A.S. Radcliff: The Claim of Humanity in Christ (in the Torrance tradition), Post 12

Reference

Radcliff, A.S. 2016. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T.F. and J.B. Torrance. (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 222), Eugene, OR: Pickwick. 208 pp.

With this post, we begin to explore Radcliff’s excellent contribution in regard to the place of personal response in the soteriology of the Torrance tradition, the ministry of the Spirit, and the nature of sanctification.

Radcliff cites several critics who argue that the Torrances’ assertion that all humanity is included in the vicarious humanity of Jesus undermines the subjective aspect of union by the Spirit. The critics insist that no one is justified accept by (personal) faith “in” Jesus. In other words, until a person believes, they are not justified. This is, of course, contrary to the Torrance tradition, where all are justified in the incarnation and life of Jesus Christ.

As she often does in this book, Radcliff counters that the insistence on “personal faith in Jesus” throws us back upon ourselves for salvation. Torrance sees this problem in the entire Westminster theology (of conservative Calvinism), where “the main focus of attention is upon man’s appropriation of salvation through justifying faith.” The Westminster tradition is concerned with man’s action, man’s faith, man’s duty toward God.

One Union in Two Relations

As Radcliff notes, there is only one “union” with Christ; that is, humanity is objectively united to Jesus via the incarnation (hypostatic union), wherein the eternal Word, who created all things and in whom “we live and move and exist” (NLT) assumes fallen humanity and unites it forever to his divinity (while purifying and cleansing our fallen flesh throughout his incarnate life).

Comment: The doctrine of the “hypostatic union,” formulated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., asserts that Jesus Christ is “one person in two natures” (divine and human). As the Torrances assert, the union of divinity and humanity in the incarnation of Jesus Christ is an atoning union, wherein all humanity is reconciled to God in Jesus. In short, all are included in the incarnation.

Now let’s go back and bring in some material from Chapter 1 of Radcliff’s book. Quoting TF Torrance:

“[T]here is only one union with Christ, that which he wrought out with us in His birth and life and death and resurrection and in which He gives us to share through the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

In other words, “union with Christ” is effected in the incarnation (hypostatic union), as lived out through the whole course of the Son’s obedience to the Father. For Torrance, any notion of “two” unions could present God’s grace as conditional and throw us back upon ourselves to accomplish the spiritual union. For Torrance, the spiritual union is not additional to the union with all humanity effected in the incarnation (hypostatic union). There is only one union, where the spiritual union is understood as a “participation” in the one union established in the incarnation. According to TFT, “If the spiritual union is an additional union, then our salvation depends not only on the finished work of Christ but upon something else as well which has later to be added on to it before it is real for us.”

Comment: In view of his persistent resistance to dualisms of all kinds, TF Torrance does not assert a separation between the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit. While the “work” of the persons of the Trinity can be distinguished, they cannot be separated. As Augustine argues, “the works of the Trinity in the history of salvation are undivided” (opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt).

Nevertheless, the one objective union with Christ achieved in the incarnation has two aspects, expressed in two “relations.” There is an ontological “relation” to Christ and a pneumatological “relation” to Christ. Note that we are describing two “relations,” not two “unions.” Again, there is only one “union.” Our ontological union, accomplished for all humanity in the incarnation (hypostatic union) is a fait accompli. It cannot be undone. “However,” as Radcliff rightly notes, “we can live in ignorance or denial of this or we can live in agreement with it and enjoy its reality.” For the Torrances, it is the role of the Spirit to open us up within our subjectivities for Christ, so that we live out of ourselves and in him. Humanity’s objective union with Christ, established in the incarnate life of Jesus, is subjectively (“personally”) actualized in us by the Spirit.

Therefore, we must hold two things together, as J.B. Torrance argues:

First, he [Jesus] has already taken our humanity into the Holy of Holies, the presence of the Father in his own person. Second, he comes to us today by the Holy Spirit to take us with him into the Holiest of All.

JB may seem a little confusing here. What does he mean, Jesus has already taken humanity into the Most Holy Place, yet he comes today by the Spirit to take us in?

As Radcliff notes, JB Torrance (following Calvin) identifies three “moments” of the one work of salvation. First is the “eternal moment.” This is the moment in eternity past when the Father determined to include humanity in his love. Second is the “historical moment,” two thousand years ago when Christ lived and died and was raised again for us and for our salvation. Third is the “moment of [personal] experience,” when the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ and brings us to personal faith and repentance.

