145. The Christology of the Orthodox System.

{P.869} The dogmatic import of the life of Jesus implicitly received, and developed on this basis, constitutes the orthodox doctrine of the Christ.

Its fundamental principles are found in the New Testament. The root of faith in Jesus was the conviction of his resurrection. He who had been put to death, however great during his life, could not, it was thought, be the Messiah: his miraculous restoration to life proved so much the more strongly that he was the Messiah. Freed by his resurrection from the kingdom of shades, and at the same time elevated above the sphere of earthly humanity, he was now translated to the heavenly regions, and had taken his place at the right hand of God (Acts ii.32ff.; iii.15ff.; v.30ff.; and elsewhere). Now, his death appeared to be the chief article in his Messianic destination; according to Isai liii., he had suffered for the sins of his people and of mankind (Acts viii.32ff. comp. Matt. xx. 28. John i. 29, 36. 1 John ii. 2.); his blood poured out on the cross, operated like that which on the great day of atonement the high priest sprinkled on the mercy-seat (Rom. iii. 25.); he was the pure lamb by whose blood the elieving are redeemed (1 Pet. i. 18 f.); the eternal, sinless high priest, who by the offering of his own body, at once effected that, which the Jewish high priests were unable to effect, by their perpetually repeated sacrifices of animals (liebr. x.10ff. etc.). But, thenceforth, the Messiah who was exalted to the right hand of God, could not have been a common man: not only was he anointed with the divine spirit in a greater measure than any prophet (Acts iv. 27; x. 38.); not only did he prove himself to be a divine messenger by miracles and signs (Acts ii. 22.); but also, according as the one idea or the other was most readily formed, either he was supernaturally engendered by the Holy Spirit (Matt, and Luke i), or he had descended as the Word and Wisdom of God into an earthly body (John i.). As, before his appearance on the earth, he was in the bosom of the Father, in divine majesty (John xvii. 5.); so his descent into the world of mortals, and still more his submission to an ignominious death, was a vountary humiliation, to which he was moved by his love to mankind (Phil. ii.5ff.). The risen and ascended Jesus will one day return to wake the dead and judge the world (Acts i. 11; xvii. 31.); he even now takes charge of his Church (Rom. viii. 34; 1 John ii. 1), participating in the government of the world, as he originally ulu in its creation (Matt, xxviii. 18; John i. 3. 10; Col. i. 16 f.). In addition to all this, every trait in the image of the Messiah as sketched by the popular expectation, was attributed with necessary or gratuitous modifications to Jesus; indeed, the imagination, once stimulated, invented new characteristics.

