We may dismiss, as unworthy of serious notice, the views that it consisted essentially either in the union of the Logos with human nature,—for this union with human nature continues in the state of exaltation; or in the outward trials and privations of Christ's human life,—for this view casts reproach upon poverty, and ignores the power of the soul to rise superior to its outward circumstances.
E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 224—“The error of supposing it too humiliating to obey law was derived from the Roman treasury of merit and works of supererogation. Better was Frederick the Great's sentiment when his sturdy subject and neighbor, the miller, whose windmill he had attempted to remove, having beaten him in a lawsuit, the thwarted monarch exclaimed: ‘Thank God, there is law in Prussia!’ ”Palmer, Theological Definition, 79—“God reveals himself in the rock, vegetable, animal, man. Must not the process go on? Must there not appear in the fulness of time a man who will reveal God as perfectly as is possible in human conditions—a man who is God under the limitations of humanity? Such incarnation is humiliation only in the eyes of men. To Christ it is lifting up, exaltation, glory; John 12:32—‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.’ ” George Harris, Moral Evolution, 409—“The divinity of Christ is not obscured, but is more clearly seen, shining through his humanity.”
We may devote more attention to the
A. Theory of Thomasius, Delitzsch, and Crosby, that the humiliation consisted in the surrender of the relative divine attributes.
This theory holds that the Logos, although retaining his divine self-consciousness and his immanent attributes of holiness, love, and truth, surrendered his relative attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, in order to take to himself veritable human nature. According to this view, there are, indeed, two natures in Christ, but neither of these natures is infinite. Thomasius and Delitzsch are the chief advocates of this theory in Germany. Dr. Howard Crosby has maintained a similar view in America.
The theory of Thomasius, Delitzsch, and Crosby has been, though improperly, called the theory of the Kenosis (from ἐκένωσεν—“emptied himself”—in Phil. 2:7), and its advocates are often called Kenotic theologians. There is a Kenosis of the Logos, but it is of a different sort from that which this theory supposes. For statements of this theory, see Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 2:233-255, 542-550; Delitzsch, Biblische Psychologie, 323-333; Howard Crosby, in Bap. Quar., 1870:350-363—a discourse subsequently published in a separate volume, with the title: The True Humanity of Christ, and reviewed by Shedd, in Presb. Rev., April, 1881:429-431. Crosby emphasizes the word “became,” in John 1:14—“and the Word became flesh”—and gives the Word “flesh” the sense of “man,” or “human.” Crosby, then, should logically deny, though he does not deny, that Christ's body was derived from the Virgin.
We object to this view that:
(a) It contradicts the Scriptures already referred to, in which Christ asserts his divine knowledge and power. Divinity, it is said, can give up its world-functions, for it existed without these before creation. But to give up divine attributes is to give up the substance of Godhead. Nor is it a sufficient reply to say that only the relative attributes are given up, [pg 702] while the immanent attributes, which chiefly characterize the Godhead, are retained; for the immanent necessarily involve the relative, as the greater involve the less.
Liebner, Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 3:349-356—“Is the Logos here? But wherein does he show his presence, that it may be known?” Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 11th ed., 217, note. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:125-146, criticises the theory of the Kenosis, but grants that, with all its self-contradictions, as he regards them, it is an attempt to render conceivable the profound truth of a sympathizing, self-sacrificing God.
(b) Since the Logos, in uniting himself to a human soul, reduces himself to the condition and limitations of a human soul, the theory is virtually a theory of the coëxistence of two human souls in Christ. But the union of two finite souls is more difficult to explain than the union of a finite and an infinite,—since there can be in the former case no intelligent guidance and control of the human element by the divine.
Dorner, Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 1:397-408—“The impossibility of making two finite souls into one finally drove Arianism to the denial of any human soul in Christ”(Apollinarianism). This statement of Dorner, which we have already quoted in our account of Apollinarianism, illustrates the similar impossibility, upon the theory of Thomasius, of constructing out of two finite souls the person of Christ. See also Hovey, God with Us, 68.
