics Informing Apologetic Method
• 52:41 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton, Ryan Noha

Lane Tipton speaks about his chapter, “The Person of Christ: The Deeper Protestant Conception and the Church’s Heavenly-Mindedness” in Theology for Ministry: How Doctrine Affects Pastoral Life and Practice (P&R Publishing), a festschrift for Sinclair Ferguson.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Update on Reformed Academy
• 13:56 Writing in a Festschrift for Sinclair Ferguson
• 20:49 The Person of Christ
• 28:32 Basic Lessons in Christology
• 34:35 Immutability and the Hypostatic Union
• 40:56 Theological and Christological Errors
• 50:12 The Deeper Modernist, Catholic, and Protestant Conceptions
• 55:54 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Where is Christ’s body now?

In short, that is the question behind our conversation today with K. J. Drake, the author of The Flesh of the Word: The extra Calvinisticum from Zwingli to Early Orthodoxy (Oxford University Press, 2021). In this book, Drake seeks to broaden the study of the extra Calvinisticum by investigating how the doctrine arose within sixteenth-century Reformed theology as well as how its form and function developed over time due to the changing polemical and theological contexts from Zwingli to the period of early Reformed orthodoxy.

K. J. Drake is Academic Dean and Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Indianapolis Theological Seminary. He received his BA in History, Classics, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Latin from the University of Nebraska. He attended Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis where he received his M.Div.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:05:41 The Question of Immanuel
• 00:07:43 Defining the Extra Calvinisticum
• 00:10:33 Development of Zwingli’s Views
• 00:15:40 Fault Lines between Lutheran and Reformed
• 00:18:35 Barth and the Extra Calvinisticum
• 00:20:47 Calvin vs. the Calvinists
• 00:24:38 Zwingli’s Christology
• 00:32:22 Development in Zwingli’s Views
• 00:35:11 The Consensus Tigurinus
• 00:39:43 Vermigli and the Communicatio Idiomatum
• 00:48:47 Knox and Cranmer
• 00:51:34 Antoine de la Roche Chandieu
• 00:54:50 Other Doctrines that Are Impacted
• 01:04:58 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Dan Ragusa, K. J. Drake

We preview a forthcoming course on Union with Christ and the Doctrine of Salvation, taught by Lane Tipton.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Carlton Wynne, Lane Tipton, and Camden Bucey open Cornelius Van Til’s book, The Defense of the Faith to pages 32–33 wherein Van Til discusses the doctrine of Christ. These are the fundamental building blocks of the consistent Christian apologetic.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Lane G. Tipton

Rev. Dr. Bruce Pass discusses Herman Bavinck as a sytematic theologian and the role Christology plays within his theological system. Throughout his career, Bavinck identified different central dogma but developed his theology around Christology as a “middle point” to which all other doctrines relate.

Dr. Pass holds a doctorate in systematic theology from the University of Edinburgh. His thesis has been published as The Heart of Dogmatics: Christology and Christocentrism in Herman Bavinck (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).

Participants: Bruce Pass, Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

[Update from the Editor: December 5, 2019] At the author’s request, we had temporarily removed this essay. Westminster Theological Seminary is reviewing the theology of Dr. Oliphint and have asked that faculty members (including adjunct faculty) refrain from blogging, podcasting, or writing about the thesis of Dr. Oliphint’s book, God With Us. At the time, the author was an adjunct faculty member and was made aware of this policy following the initial publication of this essay. The author has since resigned his position due to the handling of matters regarding Dr. Lane G. Tipton.

Following a previous essay, I continue a series of interactions with the first edition of Dr. K. Scott Oliphint’s God With Us.[1] I want to consider Dr. Oliphint’s treatment of the biblical, confessional, and sadly much misunderstood and maligned doctrine of divine simplicity. That this doctrine has been a bulwark of orthodoxy is something so simple and straightforward I should not even have to say anything, but alas, I must say something.

It seems clear to me that while Dr. Oliphint ostensibly affirms a kind of divine simplicity, his unique doctrine also presents something of a two-natured God, which undermines whatever affirmation of the doctrine he may offer. Let me be transparent. This is not now, nor has it ever been, a personal issue. It is all a matter of doctrinal fidelity and clarity. There would be nothing better than to see Dr. Oliphint issue a revised and improved edition of his God With Us.[2] That being said, let’s begin by formulating a simple doctrine of simplicity.

The Doctrine of Simplicity

The doctrine of divine simplicity affirms that God is not made up of more basic parts (or any parts whatsoever). Perhaps two illustrations will help us understand this. First, consider a brick wall. A brick wall is a single thing, right? Yes and no. Yes, it is one thing: a wall. But it is made up of more basic or primitive parts, namely: bricks and mortar. Second, my wife makes a wonderful Johnny Cake (cornbread). It is one thing: a Johnny Cake. But as I watch my wife make the Johnny Cake, I see that she uses many ingredients. She uses corn meal, eggs, butter, salt, sugar, etc. We say that the ingredients that go into making the Johnny Cake are more basic than the Johnny Cake itself. In like manner, bricks and mortar are more basic than the brick wall.

The doctrine of divine simplicity is formulated from biblical texts and the implications we can draw from them that God is not made up of more basic ingredients (e.g. Deut. 4:15–16; John 4:24; Luke 24:39). We cannot even think of the three persons that way. God the Father is not one-third of the Triune Godhead, the Son another third, and the Spirit yet another. Each person of the Godhead is wholly God and the full God due to the mutual interpenetration of the persons in one another (called perichoresis in Greek or circumincessio in Latin).[3]

You may be wondering what the big deal is. Perhaps this all strikes you as so much abstract philosophizing. But it isn’t. Before we turn to Dr. Oliphint’s formulation of the dual-layered nature of God, let’s consider some implications of the doctrine of divine simplicity and connections it may have with other aspects of what we know about God as revealed in the pages of Scripture and developed in systematic theology (see the Westminster Confession of Faith chapters 2, 5, and 8; the Larger Catechism Q&A 7, 10, and 12; and the Shorter Catechism Q&A 4).

The doctrine of divine simplicity is inextricably tied up with God’s other attributes. This should not surprise us since God is simple. Properly understood, God is his attributes. Divine simplicity articulates the truth that God is not made up of ingredients that are more basic than he. As the WCF 2.1 has it, “God is without body, parts, or passions. . .” There is no before or after with God. This is divine simplicity seen in terms of time. There also is no here or there with God’s location, since he fills all space. This is what divine immensity is about. It is divine simplicity with regard to space. Also related is the doctrine of divine aseity. God is a se, from himself. As Cornelius Van Til was fond of saying, God is the “self-contained ontological Trinity.”[4] That is, God is absolutely independent. Whereas we as creatures are dependent on God, he is never dependent upon us. God is also pure act(ion) meaning he has no unactualized potential. God is an utterly immutable, simple dynamic perichoretic Triune being.

This ties closely into God’s omnipotence and omniscience. God could not be all-powerful or all-knowing if he is not a se or simple. If God was not simple, he could get stronger or weaker. If God was not simple, he could discover new truth he did not know before or he could forget knowledge he had once possessed. To say that God is simple is to affirm divine immutability. God does not change. Even the incarnation does not change this. God the Son united himself to a true human nature, a “true body and a reasonable soul” as the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 22 has it. The Son as to his divine nature did not change in the incarnation. Yes, a human nature was added to the divine nature. But the person of the divine logos was the person of the God-man Jesus Christ. That is, the Son as to his divine nature did not undergo change in the incarnation even though his human nature most assuredly did.[5]

God With Us and Simplicity

Now that we have given a brief definition of divine simplicity as God not having more basic or primitive parts (elements or ingredients) in terms of time or space that can be gained or lost, let us consider what Dr. Oliphint says in his book God With Us that might relate to this subject. I will not be citing or referencing every possible instance of relevant material but providing clear illustrations of statements that relate to divine simplicity followed by some interaction and analysis. Before we look at a few instances of Dr. Oliphint’s thinking, I will seek to provide a brief overview of his articulation of the God/world or Creator/creature distinction and relation.

Dr. Oliphint argues in God With Us that in order for God to relate to his creation he has to take on properties or attributes which he would otherwise not have. To accommodate this, Dr. Oliphint distinguishes between God’s essential nature and his covenantal nature. He also speaks of essential and covenantal attributes or properties. We need to realize that the term “covenant” has a unique or idiosyncratic working definition in God With Us. According to Dr. Oliphint, God’s essential nature is immutable, but his covenantal nature (comprised of created, covenantal, human properties) is changeable.[6]

Dr. Oliphint seems to believe he maintains biblical and Reformed orthodoxy by maintaining the mere existence of God’s essential nature. But in this schema, there are two senses in which divine simplicity is denied in fact even if not in intention. First, the very distinction between God’s essential nature and his covenantal nature, brought about by the assumption of covenantal properties or attributes is itself a contravention of the doctrine of divine simplicity. Second, the covenantal nature is itself changeable or mutable, not to say malleable. To sum up my concerns, Dr. Oliphint has ontologized in his theological formulation what has been understood by the vast majority of the Christian tradition as a relation between the absolutely immutable Creator and his changeable creatures.

The following are examples of Dr. Oliphint’s view that God had to assume covenantal properties in order to relate to his creation (bolded italics mine):

First, there can be no question that God appears to his people from the beginning. These appearances of God entail that he is making himself known by way of properties and qualities that would otherwise not belong to him.”[7]

God’s covenantal character includes, at least, the span of covenant history . . .”[8]

The Son of God had been appearing to the saints throughout redemptive history. He did that by temporarily taking on various qualities and characteristics in order to be with His people, to speak to Moses and the prophets, etc.[9]

The mediation of God (the Son) is, to use Turretin’s word, theandric [divine human union]; it includes, necessarily, both the divine and the human. In the same way, therefore, and proleptically, the mediation of God (the Son) prior to the incarnation is theandric as well. The point is not that it includes the permanent assumption of a human nature, as is the case in the incarnation, but that it includes the fact of God’s taking to himself created, covenantal, human properties, all the while maintaining, as he must, his essential divinity.[10]

Dr. Oliphint goes further and notes that these assumed covenantal attributes are not just “improper” or metaphorical ways of speaking. They really do exist:

. . . those covenantal attributes of God’s are no less ‘literal’ than are his essential attributes. God’s repentance, then, is not simply something that ‘seems to us’ like repentance. It is literal repentance, he is (covenantally) changing directions because of his faithfulness to his covenant. But it is repentance of a condescended, covenant God who has come down . . .[11]

On the contrary, as we have seen, we can truthfully predicate both aspects and properties of Christ; the communicatio [communication of sharing of attributes] means that both aspects of Christ’s character can (and must) be affirmed. So also with God. He both is immutable andin his condescension takes on covenantal properties in order really and truly to relate himself to us.[12]

Briefly put, explanations of God’s interaction with creation have tended in one of two directions. Either God gives up aspects of his essential character and is, thereby, essentially constrained by his creation, or those passages in Scripture that indicate constraint or limitation in God as he interacts with creation are metaphorical or somehow ‘improper.’ Neither of these tendencies allow the proper, gospel emphasis of Scripture to shine.[13]

Rather, the God who is immutable and whose plan and purpose for creation and his people will not fail nevertheless can and does relent.[14]

So why does God say of himself, “Now I know . . .”? He says this, in part, not because he wants us to map this expression of his knowledge onto his essential character. Rather, we have to take seriously God’s condescension. Once God condescends, we should recognize that, in taking to himself covenantal properties, he takes to himself as well the kind of knowledge (and will, to be discussed later) that accrues to those properties. Or, to put it another way, one of the covenantal properties that he takes to himself is the development of knowledge that is conducive to his interaction with his creation generally, and specifically with his people.[15]

These selections should clearly indicate that Dr. Oliphint has provided us with a new understanding of how God condescendingly relates to us creatures. Dr. Oliphint is forthright about this on page 43 of God With Us. If it was not new, it would altogether eliminate the raison d’etre for the book. With this formulation of the doctrine of God, how can one avoid seeing a schizophrenic God who has a dual-layered nature that is essentially immutable but covenantally open to the future free actions of his creatures? How can one avoid making God dependent upon his creatures? Do we have access to the essential God or only his mutable covenantal nature? Is God even capable of a relation according to his essential nature? This appears to me to be an unstable mixture of the classical theistic and the open theistic views of God. The orthodox tradition has rightly understood these to be incommensurable. And so it rests on the church to answer these questions in humble submission to her Lord as he has revealed himself in the Scriptures.

