The God-Man

The church, from the apostles themselves (e.g., Rom.1:2-4; 9:5; Heb.1:2-12; 2:14-18), to the apostolic fathers (e.g., 1Clem.32:2; 36; Ignatius, Eph.7:2), and on through the Nicene and Post-Nicene age, has always taught the human-divine duality of Christ’s person. This basic and primitive christology was given precise definition in the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, and has since been recognized by the church as having established the clear boundaries of christological orthodoxy.

During the controversies of the 4th and 5th century, a number of important works were written. One of these was the so-called "Tome of Leo," written to Flavian, the Bishop of Constantinople in 449 AD. It is worth taking the time to read it, if you can grab an hour one night. The Tome was adopted by the Council of Chalcedon as giving orthodox expression to the duality of Christ, and as a correction to the teachings of Eutyches in particular.

To this author was attributed the famous dictim: "What he was (Deity), he remained; what he was not (humanity), he assumed." A short and sweet summary of the mystery of the incarnation. God the Son took on human nature, without compromising either His divine nature or the humanity He assumed through His miraculous conception in Mary's womb. That is what happened, according to Scripture. How it happened is a mystery to us.

Another important and profound document written during an earlier, critical juncture in the history of the church regarding Christ's Person is Athanasius’ “On the Incarnation." A true Christian classic!

In light of this duality of natures, we often struggle with overemphasizing one aspect over and against the other. That is, we tend to lean either toward Arianism (Jesus, though great, is not fully God) or docetism (Jesus, though he appeared to be, was not really a man).

In what ways have we tended toward Arianism in recent history?

In what ways have we tended toward docetism?

Our Conception of God

One of the most important factors for our spirituality is our conception of who God is. A.W. Tozer wrote:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us… Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

And the traditional theistic and Christian view of God is that He is the all-glorious, infinite and eternal being - absolute and personal. He is, to use Anselm's definition, "something that which nothing greater can be conceived." As Francis Chan writes in his book, Crazy Love, God is a God whose glory and perfections cannot be exaggerated. Our problem isn't that we overestimate God, in His holiness and majesty (or His humility), but that we underestimate Him. We underestimate His perfections, His self-sufficiency, His mercy, and His justice.

To delimit Him then according to our finite understanding is dangerous and even potentially disasterous. For this reason God taught Israel that He is not to be conceived or represented by any image whatsoever (Dt.5:8-12; 4:12), not even by men, in whom is embodied the imago Dei! This is not because the image of God in man is somehow deceptive in and of itself, but because of our fallen nature, such that that image is fundamentally corrupted. We must always be cautious then with the conclusions we draw from the human experience alone. That is, they must always be read in submission to the biblical revelation of God to Israel and in Christ particularly. This is the danger, I would suggest, of some modern conceptions of God which picture Him in heaven as weeping over human tragedy, and participating in the pain of the world as a victim of evil. Jesus certainly did so participate, weeping and suffering at hands of wicked men, in His human nature; but the divine nature is not to be confused with His humanity.

The incarnation demonstrates that the image of God in man is a faithful and full representation of God, though in another sense limited (Jn.1:18). His sinlessness guarantees a faithful representation, in the pristine state of the imago Dei. It is limited in accordance to our finitude and ability to comprehend. God condescends, in other words, to communicate to us in ways we can grasp. He even gives us the Spirit in rebirth, by which we are enlightened to properly understand His revelation.

And so Jesus revealed God to us as a man, in ways that we can fully comprehend as men. His human nature and humiliation, in a sense then, both veiled and revealed the divine nature.