(c) This theory fails to secure its end, that of making comprehensible the human development of Jesus,—for even though divested of the relative attributes of Godhood, the Logos still retains his divine self-consciousness, together with his immanent attributes of holiness, love, and truth. This is as difficult to reconcile with a purely natural human development as the possession of the relative divine attributes would be. The theory logically leads to a further denial of the possession of any divine attributes, or of any divine consciousness at all, on the part of Christ, and merges itself in the view of Gess and Beecher, that the Godhead of the Logos is actually transformed into a human soul.
Kahnis, Dogmatik 3:343—“The old theology conceived of Christ as in full and unbroken use of the divine self-consciousness, the divine attributes, and the divine world-functions, from the conception until death. Though Jesus, as fœtus, child, boy, was not almighty and omnipresent according to his human nature, yet he was so, as to his divine nature, which constituted one ego with his human. Thomasius, however, declared that the Logos gave up his relative attributes, during his sojourn in flesh. Dorner's objection to this, on the ground of the divine unchangeableness, overshoots the mark, because it makes any becoming impossible.
“But some things in Thomasius' doctrine are still difficult: 1st, divinity can certainly give up its world-functions, for it has existed without these before the world was. In the nature of an absolute personality, however, lies an absolute knowing, willing, feeling, which it cannot give up. Hence Phil. 2:6-11 speaks of a giving-up of divine glory, but not of a giving-up of divine attributes or nature. 2d, little is gained by such an assumption of the giving-up of relative attributes, since the Logos, even while divested of a part of his attributes, still has full possession of his divine self-consciousness, which must make a purely human development no less difficult. 3d, the expressions of divine self-consciousness, the works of divine power, the words of divine wisdom, prove that Jesus was in possession of his divine self-consciousness and attributes.
“The essential thing which the Kenotics aim at, however, stands fast; namely, that the divine personality of the Logos divested itself of its glory (John 17:5), riches (2 Cor. 8:6), divine form (Phil. 2:6). This divesting is the becoming man. The humiliation, then, was a giving up of the use, not of the possession, of the divine nature and attributes. That man can thus give up self-consciousness and powers, we see every day in sleep. But man does not, thereby, cease to be man. So we maintain that the Logos, [pg 703]when he became man, did not divest himself of his divine person and nature, which was impossible; but only divested himself of the use and exercise of these—these being latent to him—in order to unfold themselves to use in the measure to which his human nature developed itself—a use which found its completion in the condition of exaltation.”This statement of Kahnis, although approaching correctness, is still neither quite correct nor quite complete.
B. Theory that the humiliation consisted in the surrender of the independent exercise of the divine attributes.
This theory, which we regard as the most satisfactory of all, may be more fully set forth as follows. The humiliation, as the Scriptures seem to show, consisted:
(a) In that act of the preëxistent Logos by which he gave up his divine glory with the Father, in order to take a servant-form. In this act, he resigned not the possession, nor yet entirely the use, but rather the independent exercise, of the divine attributes.
John 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”; Phil. 2:6, 7—“who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men”; 2 Cor. 8:9—“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich.” Pompilia, in Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book: “Now I see how God is likest God in being born.”
Omniscience gives up all knowledge but that of the child, the infant, the embryo, the infinitesimal germ of humanity. Omnipotence gives up all power but that of the impregnated ovum in the womb of the Virgin. The Godhead narrows itself down to a point that is next to absolute extinction. Jesus washing his disciples' feet, in John 13:1-20, is the symbol of his coming down from his throne of glory and taking the form of a servant, in order that he may purify us, by regeneration and sanctification, for the marriage-supper of the Lamb.
(b) In the submission of the Logos to the control of the Holy Spirit and the limitations of his Messianic mission, in his communication of the divine fulness of the human nature which he had taken into union with himself.