[1] K. Scott Oliphint, God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012). I have drawn from a few other sources for instances of Dr. Oliphint’s thinking.

[2] Dr. Oliphint has indicated that he is in the process of revising God With Us. We anticipate a greatly improved version of the book.

[3] See Dr. Richard A. Muller’s Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Being Drawn Principally From Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017).

[4] See Cornelius Van Til’s Introduction to Systematic Theology and Defense of the Faith for this kind of language.

[5] See the Chalcedonian Formula for an orthodox understanding of the hypostatic union of the two natures in one person of Jesus Christ. Each nature retains its proper characteristics while being joined together in one person, namely the eternal divine Logos.

[6] While Dr. Oliphint does note that the covenantal attributes are created, covenantal, and human, it is not clear that he maintains that clear distinction throughout his writings on covenantal attributes nor does it improve his doctrinal view one iota.

[7] Oliphint, God With Us, 182.

[8] K. Scott Oliphint, “Tolle Lege: A Brief Response to Paul Helm,” Reformation21, accessed February 16, 2019, http://www.reformation21.org/articles/tolle-lege-a-brief-response-to-paul-helm.php.

[9] K. Scott Oliphint, The Majesty of the Mystery: Celebrating the Incomprehensible God (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016), 74.

[10] Oliphint, God With Us, 198.

[11] Oliphint, God With Us, 219.

[12] Oliphint, God With Us, 191

[13] Oliphint, God With Us, 198.

[14] Oliphint, God With Us, 186.

[15] Oliphint, God With Us, 194.

Preface

Given several public announcements and reports, many people have become aware of recent events regarding the theology of Dr. K. Scott Oliphint. For those who are not, Dr. Oliphint was charged with four counts of doctrinal error. On May 3, 2019, the matter came before the Presbytery of the Southwest of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, where he is a ministerial member. As it has been communicated to me, the presbytery decided not to proceed to trial because the books, articles, and lectures in question were considered inadmissible (BD III.7.b.4). The OPC Book of Discipline III.2 states, “No charge shall be admitted by the judicatory if it is filed more than two years after the commission of the alleged offense, unless it appears that unavoidable impediments have prevented an earlier filing of the charge. A charge shall be considered filed when it has been delivered to the clerk or the moderator of the judicatory.” The items in question were published more than two years ago, and this appears to be one reason the matter did not proceed to trial. I was not present at the meeting, and while minutes were recorded, the presbytery will not approve them until their next scheduled meeting. I have based my remarks upon the testimony of several members of the presbytery. Nevertheless, I would be happy to be corrected.

I have not written any extensive public criticisms regarding these matters, because I did not want to speak while an ecclesiastical process was underway. Now that these charges have been dismissed, I feel at liberty to engage publicly with the views expressed in Dr. Oliphint’s books, articles, and lectures. Reformed Forum is supposed to be a forum after all. We desire to interact with all doctrinal matters relevant to confessional Reformed and Presbyterian churches and especially with Dr. Oliphint’s, since he has been a featured guest on Christ the Center and has spoken at two of our annual theology conferences in Grayslake, Illinois. I welcome Dr. Oliphint’s interaction privately and publicly. I sent this essay to him before it was published, and he has an open invitation to respond here. Through these means, I desire to extend our ministerial communion and fellowship in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Oliphint has implied that he no longer holds all the views expressed in his publications. Nonetheless, he has neither made it clear exactly which, if any, views he finds to be erroneous nor which positions he now believes to be correct. As I mentioned in a previous post, Dr. Oliphint plans to issue a revision of his key book, God with Us. I understand he notified his presbytery that he expects to submit the revision to his publisher by August. In the meantime, I would like to address what has already been published. I pray such interaction will be helpful to the Church and may be used in the service of theological precision and clarity. By God’s grace, may we pursue doctrinal fidelity together and speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15).

The Basic Essential-Covenantal Model

At the heart of Dr. Oliphint’s proposal is a distinction between God as he is essentially and God as he is in relation to creation. Oliphint frequently uses the term “covenantal” to describe this relationship. That in itself can be confusing to confessional Presbyterian ears. The Westminster Standards speak of God’s works of creation and providence (WCF 4, 5; Shorter Catechism 8). Moreover, they speak of God’s covenant with man as a special act of his providence (Shorter Catechism 12), not an act of creation. While God does truly relate to creation and, specifically, to his image bearers, the relation itself is not necessarily covenantal—at least in the way the confession speaks:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant. (Westminster Confession of Faith, 7.1)

There is a difference between knowing God and knowing God as your blessedness and reward. All humans know God by virtue of being made in his image (Rom. 1:18–20). All people have the works of his law written upon their hearts, and they all are without excuse (Rom. 2:15). Westminster Confession of Faith 7.2 says that the first covenant made with man was a covenant of works. At least in terms of the way the confession speaks, it is not precise to say that the covenant is the relation itself. God created man and then he entered into a covenant with him. I believe this conflation is at the root of Dr. Oliphint’s thesis and leads him to make several problematic theological statements down the line. In effect, he ontologizes the relationship between God and creation, making it more than a relationship and something that subsists itself.

The Addition of Christology

The second major issue with the thesis of God with Us is the application of Christology to this basic covenantal structure. According to Oliphint, God assumes new properties and changes in relating to creation: “Once he determines to relate to us, that relation entails that he take on properties that he otherwise would not have had. He limits himself while remaining the infinite God.”[1] In relating to creation, God “takes on” new properties. In effect, we can speak of a set of properties God has in himself (essential properties) and a set of properties God has by virtue of his relationship to creation (covenantal properties). These “sets” function very similarly to the natures of which we speak in classic Christology. Just as Jesus is divine and human, so also God is essential and covenantal—even as those two things seem to be at odds.[2] Oliphint holds them together by employing the communicatio idiomatum as a model for conceptualizing the relationship between God’s essential and covenantal properties/characteristics. He writes:

On the contrary, as we have seen, we can truthfully predicate both aspects and properties of Christ; the communicatio means that both aspects of Christ’s character can (and must) be affirmed. So also with God. He both is immutable and in his condescension takes on covenantal properties in order really and truly to relate himself to us.[3]

Here is but one example of how this model may be used:

Once God condescends, we should recognize that, in taking to himself covenantal properties, he takes to himself as well the kind of knowledge (and will, to be discussed later) that accrues to those properties. Or, to put it another way, one of the covenantal properties that he takes to himself is the development of knowledge that is conducive to his interaction with his creation generally, and specifically with his people.[4]

In other words, God’s knowledge can change. As he relates to creation, his knowledge undergoes development. There can be a real and contingent relationship between God and man just as we would expect among creatures yet without making God a creature per se. Certainly, Oliphint wants to protect the true relationship between God and man without transgressing the Creator-creature distinction. This is where the communicatio idiomatum fits in. By employing it, Oliphint attempts to retain the classical language about God while also speaking of a God who changes:

So, to repeat, we may properly speak of God as not knowing and knowing at the same time, of his being limited in space and infinitely omnipresent, of his lacking the power to do something and being omnipotent at the same time.[5]

While Dr. Oliphint uses the incarnation as a model, he is not speaking of the two natures of Christ united in the person of Christ. He is speaking of theology proper. Nonetheless, in Oliphint’s model, God has assumed something like a second nature. Just as the Son of God assumed a human nature, so also God assumes covenantal properties/characteristics and everything that may entail. Indeed, God may even possess a second mind:

For God to ‘change his mind’ in this context would entail that, included in his covenantal properties, is a covenantal ‘mind’ such that he condescends to us, even with respect to his knowledge and the actions that proceed from it.[6]

And according to this mind, God may legitimately learn:

He really does identify with us, and he moves with us in history, ‘learning’ and listening, in order to maintain and manage the covenant relationship that he has sovereignly and unilaterally established, the details of which he has eternally and immutably decreed.[7]

Oliphint then applies this theology to a concrete biblical example: “In condescending to relate to Adam and Eve, he is, like them, (not essentially, but covenantally) restricted in his knowledge of where they might be hiding in that garden.”[8] To put it another way, God legitimately does not know where Adam and Eve are when he searches for them in the garden (Gen. 3:9). Again, you can see how the communicatio idiomatum enables Oliphint to say that while essentially God is omniscient, there is another aspect—the covenantal aspect—of God that is not omniscient.

Preliminary Assessment

In my judgment, the communicatio idiomatum should not be applied to the doctrine of God. Any change that occurred in the son of God upon the incarnation may only be properly ascribed to his human nature. Change may neither be ascribed to his divine nature nor to his person, which is the hypostasis of the Son who subsists in the divine essence. This model cannot rightly be applied to God apart from a human, created nature. The whole Godhead exists as three persons subsisting in one essence. This is irreducible, for God is both simple and immutable. So where can the change be located? It cannot properly be predicated of God himself. To speak of God assuming covenantal properties, attributes, or characteristics is either to present a God who changes or worse: to present two gods who are quite different from one another.

I believe Oliphint’s basic intention is a good one. He desires to maintain a true and legitimate relationship between God and man. God does not merely appear to love us; he truly loves us. We do not appear to move from wrath to grace; there is a legitimate and historic transition as our relationship to God changes through the person and work of Christ by the power of his Spirit. Yes and amen. But there are orthodox ways to speak of this relationship that do not have the dangerous liabilities of this new model.

In future posts, I plan to work through many of the quotations in God with Us and other published material. Yet even now, I desire that this basic introduction would open dialogue within the Church on these important matters as we seek biblical truth together.

[1] K. Scott Oliphint, God with Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God (Wheaton Ill.: Crossway, 2012), 188.

[2] For example: “He both is immutable and in his condescension takes on covenantal properties in order really and truly to relate himself to us.” Oliphint, 191.

[3] Oliphint, 191.

[4] Oliphint, 194.

[5] Oliphint, 198.

[6] Oliphint, 219n74.

[7] Oliphint, 228.

[8] K. Scott Oliphint, Reasons for Faith: Philosophy in the Service of Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2006), 234.

In the incarnation, the eternal Son of God assumed a human nature. He did this without giving up his divinity. He retains his immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, and all the attributes according to his eternal, divine, and necessary existence.

In this episode, we discuss how these two natures relate to the person in the hypostatic union. By looking at Scripture, the Council of Chalcedon, and our confessional tradition, we review an orthodox grammar for speaking about these matters.

An error in the doctrine of God or Christology, however minor it may seem, will inevitably compound as other doctrines are developed. We should always seek to maintain confessional orthodoxy by reviewing the basics from which we never graduate.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington

Thank you to everyone who visited reformedforum.org/donate throughout the year. We are tremendously grateful for your generous support. Be assured that we’re setting the stage for another big year as our board continues to think and pray about our next steps.

We’re looking forward to another full year of Christ the Center. January 25 marked our 10th anniversary. Jeff, Jim, and I recorded that first episode during my first year in seminary—three homes and three children ago. Things have changed over the years, but our goal has stayed the same. Our mission is to present every person mature in Christ (Col. 1:28).