How richly fraught with blessing and elevation, with encouragement and consolation, were the thoughts which the early Church ^{P.870} derived from this view of the Christ! By the mission of the Son of God into the world, by his delivery of himself to death for the sake of the world, heaven and earth are reconciled (2 Cor. v.18ff.; Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 20.); by this most stupendous sacrifice, the love of God is securely guaranteed to man (Horn. v.8ff.; viii.31ff.; 1 John iv. 9), and the brightest hopes are revealed to him. Did the Son of God become man? Then are men his brethren, and as such the children of God, and heirs with Christ to the treasure of divine bliss (Rom. viii. 16 f. 29.). The servile relation of man to God, as it existed under the law, has ceased; love has taken the place ol the fear of the punishment threatened by the law (Rom. viii. 15; Gal. iv.1ff.). Believers are redeemed from the curse of the law by Christ's sacrifice of himself, inasmuch as he suffered a death on which the law had laid a curse (Gal. iii. 13.). Now, there is no longer imposed on us the impossible task of satisfying all the demands of the law (Gal. iii. 10 f.)-a task which, as experience shows, no man fulfils (Rom. i, 18-iii. 20), which, by reason of his sinful nature, no man can fulfil (Rom. v.12ff.), and which only involves him who strives to fulfil it, more and more deeply in the most miserable conflict with himself (Rom. vii.7ff.); whereas he who believes in Christ, and confides in the atoning efficacy of his death, possesses the favour of God; not by works and qualifications of his own, but by the free mercy of God, is the man who throws himself on that mercy just before God, by which all self exaltation is excluded (Rom. iii;51 11'.). As the mosaic law is no longer binding on the believer, he being dead to it with.Christ (Rom. vii.1ff.); as, moreover, by the eternal and all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ, the Jewish sacrilicial and priestly service is abolished (Ileb.); therefore the partition wall which separated the Jews and Gentiles is broken down: the latter, who before were aliens and strangers to the theocracy, without Go and without hope in the world, are now invited to participate in the new covenant, and free access is opened to them to the paternal God; so that the two portions of mankind, formerly separaled by hostile opinions, are now at peace with each other, members in common of the body of Christ-stones in the spiritual building of his Church (Eph. ii.11ff.). But to have justifying faith in the death of Christ, is, virtually, to die with him spiritually, that is, to die to sin; and as Christ arose from the dead to a new and immortal life, so must the believer in him arise from the death of sin to a new life of righteousness and holiness, put off the old man and put on the new (Rom. vi.1ff.). In this, Christ himself aids him by his Spirit, who fills those whom he inspires with spiritual strivings, and makes them ever more and more free from the slavery of sin (Rom. viii.1ff.). Nor alone spiritually, will the Spirit of Christ animate those in whom he dwells, but corporeally also, for at the end of their earthlycourse, God, through Christ, will resuscitate their bodies, as he did the body of Christ (Rom. viii. 11.). Christ, whom the bonds of death and the nether world could not ^{P.871} hold, has vanquished both for us, and has delivered the believer from the fear of these dread powers which rule over mortality (Rom. viii. 38 f. 1. Cor. xv.55ff. Heb. ii. 14 f.). His resurrection not only confers atoning efficacy on his death (Rom. iv. 25), but at the same time is the pledge of our own future resurrection, of our share in Christ in a future life, in his Messianic kingdom, to the blessedness of which he will, at his second advent, lead all his people. Meanwhile, we may console ourselves that we have in him an Intercessor, who from his own experience of the weakness and frailty of our nature, which he himself assumed, and in which he was in all points tempted as we are, but without sin, knows how much indulgence and aid we need (Heb. ii. 17 f. iv. 15 f.).

The expediency of describing in compendious forms the riches of their faith in Christ, was early felt by his followers. They celebrated him as "Christ who died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us" (Rom. viii. 34.); or with more particularity as Jesus Christ our Lord, "who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1. 3 f.); and as confessedly "the great mystery of godliness, the following propositions were presented: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached to the Gentles, believed on in the world, received up into glory" (1 Tim. iii. 16.).

The baptismal formula (Matt, xxviii. 19), by its allocation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, presented a sort of framework in which to arrange the materials of the new faith. On this basis was constructed in the first centuries what was called the rule of faith, regula fldei, which in divers forms, some more concise, others more diffuse, some more popular, others more subtle, is found in the different fathers. The more popular form at length settled into what is called the creed of the apostles. This symbol, in that edition of it which is received in the Gospel Church, has in its second and most elaborate article on the Son, the following points of belief: et (credo) in Jesum Christum, filium ejus (Dei patris) unicum, Dominum nostrum; qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria virgine; passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus, descendit ad inferna; tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad ceelos, sedet ad dextram Dei Patris omnipotentis; inde venturus est, judicare vivos et mortuos. ^{P.872}

Together with this popular form of the confession of faith in relation to Christ, there was also framed a more rigorous and minute theological digest, occasioned by the differences and controversies which early arose on certain points. The fundamental thesis of the Christian faith, that the Word was made flesh, (o logoj sarc egeneto), or, God was manifested in the flesh, was endangered on all sides, one questioning the Godhead, another the manhood, and a third the veritable union of the two natures.