Acts 1:2—Jesus, “after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen”; 10:38—“Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power”; Heb. 9:14—“the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God.” A minor may have a great estate left to him, yet may have only such use of it as his guardian permits. In Homer's Iliad, when Andromache brings her infant son to part with Hector, the boy is terrified by the warlike plumes of his father's helmet, and Hector puts them off to embrace him. So God lays aside “That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty.” Arthur H. Hallam, in John Brown's Rab and his Friends, 282, 283—“Revelation is the voluntary approximation of the infinite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity.”
(c) In the continuous surrender, on the part of the God-man, so far as his human nature was concerned, of the exercise of those divine powers with which it was endowed by virtue of its union with the divine, and in the voluntary acceptance, which followed upon this, of temptation, suffering, and death.
Mat. 26:53—“thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels?” John 10:17, 18—“Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again”; Phil. 2:8—“and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” Cf. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice: “Such music is there in immortal souls, That while this muddy vesture of decay Doth close it in, we cannot see it.”
Each of these elements of the doctrine has its own Scriptural support. We must therefore regard the humiliation of Christ, not as consisting in a single act, but as involving a continuous self-renunciation, which began with the Kenosis of the Logos in becoming man, and which culminated in the self-subjection of the God-man to the death of the cross.
Our doctrine of Christ's humiliation will be better understood if we put it midway between two pairs of erroneous views, making it the third of five. The list would be as follows: (1) Gess: The Logos gave up all divine attributes; (2) Thomasius: The Logos gave up relative attributes only; (3) True View: The Logos gave up the independent exercise of divine attributes; (4) Old Orthodoxy: Christ gave up the use of divine attributes; (5) Anselm: Christ acted as if he did not possess divine attributes. The full exposition of the classical passage with reference to the humiliation, namely, Phil. 2:5-8, we give below, under the next paragraph, pages 705, 706. Brentius illustrated Christ's humiliation by the king who travels incognito. But Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 158, says well that “to part in appearance with only the fruition of the divine attributes would be to impose upon us with a pretence of self-sacrifice; but to part with it in reality was to manifest most perfectly the true nature of God.”
This same objection lies against the explanation given in the Church Quarterly Review, Oct. 1891:1-30, on Our Lord's Knowledge as Man: “If divine knowledge exists in a different form from human, and a translation into a different form is necessary before it can be available in the human sphere, our Lord might know the day of judgment as God, and yet be ignorant of it as man. This must have been the case if he did not choose to translate it into the human form. But it might also have been incapable of translation. The processes of divine knowledge may be far above our finite comprehension.” This seems to us to be a virtual denial of the unity of Christ's person, and to make our Lord play fast and loose with the truth. He either knew, or he did not know; and his denial that he knew makes it impossible that he should have known in any sense.
We may distinguish: (a) That act of the preïncarnate Logos by which, in becoming man, he gave up the independent exercise of the divine attributes. (b) His submission to the common laws which regulate the origin of souls from a preëxisting sinful stock, in taking his human nature from the Virgin,—a human nature which only the miraculous conception rendered pure. (c) His subjection to the limitations involved in a human growth and development,—reaching the consciousness of his sonship at his twelfth year, and working no miracles till after the baptism. (d) The subordination of himself, in state, knowledge, teaching, and acts, to the control of the Holy Spirit,—so living, not independently, but as a servant. (e) His subjection, as connected with a sinful race, to temptation and suffering, and finally to the death which constituted the penalty of the law.
Peter Lombard asked whether God could know more than he was aware of? It is only another way of putting the question whether, during the earthly life of Christ, the Logos existed outside of the flesh of Jesus. We must answer in the affirmative. Otherwise the number of the persons in the Trinity would be variable, and the universe could do without him who is ever “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), and in whom “all things consist” (Col. 1:17). Let us recall the nature of God's omnipresence (see pages 279-282). Omnipresence is nothing less than the presence of the whole of God in every place. From this it follows, that the whole Christ can be present in every believer as fully as if that believer were the only one to receive of his fulness, and that the whole Logos can be united to and be present in the man Christ Jesus, while at the same time he fills and governs the universe. By virtue of this omnipresence, therefore, the whole Logos can suffer on earth, while yet the whole Logos reigns in heaven. The Logos outside of Christ has the perpetual consciousness of his Godhead, while yet the Logos, as united to humanity in Christ, is subject to ignorance, weakness, and death. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:153—“Jehovah, though present in the form of the burning [pg 705]bush, was at the same time omnipresent also”; 2:265-284, esp. 282—“Because the sun is shining in and through a cloud, it does not follow that it cannot at the same time be shining through the remainder of universal space, unobstructed by any vapor whatever.”Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 21—“Not with God, as with finite man, does arrival in one place necessitate withdrawal from another.” John Calvin: “The whole Christ was there; but not all that was in Christ was there.” See Adamson, The Mind of Christ.