Episodes

• 524 — Marcus Mininger, Uncovering the Theme of Revelation in Romans 1:16–3:26
• 533 — Michael Kruger, How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church
• 540 — The Nature of Apostasy in Hebrews 6
• 542 — Bill Dennison, Karl Marx
• 551 — The Impeccability of Jesus Christ
• 555 — Darryl Hart, Still Protesting
• 556 — The Deeper Protestant Conception
• 566 — Glen Clary, The Liturgies of Bucer, Calvin, and Knox
• 570 — Danny Olinger, Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian
• 571 — Cory Brock and Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, Bavinck’s Philosophy of Revelation

Participants: Adam York, Bill Dennison, Camden Bucey, Cory Brock, Dan Ragusa, Danny Olinger, Darryl G. Hart, Glen Clary, Jared Oliphint, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy, Lane G. Tipton, Marcus Mininger, Michael Kruger, Nathaniel Gray Sutanto

Dominic Legge, O. P. speaks about the deep connection between Thomas’s Christology and his trinitarian theology. Dr. Legge is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Thomistic Institute Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Participants: Camden Bucey, Dominic Legge, Glen Clary, Jim Cassidy

As an enjoyable way to close out our series on the doctrine of the atonement, this week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob will begin reading through an article by J. I. Packer in the book, The Glory of the Atonement, entitled “The Atonement in the Life of the Christian.” (Part 2 reading) Many thanks to IVP for permission to make this article available in this format. Taken from The Glory of the Atonement edited by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III. Copyright (c) 2004 by by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com

Participants: Robert Tarullo

As an enjoyable way to close out our series on the doctrine of the atonement, this week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob will begin reading through an article by J. I. Packer in the book, The Glory of the Atonement, entitled “The Atonement in the Life of the Christian.” (Part 1 reading) Many thanks to IVP for permission to make this article available in this format. Taken from The Glory of the Atonement edited by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III. Copyright (c) 2004 by by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com

Participants: Robert Tarullo

The impeccability of Christ is an important, though debated point. It involves not only the sinlessness of our savior, but whether it was possible for him to sin. As we consider the issue, we turn to F. W. Kremer’s article, “The Impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ” published in Reformed Quarterly Review, Volume 26, April 1879. We discuss the tendency to consider Christ’s humanity independently of his divinity. It’s not merely that people recognize the natures are distinct, but that they implicitly acknowledge that his humanity can be abstracted from his divinity. In the abstract, we could acknowledge that Jesus’s human nature had the capability of sinning. For example, his body was physically capable of taking a sword and murdering someone. But we cannot consider Christ’s human nature in the abstract. He is the second person of the trinity who has assumed a true body and a reasonable soul. Sin involves a moral agent. Does the human nature of Christ constitute a full moral agent apart from the person of the son? This also raises serious issues regarding God’s decree. Throughout the episode, we maintain that if it was possible for Christ to sin, it was possible for Christ to fail.

Links

• R.C. Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson discuss the impeccability or peccability of Christ

