¦ ¦. ¦:.. .... ¦ ¦ ¦¦ ¦¦...¦¦ '¦¦¦¦..¦'¦,¦.¦¦¦ ', HH11111 SSJ?> ...J.u. ¦ .¦ iip^ajjijj^jjMte^WM^i^ij^^t^iTi UUjV>H,M»l^.«W» Note D. M Note E. Lect. IV . Note A. »> Note B. Note C. Note D. n Note E. it Note F. n Note G. Lect. VI. Note A. x Note B. yi Note C. LEcr.VII. Note A. »» Note E. D Note C. Note D. Note E. —On Phil. ii. 6-8, . . . . • 3S9 — Extracts from Cyril on Christ's Ignorance, . . 368 — Connection between Lutheran Christology and the Sacramentarian Controversy, . . . 375 Tlibingen-Giessen Controversy concerning Krypsis and Kenosis, ..... 376 -Schneckenburger on Connection between Lutheran Christology and Modern Speculative Christology, 380 ¦Schweitzer on Reformed Christology, . . 382 Reformed Views of the Impersonality, . . 384 Kenotic Literature belonging to Thomasian Type, . 388 Kenotic Literature belonging to Gessian Type, . 396 -Ehrard's Prefaces to his Works, . . . 413 •Ebrard's Solutions of Speculative Christological Problems, ...... 414 Kenotic Literature belonging to Martensen Type, . 419 ¦The Christology of Zinzendorf, . . . 425 •Cyril on Metamorphic Kenosis, . . . 429 ¦On the Temperament of Christ, . . . 43c. Views of Naturalistic Theologians on " the Flesh, " . 431 ¦Socinus on the Priesthood of Christ, . . . 437 -The Pauline Doctrine of Atonement, . . . 439 ¦Rupert of Duytz on Christ as a Penitent, . . 442 -Reformed and Lutheran Opinions on the Question, Did Christ suffer Spiritual and Eternal Death ? . 443 -St. Bernard on the Greatness of Christ's Sufferings, and its Cause, ..... 447 Jonathan Edwards on the Sense in which Christ endured Divine Wrath, .... 449 INDEX. 45' LECTURE I. CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. I PURPOSE in the following lectures to employ the teaching of Scripture, concerning the humiliation of the Son of God, as an aid in the formation of just views on some aspects of the doctrine of Christ's person, experience, and work, and as a guide in the criticism of various Christological and Soteriological theories". The task I enter on is arduous and delicate. It is arduous, because it demands at least a tolerable acquaintance, at first hand as far as possible, with an extensive literature of ancient, modern, and recenic origin, the recent alone being sufficiently ample to occupy the leisure of a pastor for years. It is delicate, because the subject, while of vital interest in a religious point of view, is also theologically abstruse. The way of truth is narrow here, and through ignorance or inadvertence one may easily fall into error, while desiring to maintain, and even honestly believing that he is maintaining, the catholic faith. It has, indeed, sometimes been asserted that it is impossible to avoid error on the subject of the person of Christ, all known or conceivable theories oscillating be tween Ebionitism and Doketism.1 This, it may be hoped, is the exaggeration of persons not themselves believers in the catholic doctrine of our Lord's divinity; yet it is an exaggeration in which there is so much truth, that it is difficult to enter on a discussion of questions relating to that great theme without conscious fear and trembling. 1 I venture to print the words docetism and docetic with k instead of c (doketism, doketic), following the example of Mr. Grote, who in his History of Greece thus renders all Greek names in which k occurs into English, e.g. Sokrates instead of Socrates. One objection to the spelling docetism is, that to ill-informed minds it may suggest a derivation from doceo instead of from Soxdoo. The terms doketism and doketic apply to that view of our Lord's person which makes His human sature and life a mere appearance. 2 The Humiliation of Christ. Yet, on the other hand, no one can discuss to any purpose these questions in a timid spirit. Successful treatment demands not only reverence and caution, but audacity. Without boldness, both in faith and in thought, it is impossible to rise to the grandeur of the truth in Christ, as set forth in Scripture. Courage is required even for believing in the Incarnation; and still more for the scien tific discussion thereof. What can one do, then, but proceed with firm step, trusting to the gracious guidance of God; expecting, in the words of St. Hilary,1 that "He may incite the beginnings of this trembling undertaking, confirm them with advancing progress, and call the writer to fellowship with the spirit of prophets and apostles, that he may understand their sayings in the sense in which they spoke them, and follow up the right use of words with the same conceptions of things " ? The attempt I now propose to make is beset with additional difficulty, arising out of its comparative novelty. It has not been the practice of theological writers to assign to the category of the states of Christ, or of the state of humiliation in particular, the dominant position which it is to occupy in the present course of lectures. In most dogmatic systems, doubtless, there is a chapter devoted to the locus, De Statu Christi; but in some instances it forms a meagre appendix to the doctrines of Christ's per son, or of His work, which might be dispensed with;* in other cases it is a mere framework, within which are included in summary form the leading facts of our Lord's history as recorded in the Gospels;8 while in a third class of cases it serves the purpose of an apology or defence for a foregone Christological conclusion.4 Exclusive study of the older 1 De Trin. lib. i. 38. The style of this Father is so obscure that it is scarcely warrantable to quote from him without giving the original. His words are: "Ex- pectamus ergo, ut trepide hujus coepti exordia incites, et profectu accrescente con- firmes, et ad consortium vel prophetalis vel apostolici spiritus voces; ut dicta eorum non alio quam ipsi locuti sunt sensu apprehendamus, verborumque propri- etates iisdem rerum significationibus exsequamur." 2 In Turretine, the chapter "De Duplici Christi Statu" scarcely occupies two pages. Calvin and the older Reformed dogmatists make no use of the category at all. 3 So in Heidegger, Corpus theologiae, locus xviii. * So with the Lutheran divines, concerning whom Strauss justly remarks (Glau- henslehre, vol. ii. 139), that they used the distinction of a twofold state, partly to Christological Axioms. 3 dogmatists would tend to discourage the idea of com mencing a discussion on Christology with the doctrine of Exinanition as a mere conceit; or, to speak more correctly, it would probably prevent such a thought from ever arising in the mind. And yet the discriminating study of these very authors shows that the truths relating to the humil iation of Christ have exercised a more extensive influence on the doctrines of Christ's person and work than the bare contents of the locus De Statu Christi would lead one to suppose. This is especially manifest in the case of the ologians belonging to the Reformed confession, whose whole views of Christ's person and work have been largely formed under the influence of the important principle of the like ness of Christ's humanity in nature and experience to that of other men.1 Instances are even not wanting among the Reformed theologians of treatises on the Incarnation, commencing with a careful endeavour to fix the meaning of the locus classicus bearing on the subject of our Lord's humiliation, that, viz., in the Epistle to the Philippians.