How the independent exercise of the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence can be surrendered, even for a time, would be inconceivable, if we were regarding the Logos as he is in himself, seated upon the throne of the universe. The matter is somewhat easier when we remember that it was not the Logos per se, but rather the God-man, Jesus Christ, in whom the Logos submitted to this humiliation. South, Sermons, 2:9—“Be the fountain never so full, yet if it communicate itself by a little pipe, the stream can be but small and inconsiderable, and equal to the measure of its conveyance.” Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ, 39—“The human eye, when open, sees heaven and earth; but when shut, it sees little or nothing. Yet its inherent capacity does not change. So divinity does not change its nature, when it drops the curtain of humanity before the eyes of the God-man.”
The divine in Christ, during most of his earthly life, is latent, or only now and then present to his consciousness or manifested to others. Illustrate from second childhood, where the mind itself exists, but is not capable of use; or from first childhood, where even a Newton or a Humboldt, if brought back to earth and made to occupy an infant body and brain, would develop as an infant, with infantile powers. There is more in memory than we can at this moment recall,—memory is greater than recollection. There is more of us at all times than we know,—only the sudden emergency reveals the largeness of our resources of mind and heart and will. The new nature, in the regenerate, is greater than it appears: “Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We, know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). So in Christ there was an ocean-like fulness of resource, of which only now and then the Spirit permitted the consciousness and the exercise.
Without denying (with Dorner) the completeness, even from the moment of the conception, of the union between the deity and the humanity, we may still say with Kahnis: “The human nature of Christ, according to the measure of its development, appropriates more and more to its conscious use the latent fulness of the divine nature.”So we take the middle ground between two opposite extremes. On the one hand, the Kenosis was not the extinction of the Logos. Nor, on the other hand, did Christ hunger and sleep by miracle,—this is Docetism. We must not minimize Christ's humiliation, for this was his glory. There was no limit to his descent, except that arising from his sinlessness. His humiliation was not merely the giving-up of the appearance of Godhead. Baird, Elohim Revealed, 585—“Should any one aim to celebrate the condescension of the emperor Charles the Fifth, by dwelling on the fact that he laid aside the robes of royalty and assumed the style of a subject, and altogether ignore the more important matter that he actually became a private person, it would be very weak and absurd.” Cf. 2 Cor. 8:9—“though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor” = he beggared himself. Mat. 27:46—“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” = non-exercise of divine omniscience.
Inasmuch, however, as the passage Phil. 2:6-8 is the chief basis and support of the doctrine of Christ's humiliation, we here subjoin a more detailed examination of it.
Exposition of Philippians, 2:6-8. The passage reads: “who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.”
The subject of the sentence is at first (verses 6, 7) Christ Jesus, regarded as the preëxistent Logos; subsequently (verse 8), this same Christ Jesus, regarded as incarnate. This change in the subject is indicated by the contrast between μορφῇ θεοῦ (verse 6) and μορφὴν δούλου (verse 7), as well as by the participles λαβών and γενόμενος (verse 7) and εύρεθείς (verse 8) It is asserted, then, that the preëxisting Logos, “although subsisting in the form of God, did not regard his equality with God as a thing to be forcibly retained, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, (that is,) by being made in the likeness of men. And being found in outward condition as a man, he (the incarnate son of God, yet further) humbled himself, by becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (verse 8).