Transcript

[showhide more_text=”Show Transcript (%s words)” less_text=”Hide Transcript”]Camden Bucey: 00:07 Welcome to Christ The Center, your weekly conversation of reformed theology. We’re now in episode number 551. My name is Camden Bucey. I serve as the pastor of Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois. I’m back with Jeff Waddington, who serves as stated supply at Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Lansdowne Pennsylvania. I’m advocating that we now call it Orthoknox Presbyterian Church. Camden Bucey: 00:33 Welcome back Jeff, it’s good to have you with us. Jeff Waddington: 00:35 Good to be here, Orthoknox Presbyterian Church, that would save time. Camden Bucey: 00:40 That would save some time. We’re thankful for you joining us and for your ministry down there. Jeff Waddington: 00:40 Glad to be here. Camden Bucey: 00:45 We also have with us Adam York, our friend, who is the pastor of Providence OP in Kingwood Texas. Welcome back Adam, it’s good to speak with you. Adam York: 00:55 Well what a blessing it is to be here with your brothers. Camden Bucey: 00:57 Yeah, it’s good to have you back on this side of the podcast divide. We have Proclaiming Christ, one of our favorite programs out there, alongside Theology Simply Profound, and then we have Christ The Center, as our three regular weekly programs. We’re delighted that the those are going strong, but to have Adam, who is a regular on Proclaiming Christ come on over here to Christ The Center, is always a delight. We need not have dividing walls like the Jews and Gentiles did prior to the work of Christ. Adam York: 01:30 We’re tearing down the dividing wall of hostility. Camden Bucey: 01:33 Yeah, no hostility here, but it just so happens the way that we often schedule. I guess Jim and Glenn are flipping over, they’re regulars over on PC2. So it’s good to have you with us Adam, and we’re glad that you brought with you a wonderful topic. Today we’re going to be speaking about the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is an issue of whether or not Jesus was capable of sinning in his human nature, and all of the details and the attendant circumstances therein. Camden Bucey: 02:07 So we’re going to speak about that. It’s a probably more contentious issue than you think. But there are different people, even within the reform community that have differing views. So we hope to unpack that and speak about the importance of Christ’s impeccability and what that actually means, in just a few minutes. But I do want to mention that Christ The Center is listener supported, and we do rely on the generous support of our listeners and our viewers, everyone involved with what we’re doing here to help us to produce and distribute all of our programs, free of charge, as well as to host events and do some other things. Camden Bucey: 02:41 We’ve got a lot planned for reform forum over the next six to 12 months. We’re very excited about the things going on. But one of those big things is our theology conference, October 5th through 7th, here in Grayslake, where are our topic this year is: Seeing God, The Deeper Protestant Conception, Aquinas, Bart, Vos & the Beatific Vision. Camden Bucey: 03:02 We’ve gotten a lot of interest on Facebook, people are taking a look at possibly coming and asking their friends if it would be a good event to come to. I do want to encourage people to check it out. We have a lot of information on the website. If you go to reformforum.org, there’s a big ole’ banner right on the front homepage. You can click on that and go to our event information. It may sound like an esoteric subject we’re going to bring it down to the level of people that are going to be there in attendance, we’re not just going to be speaking about abstract things, these are things that really matter, that really matter. And the beatific vision, more or less, is that wonderful blessing that we will enter into when our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ returns. And when we see him, we will be like him, First John 3:2. Camden Bucey: 03:48 The question is how is that? And there are several theological options, that have been presented, even within the reformed community, you know. And there are many people that would say that we participate in the divine essence, our intellect perceives and participates in the divine essence, so that we behold it, not just by knowing and understanding it, but in one way, shape or form, namely by participation, becoming god. And that might seem like wacko and out there, but that is a [inaudible 00:04:19] view, and we’re going to develop that. Camden Bucey: 04:22 We’ve all been reading a ton of Thomas and reading Thomas himself on this subject, and learning quite a bit, so we hope to share that research with people. But on the far other end, you might ask: Well, does God somehow change himself in order to accommodate this new blessed relationship? And then we of course have the Bartian side of things, where God identifies himself with humanity through the revelatory Christ event, you know, in God’s time for us. Camden Bucey: 04:51 So these are extremely practical issues, we’re not just speaking about things that engage the abstract mind, but things that, this is where the rubber meets the road, this is where theology matters. And how we answer these questions, how we develop them, and then what we do about it, has a lot to do with the work of the church. And we want to speak about those things. It’s a little bit of a foretaste. But if you go to the conference page, you can see not only a schedule of events, titles and the speakers who will be in attendance, but also we’re working on providing very succinct thesis statements for each lecture, and then in some cases also a brief little abstract or summary for the topic. Camden Bucey: 05:33 So our early bird registration is in effect until the end of August. You can come to the main conference session for $55. It’s gonna be a full day and a lot of wonderful material for $55. We also have some tickets available for our VIP dinner that Friday night, where you can come, and we’re gonna have roughly about 25 people at a very long single table. But we’re gonna hear a lecture from Danny Olinger on the nature and destiny of from Vos to Gaffin. He’s going to be speaking. It’s gonna be a wonderful kind of Vos event. And there’s a surprise in store, we’re working hard. Not quite ready to announce it, because we want to get a few things finished and a few things ready to make sure that we can deliver. But we’re looking forward to it. All of this online, October 5th through 7th. Camden Bucey: 06:26 You can learn more at reformforum.org. And also save the date, I don’t want to overload everybody, listen in, and don’t want to talk forever, we want to get through our subject. But save the date, April 1st through April 6th in Wimberley Texas, that’s the year 2019, for those who might be listening many years into the future. But the first week of April 2019, we are going to have an entirely new format of an event, something we’ve never done before. And we’re going to have a seminar that’s going to be taught, April 2nd, 3rd and 4th. So in the day, and so at the late morning, probably around 10:00 or so, we’re gonna have two half hour lectures by Lane Tipton is teaching the class, it’s going to be in some respects an intro to reformed theology/biblical theology. Camden Bucey: 07:18 He’s gonna teach 12 total, 30 minute sessions that we are going to record on video and eventually turn into an adult Sunday school course. If you want to be part of that, if you want to be there, come and visit us. We’re gonna host the event at the Old Glory Ranch in Wimberley, Texas. But we also will be renting out cabins, they’re really kind of tiny houses, they’re not rustic cabins, but cabins on site in Wimberley, Texas, where reform forum people will be staying. And you can also rent a cabin and stay on site where not only will you attend the sessions in the daytime, but you also can can spend time with us, hang out with us over dinner, barbecue, whatever we’re doing in the mornings and evenings. So that’s gonna be a wonderful event. We’re gonna have more information on that and registration available soon. But save the date, April 1st through 6th, 2019. Camden Bucey: 08:15 Okay guys, I think that’s enough of my marketing. But I just can’t talk enough about these things, I’m so excited about what we’re able to do. It’s kind of a new era in reform forum, and we’re very thankful for the ways that the Lord has provided for us, so that we are able to support the church in her work of the great commission. She’s been given that mandate by the Lord to make disciples of men. Then we also are designed to support the church specifically by assisting her in presenting every person mature in Christ. That’s our mission statement, right out of Colossians 128. And everything we do is directed toward that, helping people know Jesus better, through a radical consistency to scripture. So that’s our all-encompassing idea, and we want you to be part of that too, everybody who’s listening. So one way to do that is, come to an event. We’d be happy to meet you. Camden Bucey: 09:08 So brothers, one thing that’s important know about our Lord Jesus, is that he was perfect, he was not a sinner. He became sin on our behalf, so that he would also die to sin and triumph over it through his death and resurrection. But he committed no sin. But the question isn’t within orthodoxy, I should say within orthodoxy, the question is not did Christ sin? We’re on a different level if that’s the question we’re going to talk about. Camden Bucey: 09:36 But today, we’re not asking the question did Christ sin? We’re asking the question, was it possible for Christ to sin, and then maybe to put a finer point on it, was it possible for him to sin in his humanity. So those are some of the issues, but Adam I’d like for you to introduce to us, because you brought to us an older article, that that’s now been collected into book form, we’re reading it on Google books, by the Reverend [F. W. Kramer 00:10:07], The Impeccability Of The Lord Jesus Christ. It appeared, I believe, if my info is correct here, in the reformed quarterly review, volume 26, April 1879. Camden Bucey: 10:20 So Adam, how’d you find this, and why has this been on your mind lately? Adam York: 10:25 Well yes, and so it’s an older article, but it’s a good article. And the reason why I came to this brothers, is because in seminary, going back to my seminary days, I can remember my beloved professor Dr. Robert Strimple, addressing this topic. He spoke about it in his lecture notes. And we might also get a link to that, I think that is available online, that may be helpful. Camden Bucey: 10:57 I’m listening to a class of his now, I’ve imported into one of my apps on my phone, and that’s kind of my running listening and driving listening now. He’s brilliant, love Dr. Strimple. Adam York: 11:11 Now with respect to this question, unfortunately he decided, or fortunately, whatever way you want to look at it, I don’t believe he actually lectures on this topic on the MP3’s, he gave an outline. Most of the outline is kind of fill in the blank, very scant. But this section on impeccability is completely filled out, his full thoughts on this. And he simply assigned it as a matter of required reading to show up on the test, but because not being able to cover everything in class, he picked and chose. Adam York: 11:49 But I found him to be imminently clear, as always very good. And I didn’t really give it much more thought, until I got into the pastorate, and I found that I would make just really occasional references to Christ’s impeccability, not only that he was sinless, but that he was unable to sin, and it was a little befuddling to people, they weren’t sure about that. Is that right? Is that orthodox? Do we really hold to that? So I found the need to go into a little more depth on it, at least on a pastoral level. And I’ll just sort of stop at that. There’s more I could say, but it- Camden Bucey: 12:39 Well it’s an important point, and it is kind of befuddling to many of the people in churches, but not just the members in churches, but also ministers and others. There is debate about this issue, and very well respected men, people that we look up to in many ways, and people that are very reliable theologians, have even had different answers to this. Camden Bucey: 13:02 We hope to discuss this, you know, with great charity today. But Adam shared with us a video clip from a 2012 Ligonier event, where R. C. Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson were speaking on this issue, and taking the view that we would not hold. So this isn’t to say that everyone has the same view top to bottom, even within our [inaudible 00:13:25] circles as it were, but that there are some differences. But we want to raise that issue and start to look into this, and see not only what people’s answers are to the questions, but maybe some of their motivation for answering that way. And then, when we start to unpack this, you know, at a very deep level, I hope that we can see and arrive at a more consistent systematic theology. Camden Bucey: 13:50 It’s not only the answers that we provide, but we need to be thoroughly reformed in the way we get there, in our method. And I think what we may find when we start to look at people who want to affirm the impeccability of our Lord’s humanity, that the conclusions are arising from a slight misstep in the way they consider our Lord in his divine human nature. Adam York: 14:16 We could say that they arrived at their conclusion perhaps out of a legitimate concern, and that is that they think that the doctorate of the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ undermines the reality of his temptations. In other words, the temptations become a show, a charade if you will, a farce or a sham, I think some of the words that appear in the article. Camden Bucey: 14:48 Or make him somehow subhuman. We wan to to affirm entirely that Christ has assumed a true full human nature. A true body and a reasonable soul. Adam York: 15:02 And the charge that kind of bubbles up to the surface, both in the Kramer article and interestingly in Dr. Sproul’s concern. And look, I love Dr. Sproul, learned so much from him. But I think I’d have to part ways from him on this, but the concern is that if you affirm an impeccable Christ, you’re affirming a docetic Christ, docetic in he only appeared to be [inaudible 00:15:34]. Camden Bucey: 15:36 And the other side is, we also don’t want to affirm a Nestorian Christ, or a Nestorian Christ. Adam York: 15:41 Exactly. Camden Bucey: 15:43 So if we want to throw terms out there, we can play that game. Adam York: 15:49 Our argument in a nutshell, is going to be, and this is probably important so that folks don’s lose the forest for the trees, our argument has to do with the hypostatic union and the integrity of the person of Christ. And so if you go down this road, you end up sundering, and that’s the reference to Nestorianism, but you end up separating the divine and human nature, so that they’re no longer united in one person. Camden Bucey: 16:22 Let’s back up a little bit, we’ll slow down and start walking into this, because these are all the things at stake, and I hope people are interested in this and realize the significance of what we’re speaking about. This is very important material. Camden Bucey: 16:35 So impeccability here is this idea that Christ, not only he didn’t sin, but also that he is unable to sin in his human nature. But here let’s speak about the hypostatic union. Maybe Jeff, you can describe to us very briefly what the hypostatic union is and sketch that out for us, so that we have all of these proper categories, orthodox, confessional, ecumenical categories in our minds. Jeff Waddington: 17:01 So the hypostatic union is the belief that the Son of God, the Word in John Chapter one, took the second person of the Trinity, the trine, in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, became incarnate, that is in time, took to himself to use the language of the Westminster Standards and earlier doctoral standards, a true body and a reasonable soul. So that in one person, so we don’t have a schizophrenic Christ, we have one person with two natures. Those two natures, the human and the divine are able to retain their properties and integrity, all the while being united in one person. And so we can say things about the person, that may seem odd if- Jeff Waddington: 18:00 That may seem odd if we were just to think about the natures. In other words, Paul, I think in Acts Chapter 2 talks about God shedding his blood. Of course, God as a spirit doesn’t have a body apart from the incarnation, and therefore, has no blood to shed. But that’s because Paul is talking about, has in view the incarnation of the son of God and his death on the cross Jeff Waddington: 18:28 Sometimes we’ll say that that’s speaking improperly. Doesn’t mean wrongly. It just means improperly in terms of technical understanding of these matters. So you have the two natures in the one person. Remember that the person of the son, there’s not two persons. It’s the … Make sure I get this right, Camden. There is the an-hypostatic and then there’s the en-hypostatic. Camden Bucey: 19:02 Yeah, it’s basically the similar idea. I think the positive one being a negator. The ‘an’ is the negative. Jeff Waddington: 19:10 That is the human nature of Christ didn’t exist apart from the union. Camden Bucey: 19:14 Right. Right. Yes. Jeff Waddington: 19:15 And The person of the son, that is the logos, is the person. Camden Bucey: 19:22 Yes. Jeff Waddington: 19:22 Of Christ. Okay? It’s not an amalgam of the two natures. Camden Bucey: 19:30 Right. Here would be a false view, that somehow there was a human embryo or just a walking, talking human person out there, that the Son adopted as his own and took it over. That would be a false view. What we need to maintain, according to scripture and the ecumenical tradition that we uphold, is that the Holy Spirit worked within the womb of the Virgin Mary and conceived Christ. Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so there never was a moment, a split second or anything, any conception in which we could say that the human nature that Christ came to bear, that he assumed, somehow existed independently of that hypostatic union. Camden Bucey: 20:21 So it’s not only a hypostatic union, we must also go beyond that and say it was an en-hypostatic and an-hypostatic, because this human nature never did, never will, exist apart from the person of the Son. Now, the person of the Son is eternal, and his divine nature is eternal. He didn’t adopt a divine nature, but that person now is united to, or I should say, put it the other way around, the human nature is united, hypo-statically. That is to the person, to the hypostasis of the son, not to the divine nature, properly speaking. And that’s where Chalcedon can come in and describe the inseparable union, but yet the distinction between the human and the divine nature. That would lead into us all other discussions with Lutheranism to talk about how the natures relate. But, at this point, we’re speaking about how each nature relates to the person. Adam York: 21:20 Correct. So, well stated and I think you really boil it down to I think two important issues to think about here, and they’re Christological issues. That’s where it’s really helpful to focus things and reform people, you know, maybe we think hardly about the theology of the Reformation not realizing, as you were saying all the way along, that our Christology is formed pretty much intact, creedily in the early church. The reformers don’t seek to change or challenge, but they build on that such that the common way that people think today, that Christ is, you take a divine nature and you take a human nature and you add them together and you get the divine human person. And that’s not the way our creeds and confessions and our theology thinks. That, as you say, the divine person assumes a human nature which never existed. Was never hanging in the air. Can not be considered abstractly apart from his assumption of that nature, and secondly then, that the locus of personality therefore resides in the divine person. Jeff Waddington: 22:45 Right. Camden Bucey: 22:46 Yes. Jeff Waddington: 22:47 And that’s what would be, the theologians have meant by the logos being the person. All right? It’s the second person of the godhead, who is the person who has taken to himself, or assumed, a true body and a reasonable soul. This is what we would argue is undermined if we affirm peccability, that is the ability of Lord Jesus Christ to sin. Camden Bucey: 23:16 Yeah. Let’s speak about that. Let me give a just a mental exercise example, ’cause this will provide a sounding board or something that we can discuss in the concrete. Now, I imagine that we all would acknowledge this, and affirm this, that the human nature … let’s just take the body of Jesus while he was alive, and he still is alive, but I’m just saying as an adult, he certainly was capable in his … His body was physically capable of picking up a sword and theoretically thrusting someone with it and murdering them. I mean, his body wasn’t somehow deficient where he wouldn’t have been able to do such a physical act in a hypothetical world. That’s not a question, at least here. I’m wondering if that might be a question for some people who affirm peccability. Say, well his body could have sinned. Well yes, in that sense. That’s not precisely what we’re speaking about, at least I’m not. Adam York: 24:15 No. Camden Bucey: 24:15 So, what is the question then, and how then does our theology of the hypostatic