* Lutheran divines, on the other hand, constructed their Christology in utter defiance of the doctrine of humiliation, making the Incarnation, in its idea, consist in a deification of humanity rather than in a descent of God into humanity, and investing the human nature of Christ with all divine attributes, even with such metaphysical ones as are com monly regarded and described as incommunicable. But even in their case our category took revenge for the neg lect it experienced at their hands, by compelling them, out of regard to facts and to the end of the Incarnation, to take down again their carefully constructed Christ ological edifice; the chapter on Exinanition being in effect an attempt to bring the fantastic humanity of Christ back to reality and nature, down from the clouds to the solid complete, partly to cover, their dogma of the communicatio idiomatum. In Ger- hard's Loci, cap. x.— xiii. of locus iv. (De Persona et Officio Christi) treat of the communicatio idiomatum in general, and in its particular forms; and cap. xiv. treats De Statu exinanitionis et exaltationis. 1 Called in theological language the Homousia (d(ioov6ia). 5 E.g. Zanchius, De Incarnatione filii Dei. Zanchius was a contemporary of the authors of the Formula Concordiae, and wrote a defence of the Admonitio Christiana — the Reformed reply to that document. 4 The Humiliation of Christ. earth; an attempt which, as we shall see, was far from being perfectly successful. While the importance of keeping ever in view the doc trine of the states can only be inferred from the internal character of the old Christologies, in spite of the subor dinate place assigned thereto in the formal structure of theological systems, it is, on the other hand, a matter of distinct consciousness with more recent writers on Christological themes. In passing from the system- builders of the seventeenth century to the theologians of the nineteenth, one is emboldened to trust the instinct which tells him that the category of the states is not merely entitled to have some sort of recognition in theology out of deference to the prominence given to it in Scripture, but is a point of view from which the whole doctrine con cerning Christ's person and work may be advantageously surveyed. The method now contemplated has in effect been adopted by a whole school of modern theologians, who have made the idea of the Kenosis the basis of their Christological inquiries. The various Kenotic theories emanating from this school are, as we shall see, by no means criticism-proof; but their authors have at least done one good service to Christology, by insisting that no theory of Christ's Person oan be regarded as satisfactory which is not able to assign some real meaning to their watchword, in relation to the divine side of that Person. The legitimacy and the importance of the proposed method of inquiry have also been recognised by a distinguished German theologian who was not an adherent of the Ken otic school, his sympathies being with the old Reformed Christology, and whose opinion on such a matter must command the respect of all. I allude to Schneckenburger, author of the instructive work entitled, Comparative Exhib ition of the Lutheran and the Reformed Doctrinal Systems,1 one of many valuable treatises on Christological and other ' Vergleichende Darstellung des Lutherischen und Reformirten Lehrbegriffs. This work was published after the author's death in 1855, the MSS. being pre pared for publication by Guder, a pupil of Schneckenburger's, who has prefixed to the work an interesting discussion on the question as to the origin of the differ ence in the theological systems of the two confessions. Christological Axioms. 5 topics which owed their origin to the ecclesiastical move ment towards the re-union of the two branches of the German Protestant Church, long unhappily separated by divergent views on the questions to whose discussion that copious literature is devoted. Besides the work just named, Schneckenburger wrote a special treatise on the two states of Christ,1 designed as a contribution to eccle siastical Christology, in which he endeavoured to show that the doctrines of the states taught respectively by the two contrasted confessions involved a corresponding modi fication of view not only on Christ's person, but also on the nature of His work on earth and in heaven, on the justifica tion of believers, and even on the whole religious and ecclesiastical life of the two communions. It is true, indeed, that the proof of this position does not settle the question which was the determining factor, the doctrine of the states, or the other doctrines to which it stands re lated. It does, however, serve to show this at least, that the related doctrines of the states and of the person being, in mathematical language, functions of each other, it is in our option to begin with either, and use it as a help in the determination of the other. Nor has the distinguished writer to whom I have alluded left us in uncertainty as to which of the two courses he deemed preferable. Criticis ing the rectification of the Lutheran Christology proposed by Thomasius, the founder of the modern Kenotic school, *ie says: " The position that the doctrine of the person should not be explained by that of the states, but inversely, because the former is the foundation of the latter, is one which I must contradict, nay, which the author himself (Thomasius) virtually contradicts, inasmuch as he seeks to shape the doctrine of the person, or to improve it, by the idea of the states, especially by the doctrine of redemption, in so far as it falls within the state of humiliation."2 I have no doubt this view is a just one. Indeed, it appears to me that the history of Lutheran Christology affords abundant evidence of the desirableness of commencing Christological 1 Zur Kirchlichen Christologie: Die orthodoxe Lehre vom doppelten Stande Christi nach Lutherischer und Reformirter Fassung. This work was published before the other, in 1848. ! Vom doppelten Stande Christi, p. 202. 6 The Humiliation of Christ. inquiries with a careful endeavour to form a correct view of the doctrine of the states, and especially of the Scripture teaching concerning our Lord's humiliation. Had the Lutheran theologians followed this course, it is probable that their peculiar Christology would never have come into existence, and would therefore have stood in no need of rectification. Theologically legitimate, the method I propose is recom mended by practical considerations. Starting from the central idea, that the whole earthly history of our Saviour is the result and evolution of a sublime act of self-humilia tion, the doctrine of His person becomes invested with a high ethical interest. An advantage this not to be over looked in connection with any theological truth involving mysteries perplexing to reason. A mysterious doctrine, divested of moral interest, and allowed to assume the aspect of a mere metaphysical speculation, is a doctrine destined ere long to be discarded. Such, for example, must be the inevitable fate of the doctrine of an immanent Trinity when it becomes dissociated in men's minds from practical religious interests, and degenerates into an ab stract tenet. The Trinity, to be secure, must be connected in thought with the Incarnation, even as at the first, when it obtained for itself gradually a place in the creed of the Church in connection with efforts to understand the nature and person of Christ;1 even as the Incarnation itself, in turn, is secure only when it is regarded ethically as a revelation of divine grace. The effect of divorcing doctrinal from moral interests was fully seen in the last century, when the Trinity and kindred dogmas were quietly dropped out of the living belief of the Church, though retained in the written creed. Men then said to themselves, " What is practical, what is of moral utility, is alone of value; the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Deity of Christ are mere theological mysteries, therefore they may be ignored ! " Thus, as Dorner, speaking of the period in question, re marks, " Many a point which forms a constitutive element of the Christian consciousness was treated as non-essential, • Vid. Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. L p. 49 (Clark's translation). Christological Axioms. 7 on the ground of its being unpractical; and in particular, essential portions of Christology, and of that which is con nected with it, were set aside."1 The same spirit of narrow religious utilitarianism, of overweening value for the practi cal and the " verifiable," is abroad at the present time, working steadily towards the restoration of the state of things which prevailed in last century; and those who are concerned to counterwork the evil tendency, must apply their energies to the task of showing that discredited doc trines are not the dry, metaphysical dogmas they are taken for, but rather a refuge from dry metaphysics — truths which, however mysterious, are yet of vital ethical and re ligious moment; even the doctrine of the Trinity itself being the product of an ethical view of the divine nature, the embodiment of " the only complete- ethical idea of God,"a not to be abandoned except at the risk of falling into either Pantheism or Atheism. In this point of view it appears advisable to give great prominence to the self-humiliation of Christ in connection with Christological inquiries. This method of procedure procures for us the advantage of starting with an idea which is dear to the Christian heart, with which faith will not willingly part, and for the sake of which it will readily ac cept truths surpassing human comprehension. If the great thought, under whose guidance we advance, do not con duct us to new discoveries, it will at all events redeem the subjects of our study from the blighting influence of scholasticism. In the New Testament, and more especially in the Epis tle of Paul to the Philippians, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, are to be found certain comprehensive statements concerning the meaning and purpose of our Lord's appear ance on earth. These statements our method requires us 1 Vid. Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. iii. p. 28 (Clark's translation). 8 This view is strongly maintained by Liebner in his Christologie (p. 66), a work of a very speculative character, and Kenotic in its Christology, but full oj valuable and suggestive thoughts, and abounding in interesting expositions and criticisms Df contemporary opinions. Liebner's work is especially valuable for the vigour with which it asserts the ethical conception of God over against the Pantheistic on the one hand, and the Deistic on the other. 8 The Humiliation of Christ. in the first place to consider with the view of ascertaining what they imply, that we may use the inferences they seem to warrant as axioms in all our subsequent discussions. As the truths we are in quest of are to serve the purpose of axioms, they must, of course, be of an elementary char acter; but they are not on that account to be despised. The axiom, that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, is a very elementary truth; but it is nevertheless one which you cannot neglect without serious consequences to your system of geometry. In theology, as in mathematics, much depends on the axioms; not a few theological errors have arisen from oversight of some simple commonplace truth. Our object being merely to fix the axioms, it will not be necessary that we should enter into any elaborate, detailed, and exhaustive description of the doctrine of the states, or to attempt more than a general survey. And, further, as the main business of Christology is to form a true concep tion of the historical person Jesus Christ, we may confine our attention chiefly to the earlier of the two states which belongs to history and falls within our observation, con cerning which alone we possess much information, and around which the human interest mainly revolves. Of the state of exaltation I shall speak only occasionally, when a fitting opportunity occurs. In addressing ourselves, then, to the task of discovering Christological axioms, we are obliged to acknowledge that the fixation of these is unhappily no easy matter. Few of the axioms are axiomatic in the sense of being truths universally admitted. The diversity of opinion prevailing among interpreters in regard to the meaning of the prin cipal passage bearing on the subject of Christ's humiliation — that, namely, in the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians — is enough to fill the student with despair, and to afflict him with intellectual paralysis. In regard to the kenosis spoken of there, for example, the widest divergence of view prevails. Some make the kenosis scarce ly more than a skenosis, — the dainty assumption by the unchangeable One of a humanity which is but a doketic husk, a semi-transparent tent, wherein Deity sojourns, and Christological Axioms. 9 through which His glory, but slightly dimmed, shines with dazzling brightness. The Son of God, remaining in all respects what He was before His incarnation, became what He was not, and so emptied Himself. Others ascribe to the kenosis some sense relatively to the divine nature; holding that the incarnation involved even for that nature a change to some extent; that the Son of God did not re main in all respects as He was; that at least He underwent an occultation of His glory. A third class of expositors make thekenosis consist not merely in a veiling of the divine glory, but in a depotentiation of the divine nature, so that in the incarnate Logos remained only the bare essence of Deity stripped of its metaphysical attributes of omni potence, omniscience, and omnipresence. According to a fourth school, the kenosis refers not to the divine nature, but to the human nature of Christ. He, being in the form of God, shown to be a divine man by His miracles and by His moral purity, emptied Himself of the divine attributes with which He, as a man, was endowed, so far as use at least was concerned, and in this self-denial set Himself forth as a pattern to all Christians, as well as fitted Himself for being the Redeemer from sin. It is specially discouraging to the inquirer after first prin ciples to find, as he soon does, that, as a rule, the interpre tation of the passage in question depends on the inter preter's theological position. So much is this the case, that one can almost tell beforehand what views a particular ex positor will take, provided his theological school be once ascertained. On the question, for example — a most impor tant one — respecting the proper subject of the proposition beginning with the words, "Who, being in the form of God,"1 expositors take sides according to their theological bias. The old orthodox Lutherans almost as a matter of course reply, " The subject concerning whom the affirma tion is made is the Logos incarnate (ensarkos), the man Christ Jesus; the meaning of the apostle being, that the man Christ Jesus, being in .the form of God, and possessing a?JE2£jiixl£e- attributes, did nevertheless, while on earth, 1 Phil. ii. 6. 