Here notice that what the Logos divested himself of, in becoming man, is not the [pg 706]substance of his Godhead, but the “form of God” in which this substance was manifested. This “form of God” can be only that independent exercise of the powers and prerogatives of Deity which constitutes his “equality with God.” This he surrenders, in the act of “taking the form of a servant”—or becoming subordinate, as man. (Here other Scriptures complete the view, by their representations of the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit in the earthly life of Christ.) The phrases “made in the likeness of men” and “found in fashion as a man” are used to intimate, not that Jesus Christ was not really man, but that he was God as well as man, and therefore free from the sin which clings to man (cf. Rom. 8:3—ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας—Meyer). Finally, this one person, now God and man united, submits himself, consciously and voluntarily, to the humiliation of an ignominious death.
See Lightfoot, on Phil. 2:8—“Christ divested himself, not of his divine nature, for that was impossible, but of the glories and prerogatives of Deity. This he did by taking the form of a servant.” Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:287—“Two stages in Christ's humiliation, each represented by a finite verb defining the central act of the particular stage, accompanied by two modal participles. 1st stage indicated in v. 7. Its central act is: ‘he emptied himself.’ Its two modalities are: (1) ‘taking the form of servant’; (2) ‘being made in the likeness of men.’ Here we have the humiliation of the Kenosis,—that by which Christ became man. 2d stage, indicated in v. 8. Its central act is: ‘he humbled himself.’ Its two modalities are: (1) ‘being found in fashion as a man’; (2) ‘becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.’ Here we have the humiliation of his obedience and death,—that by which, inhumanity, he became a sacrifice for our sins.”
Meyer refers Eph. 5:31 exclusively to Christ and the church, making the completed union future, however, i. e., at the time of the Parousia. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother” = “in the incarnation, Christ leaves father and mother (his seat at the right hand of God), and cleaves to his wife (the church), and then the two (the descended Christ and the church) become one flesh (one ethical person, as the married pair become one by physical union). The Fathers, however, (Jerome, Theodoret, Chrysostom), referred it to the incarnation.” On the interpretation of Phil 2:6-11, see Comm. of Neander, Meyer, Lange, Ellicott.
On the question whether Christ would have become man had there been no sin, theologians are divided. Dorner, Martensen, and Westcott answer in the affirmative; Robinson, Watts, and Denney in the negative. See Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, 5:236; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 327-329; Westcott, Com. on Hebrews, page 8—“The Incarnation is in its essence independent of the Fall, though conditioned by it as to its circumstances.” Per contra, see Robinson, Christ. Theol., 219, note—“It would be difficult to show that a like method of argument from a priori premisses will not equally avail to prove sin to have been a necessary part of the scheme of creation.”Denney, Studies in Theology, 101, objects to the doctrine of necessary incarnation irrespective of sin, that it tends to obliterate the distinction between nature and grace, to blur the definite outlines of the redemption wrought by Christ, as the supreme revelation of God and his love. See also Watts, New Apologetic, 198-202; Julius Müller, Dogmat. Abhandlungen, 66-126; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 512-526, 543-548; Forrest, The Authority of Christ, 340-345. On the general subject of the Kenosis of the Logos, see Bruce, Humiliation of Christ; Robins, in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1874:615; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:138-150, 386-475; Pope, Person of Christ, 23; Bodemeyer, Lehre von der Kenosis; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:610-625.
It consisted essentially in: (a) A resumption, on the part of the Logos, of his independent exercise of divine attributes. (b) The withdrawal, on the part of the Logos, of all limitations in his communication of the divine fulness to the human nature of Christ. (c) The corresponding exercise, on the part of the human nature, of those powers which belonged to it by virtue of its union with the divine.