union come into a scenario such as that. Where would someone who is thinking along those lines, let’s just think about the possibility of the human body, where is the slight misstep in theological method at that point? Adam York: 24:41 Right. And I think, again, I mean maybe this is just circling around what we’re saying, but trying to understand, Christ is fully human, but he’s not just, if I can put it this way, any human, right? His humanity never exists for one moment apart from the divinity. Camden Bucey: 25:07 Right. Adam York: 25:09 So we have to think about it in those terms, but also, and I’m not sure if this is exactly scratching where you’re itching, Camden, but another thing to consider is that his human nature is also not exactly like ours ’cause even though Paul can say in Romans eight that he is born in the likeness of sinful flesh, that he does not have a fallen nature. So the temptations which are real, and we want to make sure that we affirm that he was really and truly tempted. Those temptations do not arise from within Christ as they would us. Camden Bucey: 25:58 Yeah, well you’re touching on a related issue that’s very important, especially when we consider works of modern contemporary protestants. Guys like T.F. Torrance and others would hold to the notion that Christ is a fallen human nature. That’s another redemptive historical question that we’d like to answer and discuss. But I think perhaps the mental exercise, thinking about what Christ’s human nature, or even just more concretely, what his body could have done as a human body, is thinking about his human body or his human nature independently of the person. Human bodies don’t just act on their own. They’re not automatons. So when we’re speaking about peccability or impeccability, I find it to be a misstep, and more than that, a problematic error that has an effect in a whole other range of areas, to think that in his human nature, he was peccable, because peccable is something that can only be predicated, in my understanding, of a person. Adam York: 27:10 Yes. Right. Camden Bucey: 27:12 A person who also has a nature. To think of Christ’s human nature independently of the person is something that’s just, it ought not to compute is what I’m trying to suggest. Jeff Waddington: 27:27 Right. Even if we think of, say, something about the divine nature or the human nature, it’s okay to think about that in the hypothetical, but then we have to bring it back. We have to ask the question, how does this square with or relate to the unified person. Camden Bucey: 27:44 Yes. Jeff Waddington: 27:44 In other words, the divine person. And that’s really the question we’re asking of those who affirm the peccability of Jesus Christ is, how do you square that with the personhood of the son who is both divine and human. Adam York: 28:06 You know, brothers, one way that [Kramer 00:28:09] puts this, and I think this is a good orienting question in his article, is after looking at the affirmation creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession, he says this, “The question now comes up. Were these two natures ‘inseparably joined together’ as the church has always held? Or, was it possible for the union to be dissolved?” Or in other words, was it possible for Christ to sin? Jeff Waddington: 28:40 That is the question at the end of the day. Camden Bucey: 28:43 Yeah. And I think those need to be connected. We can’t think of those independently. Those issues aren’t related, and it’s important, not again, to rag on anyone, but to illustrate why this is a significant point, and not just on this question, but why the method behind addressing the question can have impacts in other areas. Our year long intern here at Hope, Mr. [Danajekanda 00:29:10] raised the very important issue, and when we were speaking about this, he even brought up Dr. Sproul’s view of the second commandment. And Dr. Sproul believes it’s perfectly fine and okay to make images of Christ because Christ did assume a true and real human nature, so the image of Christ is therefore not a violation of the second commandment, because it’s an image of his humanity, not of his divinity. Adam York: 29:38 Right. Camden Bucey: 29:38 But I find that there’s the same error being made in this reasoning, because you are considering his human nature independently. In effect, in method, I believe, have sacrificed the en and an hypostatic union, because you believe that you can make an image of the humanity with no conception of the person and also the united divine nature. And then that leads you also into other issues regarding the third commandment in terms of, can you contemplate the human nature of Jesus without worshiping him? Jeff Waddington: 30:16 Right. Right. Camden Bucey: 30:16 And then are we violating the third commandment by in effect, according to our tradition, taking the Lord’s name in vain by not offering to him what is due to him? We always need to maintain the distinction between the divine and human natures, but we can never separate them, not even in the way that we think about our Lord, and I think that’s happening here, and it’s something that I think we need to reform a little bit. Adam York: 30:43 Here the issues is again, impeccability is vitally important, vitally important, but it’s the bigger issue of Christology, and do we as a church and particularly a reformed church, are we fully on board with the church’s affirmation regarding the unity of the Savior expressed at say, Chalcedon. So for example, in our Presbytery, I’ll ask candidates whether Christ was peccable or impeccable, not so much just to get the answer on that particular issue, but to expose and to better understand their Christology. Camden Bucey: 31:26 Oh, that’s brilliant. Yeah. Asking leading questions like that, that are not trick questions. I don’t care so much about those things. When I’m on the floor and hearing brothers who are examined asking a question, you just want to hear them think out loud. Adam York: 31:40 Yeah. Camden Bucey: 31:40 Even if the guy doesn’t have the right answer, it’s not a quiz show. We want to see, okay, well walk me through it. You don’t know the answer? What Bible verses might you appeal to? What are some things going on in your mind right now, some things about theology that you do know are true? How might that inform your view? When you hear a brother walk through the issue, that’s just a glorious thing. That’s so encouraging, so that’s a very good question to ask not to trip somebody up or give them a gotcha. We shouldn’t have gotcha questions on the floor, but to hear someone work out the theology that they live and breathe. Adam York: 32:18 It teases out the much broader Christology, and brings into view the unity of the divine person, of the divine human person. Jeff Waddington: 32:29 Right. Camden Bucey: 32:29 I agree. Jeff Waddington: 32:30 Now think, not only in terms of the unity of the person, but also the unity of God’s plan. Camden Bucey: 32:37 Oh, that’s a great point. Jeff Waddington: 32:38 Kramer brings this up, and Jonathan Edwards himself argued this way for the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is, that if it’s possible to, we would say, to dissolve the union of the two natures into one person, then it’s also possible to undermine the plan of redemption. Camden Bucey: 33:00 Yeah. Jeff Waddington: 33:01 And think about this, and this is where Kramer raised an element … Well, Edwards talks about, it undermines the prophetic element in scripture. Right? But Kramer goes even further and says that undermines the salvation of the Old Testament saint. Camden Bucey: 33:17 Yeah. Jeff Waddington: 33:18 Potentially, right? In other words those saints who are already gathered around the throne of God in heaven, worshiping him per Revelation, their salvation would be undermined by the potentiality … I mean, everybody’s salvation would be undermined, but in particular the Old Testament saints. Camden Bucey: 33:37 Sure. Jeff Waddington: 33:38 So that you would be involved in something like changing the past. Camden Bucey: 33:44 Well, if you can put a point on it, you can just ask … let me ask this very pointed, simple question, to our listeners, to anyone listening, was it possible for Christ to fail as Savior. Just ask that question. Is anyone gonna want to say, “Yeah, he could’ve failed.” God was metaphorically up in heaving having decreed things, but he’s got his fingers crossed just hoping Jesus doesn’t mess up. Because if you say it was possible for Christ to sin, then it must, by consequence, good and necessary consequence, it must be possible for Christ to fail as savior. You can’t separate those two. Adam York: 34:27 Yes. Jeff Waddington: 34:27 No. It’s right. As I thought about this, and I hadn’t come to this conclusion before, but really the only theology that really meshes well with this is open deism, the idea of the peccability of the son of God. Camden Bucey: 34:43 Again, we’re separating ourselves from hypothetical notion of what the physical body of Jesus was able to do, hence, he could pick up a sword, he was capable of doing things, but that’s something we’re separating off here because it makes the body, the human nature independent. But I think you’re right on, Jeff. Adam York: 35:04 Yes. Jeff Waddington: 35:04 Yeah, I mean, you think about the … what was I gonna say? Edwards made a distinction, and I may or may not be using it rightly, but he talks about the distinction between, with regard to the fall, moral inability and natural inability, and he says the fall results in moral inability, but natural ability. In other words, he’s recognizing that the fall doesn’t change the human being in terms of his physical structure. Camden Bucey: 35:44 Other than being subject to death and decay and stuff. Right. Jeff Waddington: 35:48 Right, but it doesn’t change him in terms of the capabilities, the intellect, the will, those kinds of things. Camden Bucey: 35:48 Right. Right. Jeff Waddington: 35:57 We still have those, and I think that’s what he’s getting at, and that ties in to what we’re talking about. Adam York: 36:00 And that ties in to what we’re talking about. Adam York: 36:04 I’m glad that Kramer brings up the issue of the decree. I’m glad that he focuses more Christologically. I think there should be probably a point of emphasis there, just in terms of our theologizing as a whole. We always have to bring into view God’s Decree. But, being careful to not do our theology first and foremost decreedally, which can bring, into view some problems. But, just to go back and touch base on what we were affirming in terms of the unity of the person. Adam York: 36:45 Another way to turn the diamond here and to look at it, and I think this may really bring into view and crystallize the huge concern that exists here to our listeners. Is that if we are really saying that the human nature does not exist for one moment, hanging in the air as it were, existing by itself. But, is at all points united to the Divine person and that there is one person, one actor, one savior, who saves us? Adam York: 37:22 To affirm that Christ could have sinned, and this is what Kramer brings out in his article, is ultimately to affirm that God could have sinned. I think that’s a vitally important point to bring in view. Let me just read a quote that he makes here on 264. He says, “The trials and temptations of Christ involved his person. Sinful proposals were made not to a quality or a nature in Christ, but to Christ himself. Had he therefore sinned, he would have sinned as Christ, the God man, the son of God. Unless therefore, the divine in Christ could sin, he could not sin at all. That he could sin as God, no one is willing to admit.” Adam York: 38:20 I think again, that’s just so vitally important to see. To affirm that Christ could have sinned. If you’re being fully Caledonian, and Westminster Chapter 8, and other passages we could look at, that’s really to say that God could have sinned. Because the human nature nowhere exists independently of the divine person. I know we said that a couple of different ways. But bringing it back to the question that our listeners should recoil from, if we just ask them could God sin? No. Jeff Waddington: 38:55 Yeah. Adam York: 38:56 Yeah, our tendency will always be to veer to one or the other and not to do … It’s like with the Trinity, right? It’s either you stressed the persons, and you become a Tritheist, or you stress the nature and you become a Sabellian. In this case, the temptation is to forget the unity of the divine person. So when we talk about the two natures we have to be very careful that we don’t abstract. Jeff Waddington: 39:27 I finally remembered what I wanted to say. That gets to the question that I think is behind the whole discussion. That is the reality of the temptations. Okay, we’ve already made note of the fact that the Son of God, the Jesus the God man did not possess a sinful human nature. Therefore, the language that I use … Dr. Kramer uses different language, but he’s saying the same thing. There is no Velcro internally for temptations to grab onto. Okay? For Christ. Jeff Waddington: 40:05 What the additional thing that I’m going to say, we need to take into consideration that the Son of God did not have a sinful human nature. Much of the problem with our dealing with temptation is that we do have a sinful human nature. So right there we have a major difference between us and Christ. I mean if for Christ to relate to us and be our Sympathetic High Priest requires that he have a sinful nature, then we’re in trouble. Or we have to go back and start over again. Jeff Waddington: 40:43 Now, the second thing is that the Son of God, is the only human being to never give into temptation. Adam York: 40:52 Yeah, that’s true. Jeff Waddington: 40:52 So he actually feels the full extent of the temptation where we don’t. In other words, we give in at some point prior to the full onslaught of the temptation. Whereas, Christ held on to the very end, and withstood the temptation. So it doesn’t undermine the reality and the severity of his temptations to say that he couldn’t sin. Because he’s the only one who has ever actually withstood temptation. Resisted temptation to the very last measure. Adam York: 41:32 Amen. Amen. We can bring this in now or later, but you see, that’s exactly what we want to affirm when we appeal to him in the midst of our trials and temptations. That he is the savior who overcame, and could in fact have never fallen and failed. That’s the savior whom we want to appeal to in the midst of our struggles and trials. Adam York: 42:08 I have another thought that I want to bring up, but in case you men want to think about that a little bit more. Adam York: 42:13 Well no, it’s just to say that he … Hebrews 4:15 for example, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Yeah, we all affirm that, even I think many of the people who hold to peccability affirm peccability because of that verse. But I think it’s a misunderstanding of the nature of our Lord, and his person. So I affirm that with you, Adam, that we have a savior. Adam York: 42:46 This is all the more reason we can go to him and worship him for all that he’s done for us. Because since he himself is our savior, he has endured all of this for us. Yet has triumphed, and he has been victorious. Adam York: 43:02 That’s why the Son of God became man. That’s why one of us couldn’t do this. Jeff Waddington: 43:09 Amen. Amen. Adam York: 43:11 Now, the other thought that I was gonna get at, so Kramer is good because he turns this subject a number of different ways, but he encounters the objection. Which says, “That to be …” In essence the objection is this, to be human is to be able to sin. He says, “No, that’s not necessarily true, especially if you’re coming from the reformed background of let’s say the four fold state.” Adam York: 43:43 We are never gonna cease to be humans. We’re never going to cease to be creatures. But are we always going to be able to sin? Jeff Waddington: 43:53 Right. Adam York: 43:53 Right. Jeff Waddington: 43:54 Well, and this is an analogous to Peter [inaudible 00:43:58] error on scripture. Is he would identify sin with error. Not saying it’s exclusively error, but he would link the two. Therefore, if scripture is to also be in servant form and have a human element then it must be messy. It must also then have attended error, or at least the possibility of it, therefore we need to deny inerrancy. Adam York: 44:23 Yeah, so this it I think a good point here. Because if you cannot say definitively, even with respect to us, we are not God men, and yet it’s not through without qualification that we will never be able to sin. There will be a time in the final state when we are unable to sin. So if you can’t affirm that of us, and we will not lose our humanity, how could you affirm that of the God man? That’s an interesting way of approaching the argument. It takes a little bit out of the wind of the sails of those who want to affirm peccability must go along with humanity. Jeff Waddington: 45:11 Humanity. That’s a good point. Adam York: 45:12 Right, right. I like that a long-term. That’s a different approach, but one that illustrates the point. That’s very insightful. Jeff Waddington: 45:23 Yep. Adam York: 45:25 That’s not just because we partake of the divine essences. Jeff Waddington: 45:31 No, no. Adam York: 45:33 Okay, good. You’re not a [inaudible 00:45:35]. Adam York: 45:37 Yeah, but it’s again saying, “Look, not even considered on your premises, where your premise is to be human entails peccability. That’s not even true of the image of God of- Adam York: 45:53 Right. As the image of God himself in Jesus Christ, who is God himself? Yeah, that’s- Adam York: 45:57 In the final state. Adam York: 45:59 We’ve talked about different issues that can come to bear on this, Docetism, Nestorianism. One that I think can trip us up is, if we’re not careful, is a commitment to rationalism. Jeff Waddington: 46:14 Oh yes, right. Okay. This is really the impeccability doctrine is an instance of what Dr. Van Til referred to as limiting concepts. In other words, the divine in human nature, or we affirm both as the scriptures require that we affirm both. But one of the implications that we might be tempted to draw, and in fact many have been, and have drawn, is this idea that if Christ assumed the real human nature, a full human nature, then he must have the ability to sin. So we need to challenge that and subject our thinking to the scriptures and the limits they put on our ability to think. Adam York: 47:19 And in particular, I think the rationalist impulse comes out very strongly here is when we put things this way. Is to say that if Christ was unable so sin then his temptations could not be real, right? Because let’s face it, I mean there’s some challenge in harmonizing those things completely. I think there’s a number of things that we can say, and should say, we have said about those things. But there’s some mystery there going on. Adam York: 47:59 In the final analysis we can see very clearly by virtue of our theology of the divine human person matters that we’ve already brought up that prevent the possibility of Christ sinning. Yet, in Hebrews in particular, the reality of his temptations are thoroughly affirmed at every point. How do we fit those two together? If we must be able to exhaustively explain how those things go together then we’re probably gonna end up on the peccable side. Jeff Waddington: 48:34 That’s right on. That the temptation, you will be able to explain every last detail. The two extremes. That’s the one extreme. Of course, the other is to be intellectually lazy. We’re not interested in that, but we’re simply recognizing the incomprehensibility of God. And by definition that includes the incomprehensibility of the God man. Adam York: 49:01 Are those two things taught in scripture either directly or by good and necessary consequence. We can say they are. Yeah. Jeff Waddington: 49:13 No. That’s a very good point, Adam. Again, it comes back to our initial concern that we not only want to arise at a conclusion. But we want to get there according the the scriptural and biblical methods. It’s important that we would be controlled by God’s word, by his revelation, and think God’s thoughts after him. Adam York: 49:36 Yeah, you should. Camden Bucey: 49:38 But at a created level. That’s our revelatory epistemology. It just comes back to why we love Van Til so much, because he always pointed us back to that. This has been a wonderful discussion, and I hope people have enjoyed it. Discussing peccability and impeccability of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the virtues of the view thereof. So Adam, thanks for bringing this to the floor. And for unearthing this article from 1879 for us. I’ll have a link to the Google Books segment in the episode description. Camden Bucey: 50:10 I also hope to put a link to the Ligonier reviews so people can follow up, or video I should say. And look at things themselves, and maybe carry on a conversation. We have a comment section on the website, so even if you’re listening on your phone. Or if this podcast has been automatically downloaded somewhere, you can follow the links back to areformedforum.org, and comment there. Camden Bucey: 50:35 You can also subscribe to our other programs, or get in touch with us by sending us an email at mailatreformedforum.org. Again, we want to remind everyone of our events, October 5th through 7th, 2018. Then the big one in Wimberley, Texas April 1st through 6th, 2019. So we hope to meet you. Hope to see you, and get in touch with us. I do want to thank everybody for listening. I hope you join us again next time on Christ the Center.[/showhide]