10 The Humiliation of Christ. make little or no use of these attributes; but in effect' emptied Himself of them, and assumed servile form, and was in fashion and habit as other men." The old Reformed theologians, on the other hand, after the example of the Church Fathers, with equal unanimity reply, " The subject of whom Paul speaks is the Logos before incarnation (asarkos), the Son of God personally pre-existent before He became man; and the sense is, that He, being in the form of God, subsisting as a divine being before the incarnation, emptied Himself, by being made in the likeness of man, and taking upon Him the form of a servant." Among modern theologians, the advocates of the kenosis, in the sense of a metaphysical self-exinanition of the Logos, whether be longing to the Lutheran or to the Reformed confession, side with the Fathers and with the old Reformed dogma tists. Those, on the other hand, who reject the doctrine of an immanent Trinity, and along with it the personal pre-existence of the Logos, naturally adopt the view of the Lutheran dogmatists, and understand the passage as re ferring exclusively to the historical person, the man Christ Jesus. They can do nothing else so long as they claim to have Biblical support for their theological and Christolog ical systems. They come to this text with a firm convic tion that it cannot possibly contain any reference to a free, conscious act of the pre-existent Logos. In arguing with expositors of this school there is therefore a previous ques tion to be settled: Is the Church doctrine of the Trinity scriptural, or is it not ? This is, indeed, the previous question for all Christologi cal theories. Every one who would form for himself a con ception of the person of Christ must first determine his idea of God, and then bring that idea to his Christological task as one of its determining factors. Accordingly, in com plete treatises on the person and work of Christ, like that of Thomasius,1 we find the Christian idea of God and the doctrine of the Trinity discussed under the head of Christ ological presuppositions. In the present course of lectures, such a discussion would of course be altogether out of ' Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk. Darstellung der Evangelisch-Luther. i'lhen Dogmatii vom Mittelpnnkte der Christologie aus. Christological Axioms. \ i place; but I may here take occasion to express my con viction, that what I have called the previous question of Christology, is destined to become the question of the day in this country, as it has been for some time past in Ger many. What is, God ? Is personality, involving self-con sciousness and self-determination, predicable of the Divip'" Being; or is He, or rather it, merely the unknown anil unknowable substratum of all phenomena,1 the impersonal immanent spirit of nature, the unconscious moral order of the world in which the idea of the good somehow and to some extent realizes itself,2 the absolute Idea become An other in physical nature, and returning to itself and attain ing to personality in man; becoming incarnate not in an individual man, but in the human race at large ?s — such, according to all present indications, are the momentous questions on which the thoughts of men are about to be concentrated. And if one may venture to predict the re sult of the great debate, it will probably be to show that between Pantheism, under one or other of its forms, mate rialistic or idealistic, and the Christian doctrine of God, in which the ethical predominates, there is no tenable posi tion; in the words of a German theologian whom I have already had occasion to quote: " That the whole of specu lative theology stands in suspense between the pure abstract One, general Being, £> uai nav, in which God and world alike go down, and the ethical hypostatical Trinity, or be tween the boldest, emptiest, hardest Pantheism, and the completed ethical personalism of Christianity; all panthe istic and theistic modes, from Spinoza to the most devel oped forms of modern Theism, being only transition and oscillation which cannot abide." * The influence of theological bias on the exegesis of the locus classicus in the Epistle to the Philippians being apparent in the case of so many theologians of highest 1 Vid. Herbert Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy, First Principles, part i. 5 Vid. Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre, i. 392, and Mr. Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma. Arnold defines God as a Power that makes for righteous ness; the power being impersonal, and, so to speak, neuter. Arnold's Power making for righteousness is the same with Fichte's moral order of the world, re garded simply as an ultimate fact, not as the result of a personal Providence ' So Hegel. « Liebner, Christologie, pp. 266-7. 12 The Humiliation of Christ. reputation, it would be intolerable conceit in any man to claim exemption therefrom. I, for my part, have no desire to put forth such a claim. On the contrary, I avow my wish to arrive at a particular conclusion with respect to the interpretation of the passage; one, viz., which should assign a reality to the idea of a Being in the form of God by a free act of gracious condescension^becoming man. I am de sirous to have ground for believing that the apostle speaks here not only of the exemplary humility of the man Jesus, but of the more wonderful, sublime self-humiliation of the pre-existent personal Son of God. For then I should have Scripture warrant for believing that moral heroism has a place within the sphere of the divine nature, and that love is a reality for God as well as for man. I do not wish, if I can help it, to worship an unknown or unknowable God called the Absolute, concerning whom or which all Bible representations are mere make-believe, mere anthropomor phism; statements expressive not of absolute truth, but simply of what it is well that we should think and feel con cerning God. I am not disposed to subject my idea of God to the category of the Absolute, which, like Pharaoh's lean kine, devours all other attributes, even for the sake of the most tempting apologetic advantages which that cate gory may seem to offer. A poor refuge truly from unbelief is the category of the Absolute ! " We know not God in Himself," says the Christian apologist,1 "therefore we can never know that what the Bible says of Him is false, and may rationally receive it as true." " We know not God," rejoins the agnostic man of science;2 " and the more logical infer ence is, that all affirmations concerning Him in the Bible or elsewhere are incompetent; the Bible God is an eidolon whose worship is only excusable because it is wholesome in tendency." " God, strictly speaking, has no attributes, but is mere and simplest essence, which admits of no real difference, nor any composition either of things or of modes/' declares the old orthodox dogmatist.