The eighth Psalm, with its account of the glory of human nature, is at present fulfilled only in Christ (see Heb. 2:9—“but we behold ... Jesus”). Heb. 2:7—ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι παρ᾽ ἀγγέλους—may be translated, as in the margin of the Rev. Vers.: “Thou madest [pg 707]him for a little while lower than the angels.” Christ's human body was not necessarily subject to death; only by outward compulsion or voluntary surrender could he die. Hence resurrection was a natural necessity (Acts 2:24—“whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible he should be holden of it”; 31—“neither was he left unto Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption”). This exaltation, which then affected humanity only in its head, is to be the experience also of the members. Our bodies also are to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and we are to sit with Christ upon his throne.
(a) The quickening and resurrection.
Both Lutherans and Romanists distinguish between these two, making the former precede, and the latter follow, Christ's “preaching to the spirits in prison.” These views rest upon a misinterpretation of 1 Pet. 3:18-20. Lutherans teach that Christ descended into hell, to proclaim his triumph to evil spirits. But this is to give ἐκήρυξεν the unusual sense of proclaiming his triumph, instead of his gospel. Romanists teach that Christ entered the underworld to preach to Old Testament saints, that they might be saved. But the passage speaks only of the disobedient; it cannot be pressed into the support of a sacramental theory of the salvation of Old Testament believers. The passage does not assert the descent of Christ into the world of spirits, but only a work of the preïncarnate Logos in offering salvation, through Noah, to the world then about to perish.
Augustine, Ad Euodiam, ep. 99—“The spirits shut up in prison are the unbelievers who lived in the time of Noah, whose spirits or souls were shut up in the darkness of ignorance as in a prison; Christ preached to them, not in the flesh, for he was not yet incarnate, but in the spirit, that is, in his divine nature.” Calvin taught that Christ descended into the underworld and suffered the pains of the lost. But not all Calvinists hold with him here; see Princeton Essays, 1:153. Meyer, on Rom. 10:7, regards the question—“Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)”—as an allusion to, and so indirectly a proof-text for, Christ's descent into the underworld. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 211, favors a preaching to the dead: “During that time [the three days] he did not return to heaven and his Father.” But though John 20:17 is referred to for proof, is not this statement true only of his body? So far as the soul is concerned, Christ can say: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and “To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise”(Luke 23:43, 46).
Zahn and Dorner best represent the Lutheran view. Zahn, in Expositor, March, 1898: 216-223—“If Jesus was truly man, then his soul, after it left the body, entered into the fellowship of departed spirits.... If Jesus is he who lives forevermore and even his dying was his act, this carrying in the realm of the dead cannot be thought of as a purely passive condition, but must have been known to those who dwelt there..... If Jesus was the Redeemer of mankind, the generations of those who had passed away must have thus been brought into personal relation to him, his work and his kingdom, without waiting for the last day.”
Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:662 (Syst. Doct., 4:127), thinks “Christ's descent into Hades marks a new era of his pneumatic life, in which he shows himself free from the limitations of time and space.” He rejects “Luther's notion of a merely triumphal progress and proclamation of Christ. Before Christ,” he says, “there was no abode peopled by the damned. The descent was an application of the benefit of the atonement (implied in κηρύσσειν). The work was prophetic, not high-priestly nor kingly. Going to the spirits in prison is spoken of as a spontaneous act, not one of physical necessity. No power of Hades led him over into Hades. Deliverance from the limitations of a mortal body is already an indication of a higher stage of existence. Christ's soul is bodiless for a time—πνεῦμα only—as the departed were.
“The ceasing of this preaching is neither recorded, nor reasonably to be supposed,—indeed the ancient church supposed it carried on through the apostles. It expresses the universal significance of Christ for former generations and for the entire kingdom of the dead. No physical power is a limit to him. The gates of hell, or Hades, shall not prevail over or against him. The intermediate state is one of blessedness for him, and [pg 708]he can admit the penitent thief into it. Even those who were not laid hold of by Christ's historic manifestation in this earthly life still must, and may, be brought into relation with him, in order to be able to accept or to reject him. And thus the universal relation of Christ to humanity and the absoluteness of the Christian religion are confirmed.”So Dorner, for substance.