Participants: Adam York, Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington

On this episode of Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob continue their discussion on the doctrine of the atonement with a focus on the atonement through the covenant. Jesus says, “…this is the new covenant in my blood….” We’ll explore this statement and many more.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob once again discuss the doctrine of the atonement with emphasis upon the relationship between the atonement and adoption. What does adoption have to do with the atonement?

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

On today’s episode of Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob continue their discussion about the doctrine of the atonement. Today we take a closer look at the concept of penal substitution. In doing so, we review some of the other theories of the atonement. But what does the Bible say about the nature of Christ’s cross? What does it do? What is meant by penal substitution? Is it necessary? What biblical texts teach us about penal substitution?

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This episode of Theology Simply Profound brings our reading of J. Gresham Machen’s final three audio addresses to a close. This address, “The Bible and the Cross,” would have aired on December 27, 1936. Machen would not finish this series of radio addresses on the atonement. Just five days later on January 1, 1937, he would succumb to pneumonia dying in the Lord. And so, this series closes so abruptly as life seems to do so very often. With the words, “Isn’t the Reformed faith grand?” and “So thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it,” Machen departed in peace.

Participants: J. Gresham Machen, Robert Tarullo

This week’s Theology Simply Profound provides another reading from the works of J. Gresham Machen. Since we’ve begun a series on the Biblical teaching of the atonement, Bob is reading Machen’s, “The Active Obedience of Christ.” This was delivered on December 20, 1936 as part of a series of radio addresses given shortly before Machen’s death on January 1, 1937.

Participants: J. Gresham Machen, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob continue their new series of discussions on the doctrine of the atonement. In this episode we talk about the concept of redemption. What is redemption? What is the relationship between redemption and the wrath of God? What is the cost of redemption? How does redemption relate to the atonement?

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

With Rob nursing a cold, this week’s Theology Simply Profound provides another reading from the works of J. Gresham Machen. Since we’ve begun a series on the Biblical teaching of the atonement, Bob is reading Machen’s, “The Doctrine of the Atonement.” This was from a series of radio addresses given shortly before Machen’s death on January 1, 1937.

Participants: J. Gresham Machen, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob begin a new series of discussions on the topic of the atonement. In this episode we talk about the wrath of God and mankind’s need for an escape from the wrath of God in the first place. Why an atonement? Why is there a need for an atonement?

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Jim Cassidy discusses Darren O. Sumner’s book, Karl Barth and the Incarnation: Christology and the Humility of God. Dr. Cassidy wrote a review article on the book in the Fall 2017 issue (Vol. 79, No. 2) of the Westminster Theological Journal.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

I always remember Leviticus 17:11, probably for personal reasons. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” When I was a boy, as my father was building our house, I tried to hand him a hard-wire brush while he was climbing down a ladder. He didn’t see me coming. When he turned his face towards me, the brush bumped into his nose, and one of the fine silver quills stuck into his skin. When he pulled it out, there was a drop of blood the size of a pinhead, a tiny dark purple dome that entered the open air and almost whispered, “No . . . no.” Blood is not meant to go on the outside. It maintains its vitality by being concealed. Blood is meant to be covered. It is also meant to move. Years later, I stood with my brothers and mother in our living room, watching my father die. The tumor had grown, had taken too much, as cancer always does, and now his respiratory system, the last remaining function of his body, was shutting down. I will never forget the moment when the hospice nurse told us the number of breaths he had left at the end: three. I have never counted down from three that way before, silently, surrounded by those who shared my own blood. After the last air left his lungs, his flesh grew paler. It was the blood stilled, the heart no longer thudding that took the color from his skin. That, I believe, is when his soul made an exit. When blood settles and ceases to flow, the soul must go, for our souls, like tired dogs, seek out the ancient scent of life that resides in the Spirit of God. Blood, in a sense, carries a burden. It carries life—a divine gift as mysterious as it is requisite. In God’s great providence, it is the only thing that can atone for sin, that can cover a transgression, that can restore the divine-human relationship. For years, this has puzzled me to the core. How can red liquid have the potency to prevail over darkness and death by the burden it bears? Why does blood atone for sin? I cannot help ruminating. I think the atoning power of blood has something to do with giving up the burden of life, effected by ending the two qualities of blood: its internality and movement. When blood is shed, the inside comes outside, and the movement ceases. Sanctity is uncovered and stilled. The blood can thus no longer bear its burden, the burden of sacred life, which has its ultimate origin in God (cf. John 14:6). So, that life is set free to do the impossible, to do spiritually what God has done physically from the beginning: separate light from darkness (Gen 1:4), separate image-bearing sinners from the evil they have done. In the mysterious, God-governed process of atonement, we can easily forget that it is not blood in itself that atones, for blood only “makes atonement by the life” (Lev 17:11). It is life that rights a wrong and restores the morally destitute. It is life that breaks the power of sin and death (Rom 6:9–10). That is why we look with hope toward the day when all that is scarred by sin is “swallowed up by life” (2 Cor 5:4). Even more mysterious and glorious is the truth that this life is tri-personal: the Father of the living (Mark 12:27), who gave the Son of life (John 1:4; 14:6), by the life-giving Spirit (John 6:63; Rom 8:10; 1 Cor 15:45)! In this light, the beauty of Christ’s blood takes on a new aura. Every drop of blood from Christ’s body, every red-lined laceration, every tear in his skin was an instance of holy blood giving up its burden, the burden of life. It is only by that burden that we are re-born. It is only by life that we inherit life. That is why we can say, “Soul works covering for soul.”[1] The life of one soul can vicariously atone for the life of another precisely because blood gives up its burden. Blood is no little thing. It carries, in the end, the weight of the world, and salvation of every sinner.

[1] Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (1948; repr., Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2014), 165.

In a previous post, we considered the way in which Geerhardus Vos’ doctrine of Christ impacted his redemptive-historical hermeneutic for reading the Old Testament. In the triune God’s eternal counsel of peace, the Son assumed his role as Mediator and Surety of the covenant of grace. Therefore, the Old Testament revelation that had him as its center and goal was never of him as the Logos in the abstract, but always as the Logos to be incarnate in time. For this reason the Old Testament revelation with its types had to point forward to Christ as the antitype. And not only did it point forward to the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), but also heavenward. For the prophets, priests and kings were messengers and representatives of the great antitype, the eternal Son of God anointed as Mediator from eternity. “They derived their official authority from the person Himself whom they as office bearers proclaimed in a shadowy fashion” (Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:90). This means that believers under the old covenant were not saved “otherwise than by the official activity of the Messiah” (90). Building on this, we notice a further integration that Vos develops with Christology and Covenant: he grounds the stability and certainty of the covenant of grace in the hypostatic union. By this union we affirm that the divine person (the Logos) assumed a human nature. It was not the union of a divine person and a human person, but the union of the divine nature and a human nature in the divine person of the Logos. In possession of both a true humanity and true divinity, he was fully God and fully man, the God-man. This person, and no other, is the Mediator and Surety of the covenant of grace. The question, then, is what impact does Christ being a divine person, the God-man, have on the covenant of grace? Or, how does the covenant of grace differ from the covenant of works by having Christ as its Mediator? While the church has always affirmed and defended the necessity of Christ being both truly God and truly man (see e.g., Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 6), the implications are sometimes left unturned. Vos will argue that the covenant of grace derives its certainty not in the abstract, but from the person of its Mediator.

Only because the divine person is the subject in Christ does His mediatorial work obtain the stability required by an eternal, immutable covenant of grace. We now know, however, that this human nature in itself is an abstraction that did not exist for a moment without personal subsistence in the Logos (48).

Note, first, the careful distinction Vos makes between person and nature. He is not saying that the attribute of immutability that belonged to the divine nature was communicated to the human nature.[1] The divine nature remains divine and the human nature remains human. The unity of the two natures lies solely in the divine person of the Logos (see p. 42).[2] Again, the Logos did not assume a human person but a human nature. On this basis, Vos can write, “[I]n Christ’s human nature there was not a mutable human person but the person of the Son of God. Will or intellect or emotion in the human nature could not have sinned unless the underlying person had fallen from a state of moral rectitude. There can naturally be no thought of the latter for the Mediator, considering the deity of His person” (58). Second, note how Vos understands the covenant of grace as eternal and immutable to require a certain kind of mediatorial work, namely one that is stable. Where does this stability come from? Vos says it comes from the Mediator being a divine person; particularly, from the human nature subsisting in the Logos, the second person of the Trinity. “The human nature of the Mediator did not exist for an instant apart from the person of the Son” (62). In short, the immutable nature of the covenant of grace required the assumption of a human nature by none other than an immutable divine person. So Vos goes on to say,

Thus the person of the Logos with its personality provides His human nature with the steadfastness and immutability by which the covenant of grace is distinguished from the first covenant, the covenant of works. The oneness and the deity of the person are of importance for the affirmation that Christ could not sin (48).

The impeccability of Christ that stabilizes the covenant of grace in its immutability is not owing to the deification of his humanity, but from the fact that his humanity subsists in a divine person. The covenant of works did not possess such stability because it did not have the God-man as its mediator. So while the covenant of works could be broken, the covenant of grace is indestructible. The practical import of all this is that the immutable and guaranteed nature of the covenant of grace is given a concrete and real ground in the person of Christ himself. We do not affirm the certainty of God’s covenant in the abstract, but on the basis of who Christ is as its Mediator and Surety. The promise of God in the covenant of grace to be our God and for us to be his people is as unbreakable as the unity of the two natures in the divine person of the Logos. His two natures would first have to be ripped apart before the threads of God’s promise could be unravelled. The covenant of grace, in which we find the complete forgiveness of ours sins and eschatological fellowship with the triune God forever, is founded upon nothing less than divine omnipotence. So in Christ we can be absolutely sure that all of God’s promises are, in fact, Yes and Amen.

[1] For Vos’ critique of Lutheran Christology with respect to the communication of attributes see pp. 65-74, esp. 70ff. [2] Vos asks, “Is this one subject, this one person in the Mediator, a divine or a human person?” He answers, “This person is divine, and not human or divine-human. In order to be immediately convinced of this, one may take the following into consideration. In the Logos, a divine person, who is immutable, is present from eternity. If now there can be but one person in the Mediator, and the divine person cannot be eradicated or changed, then it is self-evident that this one person is the divine person of the Logos. One can only maintain the immutability of God if one holds to the deity of the person in the Mediator. The choice lies between two persons or one divine person” (42).

Rev. Chiarot is the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Rock Tavern, New York. He joins us today to speak about “T. F. Torrance and Apostolic Succession,” an article he wrote for Participatio. He has also written, The Unassumed Is the Unhealed: The Humanity of Christ in the Christology of T. F. Torrance (Pickwick, 2013).