It is true that those who, like the Ebionites, denied the Godhead, or like that sect of the Gnostics called Doceta:, the manhood of Christ, separated themselves too decidedly from the Christian community, which on her part maintained that it was necessary that the mediator of God and man should unite loth in friendship and harmony by means of a proper relationship to each, and that while he represented man to God, he should reveal God to man. But when it was merely the plenitude of the one nature or the other, which was contested, as when Arius maintained that the being who became man in Christ was indeed divine, but created, and subordinate to the supreme God; when, while ascribing to Christ a human body, he held that the place of the soul was occupied by that superior being; when Apollinaris maintaind that not only the body of Jesus was truly human, but his soul also, and that the divine being only served in the stead of the third principle in man, the vovg (understanding) these were opinions to which it was easier to give a Christian guise. Nevertheless the Church rejected the Arian idea of a subordinate God become man in Jesus, for this reason among others less essential, that on this theory the image of the Godhead would not have been manifested in Christ; and she condemned the idea of Arius and Apollinaris, that the human nature of Christ had not the human psyche (soul), or the human nous (understanding), for this reason chiefly, that only by the union of the divine, with an entire human nature, could the human race be redeemed.

Not only might the one or the other aspect of the nature of Christ be defaced or put out of sight, but in relation also to the union of the two, there might be error, and again in two opposite directions. The devout enthusiasm of many led them to believe, that they could not draw too closely the newly-entwined bond between heaven and earth; hence they no longer wished to distinguish between the Godhead and manhood in Christ, and since he had appeared in one person, they acknowledged in him only one nature, that of the Son of God made flesh. Others, more scrupulous, could not reconcile themselves to such a confusion of the divine and the ^{P.873} human; it seemed to them blasphemous to say that a human mother had .given birth to God: hence they maintained, that she had only borne the man whom the Son of God selected as his temple; and that in Christ there were two natures, united indeed so far as the adoration of his followers was concerned, but distinct as regarded their essence. To the Church, both these views appeared to encroach on the mystery of the incarnation: if the two natures were held to be permanently distinct, then was the union of the divine and human, the vital point of Christianity, destroyed; if a mixture of the two were admitted, then neither nature in its individual quality was capable of a union with the other, and thus again no true unity would be attained. Hence both these opinions were condemned, the latter in the person of Eutyches, the former, not with equal justice, in that of Nestorius; and as the Nicene creed established the true Godhead of Christ, so that of Chalcedon established his. true and perfect manhood, and the uion of the two natures in one undivided person. When subsequently there arose a controversy concerning the will of Christ, analogous to that concerning his nature, the Church, in accordance with its previous decisions, pronounced that in Christ, as the God-man, there were two wills, distinct but not discordant, the human will being subordinate to the divine, In comparison with the controversies on the being and essence of Christ, the other branch of the faith, the doctrine of his work, was developed in tranquility. The most comprehensive view of it was this: the Son of God, by assuming the human nature, gave it a holy and divine character!-above all he endowed it with immortality; while in a moral view, the mission of the Son of God into the world, being the highest proof of the love of God, was the most efficacious means of awakening a return of love in the human breast.

^{P.874} To this one great effect of the appearance of Christ, were annexed collateral benefits: his salutary teaching, his sublime example, were held up to view, but especial importance was attached to the violent death which he suffered. The idea of substitution, already given in the New Testament, was more fully developed: the was regarded, now as a ransom paid by him to the devil for the liberation of mankind, who had fallen into the power of the evil one through sin; now as a means devised by God for removing guilt, and enabling him to remit the punishment threatened to the sins of man, without detriment to his truthfulness, Christ having taken that punishment on himself, The latter idea was worked up by Anselm, in his book entitled, Cur Deus homo, into the well known theory of satisfaction, by which the doctrine of Christ's work of redemption is placed in the closest connection with that of his person. Man owes to God perfect obedience; but the sinner (-and such are all men-) withholds from God the service and honour which are His due. Now God, by reason of his justice, cannot suffer an offence against his honour: therefore, either man must voluntarily restore to God that which is God's, indeed, must, for complete satisfaction, render to him more than he has hitherto withheld; or, God must as a punishment take from man that which is man's, namely, the happiness for which he was originally created. Man is not able to do the former; for as he owes to God all the duties that he can perform, in order not to fall into sin, he can have no overplus of merit, wherewith to cover past sins. On the other hand, that God should obtain satisfaction by the infliction of eternal punishment, is opposed to his unchangeable goodness, which moves him actually to lead man to that Uiss for which he was originally destined. This, however, cannot happen consistently with divine justice, unless satisfaction be made for man, and according to the measure of that which has been taken from God, something be rendere to Him, greater than all else except God. But this can be none other than God himself; and as, on the other hand, man alone can satisfy for man: it must therefore be a God-man who gives satisfaction. Moreover this cannot consist in active obedience, in a sinless life, because every reasonable being owes this to God on his own behalf; but to suffer death, the wages of sin, a sinless being is not bound, and thus the satisfaction for the sins of man consists in the death of the God-man, whose reward, since he himself, as one with God, cannot be rewarded, is put to the account of man.