* " So be it," replies a formidable modern opponent of orthodoxy, Dr. Baur of 1 Vid. Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought. 5 Vid. Herbert Spencer, First Principles. • Quenstedt, quoted by Baur, Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, vol. iii. p. 340. Christological Axioms. 13 Tubingen,1 " I agree with you, but that proposition amounts to substantial Pantheism; " and the theological system of Schleiermacher shows that Baur is right. If, therefore, we wish to believe with our hearts in the Bible, we must hold fast by the ethical conception of God; and whatever dis putes arise between us and others holding in common with us the same general idea of the Divine Being, we must settle on ethical grounds, not fleeing for refuge from per plexities to an idea of God which removes the very founda tions of faith, and becoming in effect Pantheists or Atheists in order that we may not be Socinians. It is in vain to think of saving the catholic faith on the principles of theo logical nescience; foolish to seek escape from moral diffi culties by means of sceptical metaphysics. As Maurice, in his reply to Mansel, well says: "Such an apology for the faith costs too much." 2 It saves such doctrines as those of the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Atonement at the cost of all the moral interest which properly belongs to them, and converts them into mere mysteries, which must be received because we are not able to refute them; but which, in spite of all the apologist's skill, will not be re ceived, but will meet the fate of all mere mysteries devoid of moral interest, — that of being neglected, or even ridi culed, as they have been lately by the author of Literature and Dogma; ridiculed not in mere wantonness, though that is not wanting, but in the interest of a practical ethical use of the Bible as a book not intended to propound idle theo logical puzzles, but to lead men into the way of right conduct. Holding such views, desirous to believe in a God abso lutely full of moral contents, knowable on the ethical side of His nature truly though not perfectly, like man in that which most exalts human nature, — loving with a love like that of good men, — only incomparably grander, rising in point of magnanimity high above human love, as heaven is high above the earth,' passing knowledge in dimensions, but perfectly comprehensible in nature,* I am predisposed to 1 Baur, Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, vol. iii. pp. 339-352. » Maurice, What is Revelation? p. 131. 3 Isa. Iv. 8, 9. * Eph. iii. 18, 19. There is an unknowableness of God taught here, but it Is a tery different one from that asserted by the philosophy of the Absolute. It k the 14 The Humiliation of Christ. agree with those who find in the famous text from the Epistle to the Philippians a clear reference to an act of con descension on the part of the pre-existent Son of God, in virtue of which He became man. Schleiermacher naively objects to the idea of humiliation as applied to the earthly state of Christ, because it implies a previous higher state from which the self-humbled One descended, — a view which he regards as at once destructive of the unity of Christ's person, and incompatible with the nature of God, the absolutely Highest and Eternal.1 What Schleier macher objects to in the idea of humiliation, appears to me its chief recommendation; and I agree with Martensen in thinking it a capital defect in Schleiermacher's Christology that it excludes the idea of the pre-existence of the Son, and along with it, the idea of a condescending revelation of love on the part of the eternal Logos.2 I refuse to accept an idea of God which makes such condescension impossible or meaningless; nor am I able to regard that as the abso lutely Highest which cannot stoop down from its altitude. (The glory of God consists not simply in being high, but (in that He, the highest and greatest, can humble Himself f in love to be the lowest and least. The moral, not the metaphysical, is the highest, if not the distinctive, in the Divine Being. While making this frank — it may even appear ostenta tious — avowal of theological bias, and confessing that the Scriptures would contain for me no revelation of God, did they not teach a doctrine of divine grace capable of taking practical historical shape in an Incarnation, I do not admit that it is a far-fetched or strained interpretation which unknowableness as to dimensions of a love believed to be most real, and in its nature comprehensible. It is the same kind of unknowableness which is spoken of in Job. xi. 7. It is not a question whether God can be known at all, but a ques tion of finding out the Almighty unto perfection — of taking the measure of the Divine Being. The Scripture doctrine of divine unknowableness is the very op. posite extreme to that of the philosophers. "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds: Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, Thy judgments are a great deep," say the Scriptures. " Mercy, truth, righteousness, judgment, are words which convey no absolutely true meaning with reference to the Divine Being," says the philosophy of the Absolute. 1 Glaubenstehre, ii. p. 159. 5 Die Ckrislliche Dogmatik. p. 252. Christological Axioms. i5 brings such a doctrine out of Paul's words in his Epistle to the Philippians. That interpretation appears to me the one which would naturally occur to the mind of any per son coming to the passage, bent solely on ascertaining its meaning, without reference to his own theological opinions. It may be regarded as a presumption in favour of this view when writers like Schleiermacher and Strauss, neither of them a believer in the doctrine of a personally pretexistent Logos, nevertheless admit that it is at least by implication taught in the passage. The former author, indeed, seeks to deprive the statements contained therein of all theo logical value, by representing them as of an "ascetic" and " rhetorical " character; the expressions not being intended to be " didactically fixed," 1 — a convenient method of get ting rid of unacceptable theological dogmas, which may be applied to any extent, and which, if applied to Paul's Epistles, would render it difficult to extract any theological inferences therefrom, inasmuch as nearly all the doctrinal statements they contain arise out of a practical occasion, and are intended to serve a hortatory purpose. Strauss, on the other hand, making no pretence of adhering to Scripture in his theological views, frankly acknowledges that, according to the doctrine of Paul in this place, Christ is One who, before His incarnation, lived in a divine glory, to which, after His freely assumed state of humiliation was over, He returned.2 It is now time that I should explain the sense in which I understand the passage referred to, which I shall do very briefly, relegating critical details to another place.3 The subject spoken about is the historical person Jesus Christ, conceived of, however, as having previously existed before He entered into history, and as in His