Links

• Westminster Presbyterian Church, Rock Tavern, NY
• Christ the Center episode 403, “The Unassumed Is the Unhealed“

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy, Kevin Chiarot

Jesus Christ is Isaiah’s prophesied Suffering Servant who took upon himself the iniquities, transgressions and sins of his people as their substitute, so that they might be reconciled to God in right relationship as new creation.[i] Or, in Paul’s words, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (5:21).[ii] Herein is how God reconciles exiled sinners to himself, propitiates wrath and replaces divine judgment with eschatological peace. In short, herein is how there can be new creation. In this article we will reflect on 2 Corinthians 5:21 with an eye on the new creation declared by Paul a few verses earlier in 5:17 and God’s work of reconciliation that comes in between (5:18-20).

The Passive Obedience of Christ: Made to be Sin (2 Cor. 5:21a)

In order for the Isaianic restoration promise to be fulfilled (or reconciliation as new creation to take place), Israel’s iniquities, transgressions and sins had to be removed. So the first thing that Christ’s atoning death achieves is stated by Paul in these terms: “For our sake [ὑπὲρ[iii]] he made him to be sin who knew no sin” (5:21a). The substitutionary death of Christ is “the foundation on which or the way in which … reconciliation takes place.”[iv] What does it mean that Christ was made to be sin? It is clear that this does not refer to an ethical change in Christ so that he became sinful. For if this were the case the efficacy of his death to constitute sinners righteous would be compromised. In addition, it would contradict Paul’s statement that he knew no sin, as well as all biblical teaching on the atonement (e.g., Heb. 4:15). It seems better to understand it then as a reference to a change in Christ’s legal status before God, making him liable for the guilt accrued not by himself, but others, namely, his elect people.[v] Vos notes, “The use of the word ‘sin’ … generalizes and universalizes the legal identification between Christ and sin.”[vi] For Christ to be made sin is to make him personally responsible for its punishment.[vii] This would imply a legal imputation of the guilt of sin to Christ. This is further demanded by the consequent clause, “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (5:21b). “If Christ was made sin that we might become righteousness,” remarks Vos, “then obviously He was made sin in the sense of unrighteousness, by imputation. And if the effect of this imputation was death, then obviously there was a legal penalty. The death was but the execution in act of the ideal imputation.”[viii] This legal status change was not owing to his own sin for he knew no sin. Rather, like the Isaianic Suffering Servant who “surely … has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” Jesus had the sin of his people imputed to him, so that while sinless he could be legally charged with the punishment for sin. Paul has in mind then a penal, vicarious, substitutionary death wherein Christ suffered for the sin of his people legally imputed to him. Calvin comments, “[H]e assumed in a manner our place, that he might be a criminal in our room, and might be dealt with as a sinner, not for his own offences, but for those of others, inasmuch as he was pure and exempt from every fault, and might endure the punishment that was due to us—not to himself.”[ix] More specifically, if the above Isaianic background is sustained, Paul probably has in mind the vicarious, sin-bearing of the Suffering Servant (Isa. 52:13-53:12).[x] For Christ to be made sin then is for him to be constituted a guilt offering, incurring the legal ramifications of sin as a substitute for his people (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7; 11:25; Eph. 5:2). This notion of Christ being a guilt or sin offering is outright rejected by some, though the legal status change taking place here is still upheld.[xi] Nevertheless, the propitiatory nature of it must be maintained and is here expounded by Paul as a substitutionary, atoning sacrifice (cf. Rom. 8:3; Gal. 3:13). The reconciling transaction is given an explicit vicarious character.[xii] Ridderbos rightly notes that any effort to detract from the substitutionary and vicarious nature of Christ’s death “readily does wrong to the most fundamental segments of Paul’s gospel.”[xiii] To put it tersely, Christ by being made sin by imputation took full responsibility for it, was identified with it, charged with it and paid its penalty.[xiv] “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.”

The Active Obedience of Christ: Made to be the Righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21b)

While the removal of the iniquity, transgression and sin of God’s people in reconciliation is achieved by the imputation of the believer’s sin to Christ who then legally bore it on the cross as his or her substitute, there is also the need for a positive reuniting and renewing of sinful people with God. Both of these together amount to a new creation.[xv] Thus, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (5:21). This carries with it a soteriological and eschatological thrust. For us to become the righteousness of God is for us to be constituted a new creation, reconciled to God into an eschatological state in Christ. Those who once were objects of God’s wrath, rightfully banished from his presence and closed off from re-entering, according to the holiness of God which cannot condone sin,[xvi] have in Christ by means of his death and resurrection been legally and objectively constituted the righteousness of God. There is therefore a positive status imputed to the believer through Christ’s resurrection, namely, the righteousness obtained by Christ in his active obedience, for we are the righteousness of God in him. In summary, for the work of Christ in his death and resurrection to have an eschatological impact on those who are in Christ, two things must occur. First, the believers’ sin must be imputed to Christ rendering him legally liable to receive the punishment on their behalf, as their substitute, in their place, which is his passive obedience. Second, his active obedience must be imputed to believers so that they might be constituted the righteousness of God.[xvii]

Reconciliation as Objective and Legal

The legal rendering of Christ as sin and the believer in Christ as the righteousness of God carries with it an objective status as a redemptive-historical accomplishment, similar to justification. In the words of Barnett, “[It] points to forgiveness, the reversal of condemnation. Here, then, is the objective, forensic ‘justification’ of God to those who are covenantally dedicated to God ‘in Christ,’ whom God ‘made sin.’”[xviii] Likewise, Ridderbos writes,

[Reconciliation] appears in more than one place as the parallel and equivalent of justification. … Whereas ‘to justify’ is a religious-forensic concept that is highly typical of the basic eschatological structure of Paul’s preaching, ‘reconciliation’ … has a more general, less qualified meaning in theological parlance. It originates from the social-societal sphere (cf. 1 Cor. 7:11), and speaks in general of the restoration of the right relationship between two parties.[xix]

Interestingly Vos states, “The objective reconciliation took place in the death of Christ; its subjective result is justification.”[xx] Reconciliation consists not only in the removal of man’s guilt (or “objective legal obstacles”[xxi]) before God and of his sin not being imputed to him, but “it consists above all in the effecting eschatological peace as the fruit of justification (Rom. 5:1), and thus prepares the way to receiving a share in the new creation, the new things, peace as the all-embracing condition of salvation.”[xxii] In short, reconciliation is both the foundation and summation of the whole Christian life. In reconciliation, God does not merely restore a broken relationship, but also in this restoration propels them into the eschatological new creation.

[i] The transition into right relationship is to enter the new creation. In the words of Beale, “To be propelled into the eschatological new creation is to enter into peaceful relations with the Creator. … [R]econciliation is a facet of the larger diamond of the new creation. Nevertheless, the point is that they are of a piece with one another and are organically linked” (Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology, 537). [ii] The difficulty in relating 5:21 with the preceding is that it is asyndetic, so that “it stands as an impressively absolute statement” (Barnett, Corinthians, 312). Nevertheless, Paul has already spoken of the death and resurrection of Christ in 5:15, which with 5:21 seems to form a possible inclusio. Barnett rightly considers this passage as effectively the foundation of 5:16-21 (p. 315). Vos writes that this verse “constitutes the essence of the reconciliation” (“The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 364). [iii] Vos argues that ὑπὲρ (“for the sake/benefit of”) here, as well as in 5:14, has the full force of ἀντὶ (“in the place of”; cf. Matt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45). “What Christ did as priest,” writes Vos, “He did as the substitutionary Surety of believers, and, precisely for that reason, did before God and not toward man” (Reformed Dogmatics, Volume Three: Christology, 100). [iv] Ridderbos, Paul, 186. [v] Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 364. [vi] Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 364; emphasis mine. [vii] Vos captures it well, “To make someone to be sin … does not mean to actually change him into a sinful being or to transmit the blemishes of sin to him but simply to make him personally responsible for the penal consequences of sin. The same thing is meant by the term ‘imputation.’ It occurs with respect to both the penal guilt that the sinner himself has accrued and the guilt transferred to him from someone else” (Reformed Dogmatics, 3:112). [viii] Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 365; see also idem., Reformed Dogmatics, 3:106-7; Donald Macleod, Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement, 155: “The idea of imputation underlies the whole passage.” [ix] Calvin, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 242. [x] Cf. Barnett, Corinthians, 313; George H. Guthrie, 2 Corinthians, 313-15; Calvin, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 242: “It is the guilt, on account of which we are arraigned at the bar of God. As, however the curse of the individual was of old cast upon the victim, so Christ’s condemnation was our absolution, and with his stripes we are healed (Isaiah liii. 5).” [xi] The following reject the notion of Christ being a guilt offering: Robert Letham, The Work of Christ, 134; John R. De Witt, “The Nature of the Atonement: Reconciliation,” in Atonement, ed. Gabriel N. E. Fluhrer (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 26. De Witt will however go on to say, “The Father legally made him liable for the punishment of sin. He consigned his own Son to darkness and separation from his presence. It was as though he, the spotless Lamb of God, were responsible for the sin of the world. … [T]he Father stripped the Son of his own holiness and perfection and made him wear the rags of our unholiness and imperfection. He stood in the place of the condemned and the guilty” (pp. 26-27). This seems to compute with an understanding of Jesus as the sin-bearing Suffering Servant of Isaiah, which is closely related, if not paralleled, with the guilt offering, though of course Christ is not a passive animal with no say in the matter, but a willing Son who lays down his own life for the sake of his people. [xii] Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 364. [xiii] Ridderbos, Paul, 190. [xiv] Macleod, Christ Crucified, 155. [xv] Beale, NTBT, 535. [xvi] Cf. Macleod, Christ Crucified, 151-53. Calvin writes, “For so long as God imputes to us our sins, He must of necessity regard us with abhorrence; for he cannot be friendly or propitious to sinners” (Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 237). God’s act of reconciliation, then, includes the non-imputing of our sins to us and the imputing of them to Christ who bears the legal punishment for them in his suffering and death as our substitutionary sacrifice. All of this effects a right relationship of peace where there once was judgment and condemnation (Eph. 2:14-17; Col. 1:20). [xvii] “Treating the sinless Christ as a sinner was the means by which treating sinners as sinless was made possible” (Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:106). [xviii] Barnett, Corinthians, 315. [xix] Ridderbos, Paul, 182. [xx] Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 363. [xxi] Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” 364. [xxii] Ridderbos, Paul, 185; Similarly Vos: “God reconciled the world … by a non-imputing of sin, by removing the legal demands that He had against the world, and doing this in Christ” (Reformed Dogmatics, 3:96).

Today we speak with Austin Reed about Karl Barth’s theology of election. Austin is a student at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and walks us through a critical review of Karl Barth’s Infralapsarian Theology: Origins and Development, 1920-1953 by Shao Kai Tseng. Tseng challenges the scholarly status quo, arguing that despite Barth’s stated favor of supralapsarianism, his mature lapsarian theology is complex and dialectical. It demonstrates elements of both supra- and infralapsarianism, though it favors the latter. In Tseng’s assessment, Barth’s theology is basically infralapsarian because he sees the object of election as fallen humankind and understands the incarnation as God’s act of taking on human nature in its condition of fallenness. Be sure to read Austin Reed’s review of Reading Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutic Proposal by George Hunsinger.