Jesus revealed God to us not merely through His human nature, abstractly conceived, but specifically with His words and deeds as an actual, particular man in history. It is noteworthy that the Gospel accounts refrain from communicating Jesus' physical appearances. It is His words and actions which reveal God to us primarily - human actions, and words spoken with the human tongue, to be sure. But they are also divine actions and divine words, unique to Jesus by virtue of the union of the human and divine natures in His incarnate existence. Though the apostles experienced Christ "in the flesh," the representation of God in Christ is now experienced primarily through the Word and Spirit. Hence J.I. Packer's warning about representing Jesus' physical appearances with pictures and paintings. We tend to make Jesus into our image (white, black, asian, etc.). This is potentially dangerous as well. God, even in Christ, cannot be domesticated to our concepts and cultural assumptions. As C.S. Lewis wrote, He is not a tame lion. Or, as Martin Luther famously wrote, "let God be God." We might write, let Christ be Christ - the Christ of Scripture, and not of our wandering imaginations.

So what is critical is that we derive our understanding of God from the revelation given us, and most especially, the revelation contained in the writings of Scripture. It may not reveal everything that can be known about God, but it reveals faithfully everything we need to know, in order to truly know Him (Dt.29:29). We can be confident that there are no pulled punches in His revelation, or skeletons in His closet, awaiting later exposure. We know enough to know that He is all worthy, and enough to be responsible to respond appropriately. And that response is, in a word, worship.

The Doctrine of Inerrancy

The doctrine of biblical inerrancy has been especially controversial during the course of the last century, and continues to be so today. Inerrancy simply means that the Scriptures are without error in all that they affirm. (This applies specifically to the original manuscripts; unfortunatley, inspiration of "the writings" is no guarantee against corruption in textual transmission or fidelity of translation.) This has been the view of the church throughout history and for those who read the carefully nuanced views of the Princetonians like Warfield, Hodge, and Alexander, and the Chicago Statement will find that these comport with the historical position of the church. Prior to the higher criticism of the 18th century, the inerrancy (note: I understand this term as essentially identical to "infallibility") of Scripture was naturally assumed by the orthodox and heretic alike throughout Christendom. It is the obvious corollary to the full or "plenary" inspiration of Scripture taught in the Bible (2Tim.3:16), and touches most critically upon the authority of revelation. And so Augustine argued, for example, that the authority of the Scriptures would be unsettled if there was an error or contradiction in them.

There are two important mistakes people make with regard to inerrancy (usually by its critics). The first common mistake is conflating accuracy with precision. Scripture is accurate, but not necessarily precise in all of its reportings. For example, we often bring the expectations of modern historiography to the ancient text, and then, when Scripture fails to thus "measure up," we're confused. But the historical narratives of Scripture are neither scientifically precise nor are they exhaustive in reporting the details of the events they describe. The second mistake is the failure to understand the phenomological aspect of all literature, even biblical. Namely, Scripture typically narrates events within the conceptual and experiential framework of the authors and audience of the original text. Thus, for example, when Scripture says "the sun set," we should not think that it is advancing a geocentric view of the universe (anymore so than the local paper, when it tells us the times for "sunrise" and "sunset" each day). In all of this we must also keep in mind the intrepretive or hermeneutical principle of sensus literalis - that the text of Scripture should be read in terms of its literature or genre. We should read history as history, poetry as poetry, parable as parable, etc., etc.

The practical signficance of inerrancy can be seen in two important areas. First, because all Scripture is inspired, and therefore entirely trustworthy and true, all of Scripture is useful for training, teaching, correcting, and rebuking (2Tim.3:16-17). This is immensely important for establishing both the legitimacy and method of pastoral ministry, which Paul so clearly lays out for us in the Pastoral Epistles. Secondly, as Augustine once argued, when we encounter a problem in the text, inerrancy means that we have three options: 1) we have misunderstood the text, 2) there is a corruption in the translation or transmission of the manuscripts in hand in need of correction, 3) I am in need of correction.

There have been a number of times when the third scenario is in fact the case in my life. I didn't like the obvious meaning and application of a passage in Scripture, and so I either ignored it, or, perhaps even worse, gave a highly sophisticated and sophistic 'interpretation,' in order to avoid the provocative and disturbing implications of its prima facie and - let's be honest - clear meaning.

If you get a moment, check out this short article by John Frame at Reformed Theological Seminary regarding inerrancy.

As always, give us your thoughts!