All this versus Strauss, who thought that the dying of vast masses of men, before and after Christ, who had not been brought into relation to Christ, proves that the Christian religion is not necessary to salvation, because not universal. For advocacy of Christ's preaching to the dead, see also Jahrbuch für d. Theol., 23:177-228; W. W. Patton, in N. Eng., July, 1882:460-478; John Miller, Problems Suggested by the Bible, part 1:93-98; part 2:38; Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison; Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., Apl. 1888; Clemen, Niedergefahren zu den Toten.
For the opposite view, see “No Preaching to the Dead,” in Princeton Rev., March, 1875:197; 1878:451-491; Hovey, in Bap. Quar., 4:486 sq., and Bib. Eschatology, 97-107; Love, Christ's Preaching to the Spirits in Prison; Cowles, in Bib. Sac., 1875:401; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:616-622; Salmond, in Popular Commentary; and Johnstone, Com., in loco. So Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Bishop Pearson. See also E. D. Morris, Is There Salvation after Death? and Wright, Relation of Death to Probation, 22:28—“If Christ preached to spirits in Hades, it may have been to demonstrate the hopelessness of adding in the other world to the privileges enjoyed in this. We do not read that it had any favorable effect upon the hearers. If men will not hear Moses and the Prophets, then they will not hear one risen from the dead. ‘Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise’ (Luke 23:43) was not comforting, if Christ was going that day to the realm of lost spirits. The antediluvians, however, were specially favored with Noah's preaching, and were specially wicked.”
For full statement of the view presented in the text, that the preaching referred to was the preaching of Christ as preëxisting Logos to the spirits, now in prison, when once they were disobedient in the days of Noah, see Bartlett, in New Englander, Oct. 1872: 601 sq., and in Bib. Sac., Apr. 1883:333-373. Before giving the substance of Bartlett's exposition, we transcribe in full the passage in question, 1 Pet. 3:18-20—“Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, that aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah.”
Bartlett expounds as follows: “ ‘In which [πνεύματι, divine nature] ‘he went and preached to the spirits in prison when once they disobeyed.’ ἀπειθήσασιν is circumstantial aorist, indicating the time of the preaching as a definite past: It is an anarthrous dative, as in Luke 8:27; Mat. 8:23; Acts 15:25; 22:17. It is an appositive, or predicative, participle. [That the aorist participle does not necessarily describe an action preliminary to that of the principal verb appears from its use in verse 18 (θανατωθείς), in 1 Thess. 1:6 (δεξάμενοι), and in Col. 2:11, 13.] The connection of thought is: Peter exhorts his readers to endure suffering bravely, because Christ did so,—in his lower nature being put to death, in his higher nature enduring the opposition of sinners before the flood. Sinners of that time only are mentioned, because this permits an introduction of the subsequent reference to baptism. Cf. Gen. 6:3; 1 Pet. 1:10, 11; 2 Pet. 2:4, 5.”
(b) The ascension and sitting at the right hand of God.
As the resurrection proclaimed Christ to men as the perfected and glorified man, the conqueror of sin and lord of death, the ascension proclaimed him to the universe as the reinstated God, the possessor of universal dominion, the omnipresent object of worship and hearer of prayer. Dextra Dei ubique est.
Mat. 28:18, 20—“All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.... lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”; Mark 16:19—“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God”; Acts 7:55—“But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God”; 2 Cor. 13:4—“he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth through the power of God”; Eph. 1:22, 23—“he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all”; 4:10—“He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:184-189—“Before the resurrection, Christ was the God-man; since the resurrection, he is the God-man.... He ate with his disciples, not to show the quality, but the reality, of his human body.” Nicoll, Life of Christ: [pg 709] “It was hard for Elijah to ascend”—it required chariot and horses of fire—“but it was easier for Christ to ascend than to descend,”—there was a gravitation upwards. Maclaren: “He has not left the world, though he has ascended to the Father, any more than he left the Father when he came into the world”; John 1:18—“the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”; 3:13—“the Son of man, who is in heaven.”