Trinitarian Pattern
(this is my chart, not Radcliff’s)

Father	Eternal moment	determines all for life and love
Son	Historical moment	objective relation of union: Jesus unites all humanity to himself in the incarnation.
Spirit	Experiential moment	Subjective relation of union: Spirit subjectively actualizes in us what has been objectively accomplished in Jesus.

While there are three “moments” of salvation, there is only one union with Christ. However, the one “union” is expressed in two “relations”: ontological and pneumatological. This “unity in distinction” (“one union in two relations”) allows for only one work of salvation, so that we are not thrown back upon ourselves to achieve salvation by a subsequent effort of sanctification. At the same time, this approach posits a distinction between ontological and pneumatological “relations,” so that union with Christ is not collapsed into the hypostatic union with no room left for the work of the Spirit in us personally.

Radcliff continues:

We are in ontological relation to Christ because of his incarnation [hypostatic union] and vicarious humanity. However, an ontological relation alone leads to universalism. J.B. believes that universalism is precluded by the New Testament call for a human response of faith in the Spirit.

In that regard, J.B. Torrance writes:

On the grounds of our ontological relation to Christ, our Second Adam, we are called through the Holy Spirit into union with Him. Without Pentecost and without the sealing of the Holy Spirit in faith, we cannot regard ourselves as members of Christ’s Body and partakers of His blessings.

Contra numerous critics, the Torrances are not universalists. TF Torrance’s assertion of one “union” expressed in two “relations” precludes universalism, for it leaves room for a distinct (not separate) pneumatological relation, wherein the objective union accomplished in Jesus (hypostatic union) is actualized in us personally by the Spirit. Thus, we can say all are objectively included in Jesus via the hypostatic union (“incarnation”) but not all participate until the objective union is subjectively actualized in the individual believer by the ministry of the Spirit.

Comment: Given the one union with Christ that is expressed in two relations (unity in distinction), we have included everyone in Jesus, via the incarnation, while allowing for the actualization of the personal response of faith by the Spirit in order to experience our inclusion. Thus, the spiritual union is  not  collapsed into the hypostatic union. At the same time, there is no dualism (“separation”) between the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit. Both the Son and the Spirit play distinct but not separate roles in the one unitary work of salvation. This is good Trinitarian theology. Union is birthed in the Father’s heart, historically actualized in Jesus and subjectively realized in us by the Spirit.

In regard to one union in two relations, Radcliff quotes Dearborn, who argues that salvation is onto-relational. This is a beautiful concept that we do well to understand. “Onto-relations” are what Torrance calls “being-constituting” relations. In other words, “onto-relations” make us “who we are.” Contra Newton, entities exist not as isolated particles but in webs of relationships, where the relations themselves constitute the “being” of the realities in question. In human terms, our identities as “persons” are determined not only by our existence as distinct individuals but also by the relationships in which we live and move. That is to say, our identity as persons is determined as much by our relationships as it is by our genetics. We are not created to exist as isolated “individuals.” We are created for relationship with God and neighbour. To be human is to be persons-in-relationship.

An onto-relational view of salvation ascribes significance both to the objective ontological transformation of our humanity in Jesus as well as the subjective participation in that transformation by the Spirit. In other words, salvation is not automatic and impersonal, as it would be if it were accomplished solely in the incarnation absent a distinct personalizing work of the Spirit. Nor is it solely relational, as if it were merely an extrinsic encounter through “personal faith” without an ontological transformation of our humanity. In short, salvation is onto-relational because it involves an ontological transformation of our humanity in the incarnation that is realized in each us personally through our relationship to Christ in the Spirit.

Comment: OK. Let me conclude this post with a brief discussion of an issue that troubled (past tense) me for many years. With the Torrances, and Reformed theology in general, I agree that an autonomous response of faith to Jesus is impossible for those who are dead in trespasses and sins. Thus, we can only participate in our salvation by the ministry of the Spirit. No one participates in the objective reality of our union with Christ apart from the work of the Spirit.

Here’s my dilemma, or, at least what used to be my dilemma. Why does the Spirit work in John but not in Mary? Why does the Spirit call John to participate but not Mary? According to the conservative Calvinists, it is because John is “elect” and Mary is toast. According to the Arminians, it is because God foreknew that John would believe and Mary would not. So God zaps John with the Spirit but not Mary. In either of these two scenarios, it ain’t lookin’ good for Mary!