pre-existent state, supplying material fitted to serve the hortatory purpose the 1 Glaubenslehre, ii. p. 161. Schleiermacher's admission is not hearty; for while the manner in which he explains away the apparent meaning of the passage implies such an admission as I have ascribed to him, he remarks that the way in whicu Paul here sets forth Christ as an example, is quite compatible with Ihe idea that he has in view , merely the appearance of lowliness in the life as well as in the death, 2 Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, i. 420. * See Appendix, Note A. 1 6 The Humiliation of Christ. apostle has in view. Paul desires to set before the Church in Philippi the mind of Christ in opposition to the mind of self-seekers, and he includes the pre-existence in his rep resentation, because the mind he means to illustrate was active therein, and could not be exhibited in all its sub limity if the view were restricted to the earthly career of the Great Exemplar of self-renunciation. It has been objected, that a reference to the pre-existence is beside the scope of the apostle, his aim being to induce proud, self-asserting Christians to imitate Christ in all respects in which it was possible for them to become like Him, while in respect of the Incarnation He is inimitable.1 The objection is a very superficial one. It is true that the act by which the Son of God became man is inimitable; but the mind which moved Him to perform that act is not inimitable; and it is the mind or moral disposition of Christ, revealed both in imitable and inimitable acts, which is the subject of commendation. Therefore, though the great drama of self-humiliation enacted by our Saviour on this earth be the main theme of Christian contemplation, yet is a glimpse into the mind of the pre-existent Son of God a fitting prelude to that drama, tending to make it in its whole course more impressive, and to heighten desire in the spectators to have the same mind dwelling in them selves, leading them to perform on a humbler scale similar acts of self-denial. Another argument against the refer ence to a pre-existent state has been drawn from the historical name given to the subject of the proposition, Jesus Christ. But this argument is sufficiently met by the re mark, that the same method of naming the subject is employed by Paul in other passages where a pre-existence 1 Gerhard's Loci Theologici, locus iv. cap. xiv. " De Statu exinanitionis et exaltationis." Gerhard says: " Scopus apostoli est, quod velit Philippenses hortari ad humilitatem intuitu in Christi exemplum facto. Ergo praesentis, non futuri temporis, exemplum illis exhibet. Proponit eis imitandum Christi exemplum tan- quam vitae regulam. Ergo considerat facta Christi quae in oculos incurrunt, in quorum numero non est incarnatio. In eo apostolus jubet Philippenses imitari Jhristuru, in quo similes ipsi nondum erant, sed similes fieri poterant et debebant. A.tqui erant ill! jam ante veri homines, sed inflati ac superbi: Christum igitur eos imitari, et humilitati studere, jubet, incarnatiope ver" nrmo Filio Dei similis fieri potest" (§ ccxciv.). Christological Axioms. 17 of some sort, real or ideal, personal or impersonal, is un deniably implied.1 Of Him whose mind is commended as worthy of imita tion, the apostle predicates two acts through which that mind was revealed: First, an act of sj]f-ejm£tying, in virtue of which He became man; then a continuous act or habit of self-humiliation on the part of the incarnate One, which culminated in the endurance of death on the cross. 'Eavrdv kKeva>6e.v, — He emptied Himself, — that was the first great act by which the mind of the Son of God was revealed. Wherein did this xeroodii consist ? what did it imply ? The apostle gives a twofold answer; one having reference to the pre-existent state, the other to the sphere of Christ's human history. With reference to the former, the kenosis signified a firm determination not to hold fast and selfishly cling to equality of state with God. Thus I understand the words ovk dp-nay uov riyri6a.ro to eivai i'da &>£<». The ren dering in our English version (" thought it not robbery to be equal with God "), which follows patristic (Latin) exe- getical tradition, is theologically true, but unsuited to the connection of thought, and to the grammatical construc tion of the sentence. The apostle's purpose is not formally to teach that Christ was truly God, so that it was not ar rogance on His part to claim equality of nature with God; but rather to teach that He being God did not make a point of retaining the advantages connected with the divine state of being. Hence he merely mentions Christ's divinity participially by way of preface in the first clause of the sen tence (Ss iv jiopcrfj @cov iiTtapxoov, who being, or subsisting, in the form of God), and then hastens on to speak of the mind that animated Him who was in the form of God, as a mind so different from that of those who esteem and desire to exalt themselves above others, that He was willing to part with equality in condition with God. This part of the sentence, beginning with ovu&pnaynov, cannot, as Alford justly remarks, "be a mere secondary one, conveying an 1 1 Cor. x. 4-9; Col. i. 14, 15. The use of the historical name in reference to the pre-existent Logos in these and other passages is admitted by Beyschlag (Die Christologie des neuen Testaments, p. 240), who does not admit a personal, but only »n ideal pre-existence of the Logos. 1 8 The Humiliation of Christ. additional detail of Christ's majesty in His pre-existent state, but must carry the whole weight of the negation of selfishness on His part;"1 unless we can suppose the writer guilty of an irrelevancy tending to weaken the force of his appeal by introducing one idea when another is naturally expected. But further, the grammatical construction pre- lludes such a rendering of this clause as is given in the English version. In the text, the idea expressed by dpaay- udv vyr/daro, etc., is opposed to the idea expressed by the words iavrov ixeva>6£v, the connecting particle being dXXd (but), so that in the former clause is stated negatively what in the latter is stated positively. He did not practise dpttay/xov with reference to equality with God; but, on the contrary, emptied Himself. The patristic rendering, re tained in the English version, requires the connecting par ticle to be a word signifying "nevertheless;" not dXXd, but a word equivalent to the Attic phrase ov ui?v dXXd. 2 Beyond all doubt, therefore, whatever rd dvai 16a &e<3 may mean, it points to something which both the connection of thought and the grammatical structure of the sentence require us to regard the Son of God as willing to give up. Looking now at the connection between the prefatory participial clause and the one we have just been consider ing, we must regard " to be equal with God " as exegetical of "being in the form of God." Those interpreters who take the whole passage as having exclusive reference to the earthly history of Christ, distinguish the two; regard ing the form of God as, something possessed by Christ even in the state of humiliation, and equality with God as a thing to be attained in the state of exaltation, a privilege for which the Lowly One was content patiently to wait, ab staining from prematurely clutching