We are compelled here to consider the problem of the relation of the humanity to the Logos in the state of exaltation. The Lutherans maintain the ubiquity of Christ's human body, and they make it the basis of their doctrine of the sacraments. Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:674-676 (Syst. Doct., 4:138-142), holds to “a presence, not simply of the Logos, but of the whole God-man, with all his people, but not necessarily likewise a similar presence in the world; in other words, his presence is morally conditioned by men's receptivity.” The old theologians said that Christ is not in heaven, quasi carcere. Calvin, Institutes, 2:15—he is “incarnate, but not incarcerated.” He has gone into heaven, the place of spirits, and he manifests himself there; but he has also gone far above all heavens, that he may fill all things. He is with his people alway. All power is given into his hand. The church is the fulness of him that filleth all in all. So the Acts of the Apostles speak constantly of the Son of man, of the man Jesus as God, ever present, the object of worship, seated at the right hand of God, having all the powers and prerogatives of Deity. See Westcott, Bible Com., on John 20:22—“he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit”—“The characteristic effect of the Paschal gift was shown in the new faith by which the disciples were gathered into a living society; the characteristic effect of the Pentecostal gift was shown in the exercise of supremacy potentially universal.”
Who and what is this Christ who is present with his people when they pray? It is not enough to say, He is simply the Holy Spirit; for the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of Christ”(Rom. 8:9), and in having the Holy Spirit we have Christ himself (John 16:7—“I will send him[the Comforter] unto you”; 14:18—“I come unto you”). The Christ, who is thus present with us when we pray, is not simply the Logos, or the divine nature of Christ,—his humanity being separated from the divinity and being localized in heaven. This would be inconsistent with his promise, “Lo, I am with you,” in which the “I” that spoke was not simply Deity, but Deity and humanity inseparably united; and it would deny the real and indissoluble union of the two natures. The elder brother and sympathizing Savior who is with us when we pray is man, as well as God. This manhood is therefore ubiquitous by virtue of its union with the Godhead.
But this is not to say that Christ's human body is everywhere present. It would seem that body must exist in spatial relations, and be confined to place. We do not know that this is so with regard to soul. Heaven would seem to be a place, because Christ's body is there; and a spiritual body is not a body which is spirit, but a body which is suited to the uses of the spirit. But even though Christ may manifest himself, in a glorified human body, only in heaven, his human soul, by virtue of its union with the divine nature, can at the same moment be with all his scattered people over the whole earth. As, in the days of his flesh, his humanity was confined to place, while as to his Deity he could speak of the Son of man who is in heaven, so now, although his human body may be confined to place, his human soul is ubiquitous. Humanity can exist without body; for during the three days in the sepulchre, Christ's body was on earth, but his soul was in the other world; and in like manner there is, during the intermediate state, a separation of the soul and the body of believers. But humanity cannot exist without soul; and if the human Savior is with us, then his humanity, at least so far as respects its immaterial part, must be everywhere present. Per contra, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:326, 327. Since Christ's human nature has derivatively become possessed of divine attributes, there is no validity in the notion of a progressiveness in that nature, now that it has ascended to the right hand of God. See Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:131; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 558, 576.
Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:327—“Suppose the presence of the divine nature of Christ in the soul of a believer in London. This divine nature is at the same moment conjoined with, and present to, and modified by, the human nature of Christ, which is in heaven and not in London.” So Hooker, Eccl. Pol., 54, 55, and E. G. Robinson: “Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, while he is present in the church by his Spirit. We pray to the theanthropic Jesus. Possession of a human body does not now constitute a limitation. We know little of the nature of the present body.”We add to this last excellent remark the expression of our own conviction that the modern conception of the merely relative nature of space, and the idealistic view of matter as only the expression of mind and will, have relieved this subject of many of [pg 710]its former difficulties. If Christ is omnipresent and if his body is simply the manifestation of his soul, then every soul may feel the presence of his humanity even now and “every eye” may “see him” at his second coming, even though believers may be separated as far as is Boston from Pekin. The body from which his glory flashes forth may be visible in ten thousand places at the same time; (Mat. 28:20; Rev. 1:7).