After years of struggle with this issue, I have transcended both viewpoints and entered the happy hunting ground of trans-denominationalism. Today I believe that the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, as the New Testament indicates. Of course, I do not know all the practical implications of that. I simply believe that the Spirit is drawing all to Jesus in a way that I do not understand and certainly do not see when I watch the evening news. But I firmly believe that God wants all to be saved and none to perish. Thus, in regard to Mary, who has not yet been properly zapped by the Spirit, so that she may experience and enjoy her inclusion, I can only conclude, that, in the eloquent words of fellow blogger, Ted Johnson, the Spirit will bring in Mary “in his own perfect time.” For now, that works for me, and it is markedly better than the Calvinist or Arminian positions.

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For more on the hypostatic union, click here.

For a related post on the “wonderful exchange,” click here.

For more on Torrance’s critic of universalism, click here. 

T.F. Torrance: “The Communion of the Spirit,” pt. 2

Reference

Torrance, T.F. 1959. The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church. London: James Clark & Co. 298 pp.

The Spirit and the Church

Because the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of Christ” and is sent in the name of Christ, the Spirit operates especially wherever the name of Jesus is preached and wherever people gather in his name (p. cxvii). Thus, the Church is the primary locus of the Spirit’s activity. The Church is the “inner circle” of Christ’s identification with humanity, for in the Church, the Son’s filial relationship with the Father “is made consciously to echo within mankind in a filial relation of obedience to God” (pp. cxvii, cxviii). As steward of the mysteries of God, the “economic” purpose of the Church is the election of one community in place of all for the blessing of God upon all (pp. cxx, cxxi). In the language of Barth, the Spirit gathers a community of believers in faith, builds it up in love and sends in out in hope, carrying the same message of forgiveness that Jesus brought to earth when he took the form of a servant in his mother’s womb.

Comment: “Election” is not exclusive, as in conservative Calvinism, where the few are chosen and the many are lost. Election is inclusive. God called Israel to bring blessing to the nations. God calls the Church for the same purpose. God “elects” for the purpose of bring blessing to all.

By the Spirit, the Church participates in the “New Humanity of Christ in order that through the same Spirit at work in the fellowship of the Church mankind as a whole may share in the New Humanity of Christ and therefore in the new creation.” As a corporate entity, the Church is the “one” for the “many.” As such, notes Torrance, “the Church is to be looked on as the new humanity within the world, the provisional manifestation of the new creation within the old” (p. cxxi).

The Church’s participation in Christ is the special work of the Holy Spirit. Within the Church, the Spirit creates “real reception and participation in the life and love of God in Christ.” In communion with Christ by the Spirit, the Church “presses out toward universal fullness in all creation.” That is, the Church moves forward “from the particular to the universal, from the nucleus to the fullness, from the one hundred and twenty at Pentecost to all mankind” (pp. cxxi, cxxii).

Christ has ordained that he will be met and known through the Church’s proclamation of the “Word.” It is the mission of the Spirit that, through the communication of the “Word,” “men may hear not only the words of other men who communicate it, but the Words of the living God, the Words that are Spirit and Life” (pp. cxxii, cxiii). Through the encounter with the Word, proclaimed by the Church in the power of the Spirit, “each man may through the Spirit share in the faith and obedience of Christ, and himself live the life of faith and obedience to Him” (p. cxxiii; emphasis mine).

Torrance asserts a “three-fold dimension” to the operation of the Spirit. First, there is a universal dimension of the Spirit’s activity. As a correlate to the inclusion of all humanity in the atoning reconciliation effected in the incarnation, the Spirit’s activity is universal in scope. In regard to the universal dimension, however, Torrance notes that “we can hardly speak of it as a Communion” (p. cxxiii). (One can only wish that Torrance had elaborated further on this dimension of the Spirit’s work. Alas, he did not.) In addition, there is a corporate dimension of the Spirit’s activity, that is, “a Communion of mutual participation through the Spirit in Christ and His graces.” Finally, there is a personal dimension of the Spirit’s activities within the corporate communion of the Church, wherein the Spirit ministers to the individual believer (p. cxxiv).