at it, by making an unseasonable parade of His divine dignity. But the subor dinate position assigned to the phrase to dvai i'6a QetS in the ' Alford in loco. » This is frankly acknowledged by Zanchius: "ilia vox dXXd," he says, "ad- versativa cum sit particula, et in praecedenti versu non ita liquido apparet cuinam verbo adversetur, reddit constructionem utcunque difficilem. Syriac. faciliorem facit cum habeat ella, id est nihilominus." — De filii Dei Incarnatione. lib. i. cap. ii. 7. Christological Axioms. iq clause to which it belongs, it being placed at the end, while ovx dpitay/xov f/yr/6aTo stands in the forefront to catch the reader's eye, as the principal matter, shows that it simply repeats the idea already expressed by the words iv nopv '• The two phrases being equivalent, it follows that no meaning can be assigned to either which would involve an inadmissible sense for the other. By this rule we are pre cluded from understanding by the form of God the divine essence or nature; for such an interpretation would oblige us to find in the second clause the idea that the Son of God in a spirit of self-renunciation parted with His divinity. We must decline here to follow in the footsteps of the Fa thers, who, with the exception of Hilary,1 invariably took form as synonymous with nature; possibly misled by a too absorbing desire to find in the passage a clear undeniable assertion of our Lord's proper divinity, — a desire which could have been gratified without having recourse to misinterpre tation; inasmuch as the implied assertion of that truth which the words of the apostle, rightly interpreted, really do con tain, is even more forcible than a formal didactic statement would have been. Mopqrf does not mean the same thing as ov6ia or uvdii. See Appendix, Note A. « Zanchius, De filii Incarnatione, lib. i. cap. xi.: "Ovdia proprie significat nudam essentiam . . . tpvdti ipsi essentiae addit proprietates essentiales et natu ral es: )iopcpi) addit essentiae et proprietatibus essentialibus et naturalibus alia etiam accidentia quae veram rei naturam sequuntur, et quibus, quasi lineamentis et col. oribus ovdia et tpvdii conformanlur atque depinguntur. " 20 The Humiliation of Christ. from them; it cannot exist without them, but they ci - _x- ist without it. The Son of God, subsisting in the form of God, must have possessed divine ovdia and divine vdi%, He might part with the nopcpr/. And in point of fact such a parting for a season with the uopcpv seems clearly taught in this place. The apostle conceives of the Incarnation as an exchange of divine form for the human form of exist ence. In what the thing parted with precisely consists, and what the dogmatic import of the exchange may be, are points open to debate. As to the former, we must be content, meantime, with the general statement that the thing renounced was not divine essence, or anything be longing essentially to the divine nature. The Logos re mained what He was in these respects when He became what He was not; equal to God in nature {idoi Geo), while ceasing for a season to be His equal in state (i'da ®« Heb. ii. 9: Tov Ss fipaxv ti itap1 dyye'XovS riXaTTOouevov. Christological Axioms. 29 the Epistle which treats of the eternal Sabbatism, an other element of the paradisaical bliss lost by the fall, whereof Jesus is the appointed Restorer. In this place the great High Priest of humanity, and the Joshua of the Lord's host, Himself now entered into the heavenly rest, is repre sented as one who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, seeing He was tempted in all respects as we are, was once a weary wanderer like ourselves, — the statement being made only the more emphatic by the qualifying clause " without sin." " Tempted in all respects as we are," speaking deliberately, the sole difference being that He never yielded to temptation while in the wilderness, as we too often do. The chapter following contains a touch ing allusion to a special point in the similitude of our Lord's experience to ours, which brings Him very close to human sympathies. It is in the place where Jesus is represented as offering up, in the days of His flesh, prayers and suppli cations, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death.1 Even thus far did the like ness extend. The Sanctifier shared with His brethren the fear of death, through which they are all their lifetime sub ject to bondage. Once more, the comprehensive view given in this Epistle, of the work of Christ as the Author of salvation, suggests by implication an equally compre hensive view of the likeness between Him and His brethren. The writer, in describing the work of redemption, keeps constantly before his mind the history of man in Paradise. He makes salvation consist in lordship of the world that is to be, in deliverance from the fear of death, in entrance into a rest often promised but yet remaining, an ideal unexhausted by all past partial realizations — the perfect Sabbatism of the people of God. These representations plainly point back to the dominion over the creatures con ferred on man at his creation, and lost by sin; to the death which was the wages of sin, and which Satan brought on man by successfully tempting him to disobedience; and to God's rest after the work of creation was finished, in which unfallen man had part, and in which man restored is destined again to share. Salvation thus consists in the 1 Heb. v. 7. 30 The Humiliation of Christ. cancelling of all the effects of the fall, and in the restoration of all that man lost by his sin. But if this be the nature of salvation, what, on the principle that Sanctifier and sanctified are all of one, must the likeness of the Saviour to the sinful sons of Adam amount to? Evidently to subjection to the curse in its whole extent, as far as that is possible for one who is Himself without sin. The view thus presented of our Lord's state of humilia tion is admirably fitted to serve the purpose which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews had in mind (that of fortifying his readers against temptations to apostasy, whether arising out of the internal difficulties of the Chris tian faith, or out of eternal affliction suffered on account of the faith), giving as it does to our Lord's whole earthly experience a winsome aspect of sympathy with humanity in its present sorrowful condition. But we have not yet exhausted what the author of this Epistle has to say by way of reconciling the Hebrew Christians to what had hitherto been an offence unto them. He is not content with apologising for Christ's humiliation; he boldly repre sents that experience as in another aspect a glorification of its subject. He speaks of Jesus as crowned with glory and honour; not because He has tasted death for men, but in order that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for men.1 It has been customary, indeed, to regard this pas sage as referring to the state of exaltation, in which Christ receives the reward of His voluntary endurance of the indignities connected with the state of humiliation; but I agree with Hofmann2 in thinking that the reference is rather to an honour and glory which is not subsequent to, but contemporaneous with, the state of humiliation, — the bright side, in fact, of one and the same experience. It is the honour and glory of being appointed to the high office of Apostle and High Priest of the Christian profession, the Moses and the Aaron of the new dispensation. That office Heb. ii. 9. 