Participants: Austin Reed, Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

Someone once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” It is a truth acknowledged but often forgotten. Have you ever been in a conversation when someone acted as though postmodernism was a new problem faced by the church? That is what I mean. So, I am writing this article as a reminder. We need to keep our wits about us. In part, that means remembering Solomon’s dictum, “There is nothing new under the sun” and taking it seriously. Let me give you an example that fits the season. Take N. T. Wright for instance, who understands the atoning death of Jesus and his self-identification with Israel in metaphorical terms.[1] As such, on the cross Jesus thought of himself as taking on himself “the direct consequences…of the…failure and sin of Israel.”[2] In other words, according to Wright, Jesus was literally shouldering the direct result of political, social, personal, moral, and emotional manifestations of evil and he saw himself doing it metaphorically for the nation of Israel.[3] And of course, Wright contends that Jesus didn’t do these things for Israel alone. Wright maintains that Jesus “is Israel’s and the world’s representative” such that “he can stand in for all.”[4] Now, do you see what that does? It reduces the wrath of God to the details of history. So, Pilate’s failure to render justice, the religious leader’s failure to see Jesus as the Messiah, the crowd’s willingness to be swayed should all be interpreted as the wrath of God. Now, let me be clear, there is a sense in which this is true. It’s true but it’s incomplete. The penal substitutionary death of Christ taught in Scripture has a dimension of truly unimaginable distress making every other painful aspect of Christ’s death pale by comparison. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the suffering of Christ in the text that does not come from Pilate and a corrupt legal system, societal sins and moral failures, or from the corruption of religion. I’m talking about the suffering that came as a result of Christ being our sin bearer before God. In the prophesy of Isaiah, the divinely inspired prophet explains what happens when sin comes between God and man. He says, “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”[5] Now, with that in mind think of Matthew 27:45. It says that darkness fell over the face of the land from the sixth to the ninth hour. In other words, from noon to 3 PM darkness canvassed the land and then, at 3 O’clock Christ cried out with a loud voice, “’Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God. Why have you forsaken Me?’” His cry is one of dereliction. The divinely loved Son, who could never lose the favor of God, has a sense of abandonment in His mediatorial office. This is the very thing denied today. “Oh, of course not,” say Wright and folks like him. They might continue saying, “Christ did feel abandonment but he felt it precisely because of the political, societal, and religious isolation which had placed him on the cross.” Now, I need to be honest. I’m not buying their theological wares. But again, they might say, “If you deny what we are saying, how do you understand his cry of dereliction without falling into abstraction?” Now, at this point it is important to listen to a voice from the past that reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun. Listen to Calvin’s comments on these very words from the Gospel. He says,

And certainly this [his cry of having been forsaken] was his chief conflict, and harder than all the other tortures, that in his anguish he was so far from being soothed by the assistance or favour of his Father, that he felt himself to be in some measure estranged from him. For not only did he offer his body as the price of our reconciliation with God, but in his soul also he endured the punishments due to us; and thus he became, as Isaiah speaks, a man of sorrows. Those interpreters are widely mistaken who, laying aside this part of redemption, attend solely to the outward punishment of the flesh; for in order that Christ might satisfy for us, it was necessary that he should be placed as a guilty person at the judgement seat of God.”

In the Institutes he’s even more emphatic, “If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual.”[6] Did you hear that? If the suffering of Christ is simply a bodily death due to political, social, and moral forces, then as a sacrifice for sins it would have been ineffectual. Brothers and sisters, there is nothing new under the sun. Solomon’s dictum reminds us of another, “Read at least one old book for every new book that you read.” But my reason for writing this article goes far beyond a simple desire to help us to see that what is propounded as new is really not new at all. My reason has more to do with the very nature of Christ’s work. And Rabbi Duncan said it simply and said it best. He asked his class, “Do you know what Calvary was? What? What? What? ” With tears in his eyes, he said, “It was damnation; and Christ took it lovingly.” The nature of Christ’s worst suffering was damnation and he took it for me. [1] Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 86. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid., 95. [5] Isaiah, 59:2. [6] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.16.10.

If Christ hath merited grace and glory for all those for whom he died, if he died for all, how comes it to pass that these things are not communicated to and bestowed upon all? Is the defect in the merit of Christ, or in the justice of God?

—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.

Jim Cassidy provides notices of several significant recent books.

• Christopher Holmes, The Holy Spirit
• Thomas Schreiner, Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification
• David VanDrunen, God’s Glory Alone
• Oliver Crisp and Fred Sanders, eds., Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics
• Andrew Purves, Exploring Christology and Atonement: Conversations with John McLeod Campbell, H. R. Mackintosh, and T. F. Torrance
• Yaroslav Viazovski, Image and Hope: John Calvin and Karl Barth on Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting

Links

• David VanDrunen on Christ the Center, episode 425

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

We welcome Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. and Dr. Lane G. Tipton to speak about Geerhardus Vos’s seminal article, “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit,” which is found in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos. This episode was recorded live as part of the pre-conference festivities at our 2015 Theology Conference held at Hope OPC in Grayslake, Illinois. You can also watch the videos from each of our main conference sessions.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy, Lane G. Tipton, Richard B. Gaffin Jr.

Rev. Dr. Kevin Chiarot introduces and offers a critical look into the influential Christology of T. F. Torrance, who among other things taught that the Son of God assumed a fallen human nature. Rev. Chiarot is the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Rock Tavern, New York. He has written an excellent book titled, The Unassumed Is the Unhealed: The Humanity of Christ in the Christology of T. F. Torrance (Pickwick, 2013). Join us as we discuss this theology that has influenced many.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Jim Cassidy, Kevin Chiarot

Marcus Peter Johnson joins us once again to talk about Christology and soteriology. With his colleague Dr. John C. Clark, Dr. Johnson has co-authored The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology (Crossway). Johnson and Clark examine the doctrine of the incarnation and its implications fro the church’s knowledge and worship of God, understanding of salvation, and approach to the Christian life. Be sure also to listen to our previous conversations with Dr. Johnson regarding his book One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation (Crossway).

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Jim Cassidy, Marcus Johnson

In the last post we asked if Jenson had gone beyond Barth. Has he temporalized eternity? Jenson is certainly bolder in his assertions linking eternity and time, but has he really achieved a consummation between the two? Frankly, at this point his theology appears no more threatening than that of Barth. However, we may not see a storm cloud in the sky but we sure can smell the rain. Therefore, we must now consider the person of Jesus Christ in Jenson’s thought. Because, according to Jenson, this is the epitome of God’s temporality and so to this we now turn. To begin, let us return for a moment to our discussion of Jenson’s revolutionized understanding of the analogia entis as it relates to his archetype ectype distinction. Again, it is vital to remember that God’s being is utterance, which is in contradistinction to “an unspoken mental form.”[1] Thus, “being itself must be such as to compel analogous use of language when evoking it.”[2] So, again we are to understand that being is an irreducible grammatical construction. Following Jenson’s logic, we may conclude that God has being in precisely the same way that creatures have being. Whatever God means by “be” is exactly what it means for Him or a creature to be.[3] “Therefore,” says Jenson, “insofar as ‘being’ says something about God or creatures, ‘being’ must after all be univocal rather than analogous.”[4] But what does Jenson mean by saying that being, as shared by God and creatures, must be univocal? Again, let us remember that for Jenson “being is conversation.”[5] But how can the conversation of God and man be shared univocally when the word of God is hidden behind the word of Scripture? In order for God’s word in conversation to be univocal with our word in conversation, and vice versa, what is attributed to one thing must be identical when attributed to another.[6] Thus, the question is; what is identical in the conversation that God shares with man? Before pursuing this question further I will demonstrate what Jenson does not mean. Jenson does not mean that the statement “God is good” and the statement “Paul is good” share a univocity, and the reason is simple. According to Jenson, “good” is not an essential element of the nature of God or man. Hence, Jenson is clearly defining the parameters of what may be considered univocal and what may not be. Therefore, the only thing that can be considered univocal between God and man is being, and being is conversation. So again, what univocal element does the conversation between God and man share? It seems that Jenson has become entangled in a difficulty. If he says that the language of God and the language of man coincide at any given point then some type of cognitive knowledge between God and man must exist, which is exactly what Jenson does not want to maintain. But if he says that God and man share univocally in being, in the sense that God is communication and man is communication but their conversation is separate from one another, then he has really said nothing about the univocity that supposedly exists between Creator and creature. Perhaps this is the position that Jenson wants to maintain, for prior to this he has maintained that our conversations are surely not identical with one another, though he would certainly disagree that this univocity says nothing about God’s relationship to man. However, Jenson’s view of analogy, as applied to the incarnation, brings a new dimension to the discussion. Jenson begins his discussion of the Persons of the Godhead by affirming an adoptionist Christology. Thus, Jesus of Nazareth was the adopted Son of God. He became what He was not.[7] Jenson claims that the Nazarene was merely a man as set forth in the narrative of Scripture. Moreover, this man from Nazareth was adopted to be the eternal Son of God. But what constitutes the adoption of Jesus? For Jenson, “Primally, it denotes the claim Jesus makes for himself in addressing God as Father.”[8] In fact, posits Jenson, “This Son is an eternally divine Son only in and by this relation” of address.[9] So, for Jenson, the adoption of Christ is established in the univocal address of the Son to God as Father. Let me say it another way. The utterance of Jesus, the man from Nazareth, addresses the Father, and both man and God understood that conversation in a univocal manner. This appears to create a difficulty for Jenson but he puts off answering the crucial point for the time being. He says, “When trinitarian reflection recognizes the Son as an eternal divine Son, a question will indeed arise about the relation of his divine identity to his reality as creature, but this is a question of secondary reflection, whose systematic place is further on.”[10] However, this particular topic is not taken up again. Jenson does deal with pre-existence in light of the birth of Christ, but the notion of the univocal address that constitutes Sonship does not appear again. Yet, the relation of the Son’s “divine identity to His reality as a creature” is no secondary matter, especially as it relates to the univocal relationship of being between God and man. It is at this very point that Jenson can no longer maintain his distinction between Creator and creature. In our next post we will flesh this out.   [1] Jenson, ST II, 38. [2] Ibid., 37. [3] Ibid., 38. [4] Ibid. Following Thomas, “being,” says Jenson, “used simultaneously of God and creatures must, as we use it, mean in the case of God ‘first archetypical causation of created being’ and in the case of creatures just ‘being.’” [5] Ibid., 49. [6]Oliphint, Reasons {for Faith} (Phillipsburg, NJ: P& R Publishing, 2006), 98. [7] For Jenson there is no pre-existence of the Son in any traditional sense, Cf. Jenson, ST 1, 141. [8] Jenson, ST 1, 77. [9] Ibid, emphasis mine. [10] Ibid., 78.

Let us take a moment to consider our habits of speech. We often talk, for instance, about trusting the finished work of Christ rather than the living person of Christ for our salvation. We talk about our sins being nailed to the cross rather than our sins being borne away in the body and soul of Christ. We even talk about taking our prayers to the cross rather than taking them to our resurrected and ascended Lord. The situation demands that we be altogether clear: these dichotomies diminish the scope of our salvation and the grandeur of the gospel. What is more, these dichotomies not only reflect but also reinforce our tendency to miss that the incarnation is central to our reconciliation with God, that the reality of Christ’s atonement is grounded in the reality of his incarnation.

— John C. Clark and Marcus Peter Johnson, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 104.

In this program we welcome Dr. Donald Macleod to speak about the meaning and significance of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. In his book Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement (IVP Academic), Dr. Macleod considers how the atonement is substitution, expiation, propitiation, reconciliation, satisfaction, redemption and victory. Rev. Macleod was ordained as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland in 1964. He taught systematic theology at the Free Church College (now Edinburgh Theological Seminary) from 1978 to 2011.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Donald Macleod, Jeff Waddington

Dr. Lane G. Tipton teaches on the eternal Son of God revealed climactically as described in Hebrews 1:1–4.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:1-4 ESV)

Participants: Lane G. Tipton

Dr. Lane G. Tipton lays a foundation of covenant history through the story of three sons: Adam the protological son of God, Israel the typological, and Jesus the eschatological. Dr. Tipton opens Luke 4 to demonstrate the pattern of covenant law and obedience woven throughout the experience of each son.

Unedited and Unprocessed Recording of the Livestream

Participants: Lane G. Tipton

Dr. K. Scott Oliphint examines the Reformed tradition’s understanding of the Son as a se. In his assessment, much of the tradition relies upon unsatisfactory formulations offered by Thomas Aquinas. Oliphint encourages Reformed theologians to “tear away the tares of Thomism” in this first plenary address at Reformed Forum’s 2014 Theology Conference.

Unedited and Unprocessed Recording of the Livestream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0f5c61qCRs

Participants: Camden Bucey, K. Scott Oliphint