In view of the corporate and personal dimensions of the Spirit’s ministry to the Church, Torrance (p. cxxiv) writes eloquently:

That is the doctrine of the Church as the Communion of Saints, in which each shares with the other and all share together in the life and love of God in Jesus Christ. In that Communion no one can live for himself alone, or believe or worship alone, for he is nothing without his brother for whom Christ died, and has no relation to Christ except in Christ’s relation with all for whom he died.

Torrance’s assertion of the importance of the corporate body in relation to the life of the individual believer is confirmation of the “onto-relational” character of his theology, where entities do not exist in isolation but find their identities within the nexuses of relations in which they exist. In short, we are created for community.

As a “Communion in the Spirit,” through whom the Church participates in Christ, notes Torrance, the Church is subject to an “irresistible compulsion” by the Spirit, in which “the Church is turned outward to all for whom Christ became incarnate and lived and died that they might be gathered into the life of God.” Thus, the Church cannot live unto itself, for by the Communion of the Spirit, it is made to transcend itself in proclaiming the “mystery” in which it is entrusted. The boundaries of the Church must be open to all, for “the range of the Communion of the Spirit cannot be limited and bound to the Church, but through the universal range of the Spirit the Church is catholicised and universalised and made to reach out to the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (p. cxxiv).

Comment: For the Torrances, who were born of missionary parents, the Church can never be a closed society of individuals seeking a common religious experience. The Church exists for the world, not merely for itself. In its proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Church must transcend itself and open its boundaries in order to enter the “field” of the Spirit’s ministry, a field that is universal in range.

Nevertheless, while the Church is elected “for the world,” notes Torrance, it finds itself in tension with the world, “for in the world, the Word of God is as yet resisted, and the Spirit of God is abroad convicting of sin, righteousness and judgement” (p. cxxiv). Thus, by participating in the New Humanity of Christ, sharing in his obedience and love through the communion of the Spirit, the Church, by being Church, “calls the world into question, proclaims to it the Gospel which claims the world for God and which therefore resists and judges the will of the world to isolate itself from the love of God” (pp. cxxiv, cxxv). Thus, by its participation in the “self-sanctification of Christ,” the Church finds itself separated from the world. At the same time, by its participation in the “reconciliation of Christ,” the Church is thrust into the world with the message of reconciliation. The Church’s separation from the world, even as it is thrust into the world, creates a tension that will only be resolved with the return of Christ, when he comes again to take up His reign and to judge and renew His creation. Yet, this tension is itself a sign of the end, for it indicates that the Spirit is moving forward in triumph and consummation.

Thus, there is a correlation between the communion of the Spirit and union with Christ that carries within it the eschatological hope of the renewal of all creation. In union with Christ, believers may experience and enjoy their adoption as sons and daughters of God. In communion with the Spirit, the Church goes forth with its message of emancipation and renewal, when finally “the universal range of Christ and His Spirit will be coincident with the Communion of the Spirit, that is, the sphere wherein all who share in the Spirit share in Christ’s Sonship.” As Torrance notes, the universal communion of the Spirit has its “provisional and proleptic form” in the historical Church. In the consummation of all things, however, “the Church attaining to the fullness of Christ will be coincident with the whole Kingdom spanning the new heaven and the new earth.”

Amen. Come quickly Lord Jesus!

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We will begin to unpack Torrance’s thought in regard to “the communion of the Spirit” as we continue in Radcliff’s book in the next post.

T.F. Torrance: The Communion of the Spirit, pt. 1

Reference

Torrance, T.F. 1959. The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church. London: James Clark & Co. 298 pp.

For Torrance, the Reformed doctrine of “communion of the Spirit” is better understood as “union with Christ through the Communion of the Spirit.” The combination of “union with Christ” and “the communion of the Spirit” lies at the foundation of the Church’s hope and forms the heart of its eschatology (p. cvi).

According to Torrance, the communion of the Spirit is a correlate of the union of God and humanity wrought out in the life and work of Jesus Christ. The Spirit actualizes subjectively in the life of God’s people what has been accomplished objectively for them once and for all in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. As Torrance notes, “Because the Communion of the Spirit is correlative to the incarnational union in Christ, we have to think of it as two-fold in relation to the human life and the work of Christ” (p. cvi). In keeping with his resistance to dualisms, Torrance describes a “unity-in-distinction,” where “union with Christ” and “communion of the Spirit” are not two, separate realities but, rather, distinct aspects of a single reality.