5 Schriftbeweis, ii. 46 ff., Zweite Auflage. Hofmann's exposition of the whole chapte.r is extremely good, and seems to me to bring out the connection of thought better on the whole than anything I have seen. His discussions on the Epistle to the Hebrews, generally, are most instructive, though not free from characteristic eccentricities. Christological Axioms. 31 doubtless involves humiliation, inasmuch as it imposes on Him who holds it the necessity of tasting death; but even in that respect His experience is not exclusively humiliat ing. For while it is a humiliation to die, it is glorious to taste death for others; and by dying, to abolish death, and bring life and immortality to light. To be appointed to an office which has such a purpose in view, is ipso facto to be crowned with glory and honour, and is a mark of signal grace or favour on the part of God. And this is precisely what the writer of the Epistle would have his readers un derstand. He would not have them see in the earthly career of Jesus mere humiliation, — degradation difficult to reconcile with His Messianic dignity; but rather the rough, yet not degrading experience, incidental to a high, honour able, holy vocation. "We see," he says in effect, "two things in Him by whom the prophecy in the eighth Psalm is destined to be fulfilled in the restoration of man to lord ship in the world to come. On the one hand, we see Him made lower than angels by becoming partaker of mortal flesh and blood; a lowering made necessary by the fact that it was men, not angels, whose case He was undertaking, — men subject to the experience of death, whom, therefore, on account of that experience, He could help only by assuming a humanity capable of undergoing the same experience.1 On the other hand, we see in this same Jesus, humbled by being made a mortal man, one crowned with glory and honour in being appointed to the office of Restorer of Paradise and all its privileges, including lordship over all; an office, indeed, whose end cannot be reached without the endurance of death, but whose, end is at the same time so glorious that it confers dignity upon the means; so that it may be said in sober truth that the divine Father mani fested signal grace towards His Son in giving Him the opportunity of tasting death for others; that is to say, 1 With Hofmann, I connect Sid to itdBrjfia rov Qavdrov (ver. 9) with the foregoing clause, and understand it as referring not specially to Christ's own suf ferings, but generally to the experience of death, to which man is subject. It points out that in man's condition, on account of which Christ had to be made lower than angels, so far as this implied becoming man. Those whose case Christ undertook were men subject to death, therefore He too must become man that it miyh. ire possible for Him to die. 32 The Humiliation of Christ. of abolishing death as a curse, and making it quite another thing for them, by enduring it in His own person." That such is the import of this notable text I have little doubt, although I am constrained to admit that the mean ing now taken out of it has comparatively little support in the history of interpretation. Most commentators explain the passage as if, with the Hebrew Christians, they thought the humiliation of Christ stood very much in need of apology. Disregarding the grammatical construction, the scope of the argument, and the hint given in the expression " we see," which indicates that what is spoken of is something falling within the sphere of visible reality, they almost with one consent relegate the glory and honour to the state of exaltation, as if the mention of such things in connection with the state of humiliation were out of the question, and altogether unwarranted by Scripture usage; although the Apostle Peter speaks of Jesus as having received from God the Father " honour and glory" when there came such a voice to Him from the Excellent Glory: " This is my be loved Son, in whom I am well pleased;"1 and although further, in this very Epistle, it is said of Jesus, as the Apostle of our profession, that He was counted worthy of more " glory " than Moses,2 and, as the High Priest of our pro fession, that even as no man took upon himself the honour of the Jewish high-priesthood, " so also Christ glorified not Himself to be made an high priest, but He that said unto Him: ' Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee.'" s And as to taking the " grace of God " spoken of in the last clause of the sentence as manifested directly, not to those for whom Jesus died, but to Jesus Himself privileged to die for them, it is an interpretation which, though yielding a thought true in itself and relevant to the purpose in hand, does not seem even to have occurred to the minds of most expositors. This is all the more surprising, that the point- lessness of the expression in question, as ordinarily inter preted, has not escaped notice. Ebrard, for example, feels it so strongly that he falls back on the ancient reading x«>pis &sov, adopted by Origen and the Nestorians, and used by the former as an argument in favour of his theory of uni- 2 Pet. i. 17. 2 Heb. iii. 3. 3 Heb. v. 4, 5. Christological Axioms. 33 versal restitution,1 and by the latter as a proof text in support of their doctrine of a double personality in the one Christ. " The reading x«p^i," 2 Ebrard remarks, "is cer tainly clear as water, extremely easy to understand, but also extremely empty of thought, and unsuitable; " herein echoing the tone as well as the thought of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who calls it ridiculous to substitute ^a'pin Qeov instead of xwP^ @eov, and represents those who do so as adopting a reading which appears to them easy of compre hension, because they fail to see the sense of the true, more difficult reading; that sense being, in his view, that the man Jesus tasted death apart from God the Logos, to whom in life He had been joined, it being unseemly that the Logos should have any personal connection with death, though it was not unseemly that He should make the man Jesus, as the Captain of Salvation, perfect through suffering.3 It is not surprising that the Master of the East should have preferred a reading which seemed to favour his peculiar Christological theory; but it does seem strange that a modern theologian, holding very different views on Chris tology, should feel himself forced to fall back on that read- 1 Comment, in Joann. torn. i. c. 40: "fis'yai idriv dpxiEpEvi, ovx vitip dvBpooitaiv tiovov, dXXd xai Ttavro? Xoyixov ri)v aitai, Bvdiav itpod- EvsxBsldav iavrov dvEVEyxaiv. XoopH yap Qeov vitip Ttavro? iysvdaro Bavdrov, oitEp ev Tidi xEirai rr/5 itpoi 'EfipaiovS avri- ypdtpoii, x^piTi Qeov. Eire Si x&piS Qeov intip itavroS iysvdaro Bavdrov, ov fiovov vitip dvBpwitmv ditiBavEv, dXXd xai vitip roov Xoiitwv Xoywaiv." Origen includes within the scope of the -jlavroS all exist ing beings except God, viewed as tainted with man's sin. "Kai yap," he says, "droitov vitip dvBpooitivoov fiiv avrov P'S duapriai . . . ix Ma- piat Trjl TtapBivov, riji Bsoroxov . . . 'iva xai tov avrov Xpidrov, ix Svaov cpvdEoov (at. iv Svo