This doctrinal system of the ancient Church concerning the person and work of Christ, passed also into the confessions of the Lutheran churches, and was still more elaborately developed by their theologians. With regard to the person of Christ, they adhered ^{P.875} to the union of the divine and human natures in one person: according to them, in the act of this union, unitio personalis, which was simultaneous with the conception, it was the divine nature of the Son of God which adopted the human into the unity of its personality; the state of union, the unio personalis, was neither essential, nor yet merely accidental, neither mystical nor moral, still less merely verbal, but a real and supernatural union, and eternal in its duration. From this union with the divine nature, there result to the human nature in Christ certain pre-eminent advantages: namely, what at first appears a deficiency, that of being in itself impersonal, and of having personality only by its union with the divine nature; further, impeccability, and the possibility of not dying. Besides these special advantages, the human nature of Christ obtains others also from its union with the divine. The relation of the two natures is not a dead, external one, but a reciprocal penetration, a perixwrhsij; a kind of union not like that of two boards glued together, but like that of fire and metal in glowing iron, or of the body and soul in man. This communion of natures, communio naturarum, is manifested by a communication of properties, communicatio idiomatum, in virtue of which the human nature participates in the advantages of the divine, and the divine in the redeeming work of the human. This relation is expressed in the propositions concerning the person, propositionibus personalibus, and those concerning the properties, idiomaticis; the former are propositions in which the concrete of the one nature, i.e. the one nature as conceived in the person of Christ, is predicated of the other, as in 1 Cor. xv. 47.: the second man is the Lord from heaven; the latter are propositions in which determinations of one or the other nature, are referred to the entire person (genus idiomaticum), or in which acts of the entire person are referred to one or the other nature (genus apotelesmaticum), or lastly, in which attributes of te one nature are transferred to the other, which however is only possible from the divine to the human, not from the human to the divine (genus auchematicum).

In passing through the successive stages of the work of redemption, Christ, with his pe'rson endowed with two natures, experienced, according to the expression of the dogmatical theologians, founded on Phil. ii.6ff., two states, statum exinatiitionis, and statum ex-altationis. His human nature in its union with the divine, participated from the moment of conception in divine properties; but as during his earthly life Jesus made no continuous use of them, that life to the time of his death and burial, is regarded as a state of humiliation: whereas, with the resurrection, or even with the descent into hell, commenced the state of exaltation which was consummated by the sessio ad dextram patris.

As to the work of Christ, the doctrine of our Church attributes to him a triple office. As prophet, he has revealed to man the highest truth, the divine decree of redemption, confirming his testimony by miracles; and he still unceasingly controls the announcement of ^{P.876} this truth. As high priest, he has, on the one hand, by his irreproachable life, fulfilled the law in our stead (obedientia activa); on the other, he has borne, in his sufferings and death, the punishment which impended over us (obedientia passiva), and now perpetually intercedes for us with the Father. Lastly, as king, he governs the world, and more particularly the Church, which he will lead from the conflicts of earth to the glory of heaven, completing its destiny by the general resurrection and the last judgment.