Torrance interacts with 16^th-Century theologian John Craig to explicate the correlation between union with Christ and the communion of the Spirit. In his Catechism of 1581, Craig asserts both a carnal union and a spiritual union with Christ. “Carnal union” refers to “Christ’s union with us and our union with Christ which He wrought out in his birth of the Spirit and in His human life through which He sanctifies us is worked out for us.”  Craig’s carnal union appears to be equivalent to the hypostatic union of the Eternal Word and humanity (i.e., the incarnation), as worked out in the obedient life of Jesus Christ. Because Christ was “made man like us,” notes Craig, “life and righteousness are placed in our flesh.” Craig argues that “those who are joined with Him spiritually” are sure of this life (School of Faith, pp. cvi, cvii).

Craig’s assertion of what appears to be two unions, “carnal” and “spiritual,” raises an important question for Torrance:

Is the spiritual union another union, a union in addition to our carnal union with Christ, or is it a sharing in the one and only union between God and man wrought out in Jesus Christ? That is a very important question, for if the spiritual union is an additional union, then our salvation depends not only  upon the finished work of Christ but upon something else as well which has later to be added on to it before it is real for us (p. cvii).

Torrance argues that in both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism “something else,” in fact, is added to the union with Christ accomplished in the incarnation. In Catholicism, union with Christ is effected through baptismal generation and participation in the sacraments (including penance). In Protestantism, notes Torrance, “union with Christ … is effected by faith or by conversion through which alone what Christ has done becomes real for us.” For example, in the Westminster tradition of Federal Calvinism, man is said to acquire “a saving interest” in Christ through entering into a personal covenant with him. As Torrance notes, “Both these forms of the same error lead to a doctrine of man’s co-operation in his own salvation; and so involve a doctrine of conditional grace.” Therefore, argues Torrance, “[I]t must be insisted that there is only one union with Christ, that which He has wrought out with us in His birth and life and death and resurrection and in which He gives us to share through the gift of His Spirit” (p. cvii; emphasis added).

Comment: For Torrance, there is one union of Christ constituted in two relations: ontological and pneumatological.

For Torrance, “carnal union,” as described by Craig, includes Christ’s entire “life and work of saving obedience, so that when we speak of a spiritual union with Christ, that means that through the Spirit we are given to share in the covenanted obedience of Christ …” In this view, the Spirit’s work is not additional to the work of Christ but rather is the means by which we participate, or share, in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Torrance argues:

In his obedient human life, Jesus Christ was not only the Son of God drawing near to us in the flesh, but in and out of our flesh he lived a life of perfect obedience and trust and confidence toward God the Father, a perfectly faithful life, in which his obedience and faith toward God were part of his vicarious and atoning life, part of his sanctified human nature. It is in that very human nature, with its faith and obedience, that we are given to participate through the Communion of the Spirit, and that is the very foundation of our faith in Him and the ground of our obedience to the Father” (pp. cviii, cix).

For Torrance, in view of Christ’s vicarious faith, we are not saved “by the act of believing.” Rather, it is Christ’s own act of believing that saves us. In other words, contra evangelicalism, it is not faith “in” Christ that saves us; rather, it is the faith “of” Christ that saves us. For Torrance, we cannot talk seriously about “justifying faith” as a condition of our salvation, for we rely “wholly upon the vicarious faith of Christ and not upon ourselves even in the act of faith.” It is only as we rely on the vicarious faith of Christ that we are truly free to believe without the “ulterior motive of using faith to secure our salvation” (p. cix). This last point is important, for if faith is exercised solely to avoid punishment, or even “hell,” then personal faith is not an outwardly turned assent to the Father’s love, as revealed in Jesus, but merely an inwardly turned attempt at self-preservation. For Torrance, faith must rest on “thanksgiving” for all that Christ has done for us, both from the side of God and from the side of man.

Jesus is Justification

There are a number of implications of Torrance’s view of union with Christ as a fait accompli effected in the incarnation. First, it is through participating in Christ that we partake of his benefits, “for unless He gives Himself to us first [in the incarnation], His blessings are not ours,” notes Torrance (p. cx). In simpler terms, this means that we cannot separate the work of Christ from his person. Thus, justification is fully accomplished in the union between God and humanity actualized in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. As Torrance argues, “[I]t was through his becoming one with us first in his Incarnation that Christ wrought our justification for us.” In other words, Jesus is our justification. Since all are included in the humanity assumed by the Eternal Word in the incarnation, all are justified (i.e., “made right”) with God in Jesus. Justification is not effected by a subsequent act of personal faith “in” Jesus, but by the vicarious faith “of” Jesus, as lived throughout the whole course of his incarnate life. Thus, we can confidently assert that all humanity was “made right” (i.e., “justified”) with God “in Jesus” two thousand years ago.

As Torrance notes, however, the Westminster theology (of conservative Calvinism) reverses matters by insisting first on justification and “justifying faith” prior to entering into union with Christ. Torrance insists that this changes the meaning of both justification and faith (so that justification is conceived in strict legal terms of “imputed” righteousness, rather than in ontological terms of being “made righteous”), while making the existential (personal) decision of faith uppermost. In this view, a judicial (legal) and cognitive relation displaces the Communion of the Spirit. Torrance notes that the priority given to justification as a “forensic” (legal) act displaced the central importance of the doctrine of union with Christ in post-Reformation Protestantism (p. cxi)

The Range of the Spirit’s Ministry

Another important implication of Torrance’s doctrine of union with Christ concerns the “range” or “scope” of the Spirit’s ministry. Does union with Christ include all people, or only the “elect” (narrowly defined)? As Torrance notes, this is of fundamental importance to the doctrine of the Spirit. The matter at stake concerns the biblical teaching that the Spirit has been “poured out on all flesh” (Acts 2:17). The interpretation of this passage depends upon how one understands the doctrine of union with Christ. If all are included in the union established between God and humanity in the incarnate Jesus, then we must conclude that the range of the Spirit’s ministry is universal; that is, it includes all humanity. On the other hand, if only the “elect,” or only those who have  made a personal decision of faith “in” Christ, are in union with God, then the range or scope of the Spirit’s activity is limited rather than universal. Our understanding of the range of the Spirit’s ministry depends upon our understanding of the incarnation. Did the Eternal Word enter into a generic relationship with humanity simply by becoming one particular man (so that his humanity has no transforming relation with our humanity), or did the Eternal Word enter into an ontological relation with all humanity in the assumption of our human flesh?

To answer these questions, Torrance reminds us that the Eternal Word who assumed human flesh from the Virgin Mary is “he in whom all men cohere for He is the Creator who gives them being and through His Spirit holds them in being.” Thus, there is an ontological relation between the Eternal Word and all humanity As Torrance argues, “[T]he Son and Word of God became man by becoming one particular man, but because He is the Creator Word who became Man, even as the incarnate Word He still holds all men in an ontological relation to Himself. That relation was not broken off with the Incarnation” (p. cxii). The New Living Translation sums this up nicely: “in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). Torrance writes:

The Biblical teaching is quite explicit that in Christ all things are really involved in reconciliation, that He is not only the Head of believers but the Head of all creation and that all things visible and invisible are gathered up and cohere in him—from which we cannot exclude a relation in being between all men and Christ. … [A]s the Head of all men [Christ] died for all men, so that all men are involved already objectively in His human life and in His work in life and death, i.e. not 0nly on judicial and transactional grounds, but on the ground of the constitution of His Person as Mediator (p. cxiii).

Thus, human beings have no being apart from Christ as man. If Christ had not come, notes Torrance, that is, if the incarnation had not taken place, so that man’s estrangement with God were allowed to stand, humanity would disappear into nothing (cf. Barth’s das Nichtige, or the “not-ness.”). The incarnation, including the cross, affects all humanity, even the entire creation, so that creation itself  is set on a new basis with God, “the basis of a Love that does not withhold itself but only overflows in pure unending Love” (p. cxiv).

There is a sense, therefore, in which we must think of all humanity as “ingrafted” into Christ by virtue of his incarnation and atoning work (p. cxvii). It is in correlation to the universal inclusion of all humanity in Christ that we are to think of the range of the Spirit’s ministry. The hypostatic union, or what Craig’s Catechism calls the “carnal” union of God and humanity in Christ, establishes the “field” of the Spirit’s activity. Thus, we must take seriously the biblical assertion that the Spirit has been “poured out on all flesh” and operates on “all flesh.” In short, the hypostatic union of God and humanity in Jesus Christ establishes the field of the Spirit’s ministry, a field that is universal in scope.