T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 3

The Latin Heresy

The "Latin heresy" refers to western-Latin christology, wherein a dualism is created between the person and work of Christ. This view is characteristic of both Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism. In the Latin view of the atonement, the "work" of Christ is "external" to the "person" or "being" of Christ; that is, Jesus simply offers his body as an instrument in the payment of a forensic debt. In this view, the atonement is merely the fulfillment of a "transaction" between the Father and the Son, wherein the Son pays humanity's debt of sin. Hence, in the Latin view, the atonement produces no ontological change in fallen humanity; that is, the atonement discharges a debt but it does not change us in the depths of our fallen being. Words used to describe this view include "external," "instrumental," and "transactional."

Torrance argues that we must “relearn” the fundamental soteriological principle that Christ assumed fallen, sinful human flesh, since it has been “suppressed” in the Western church, where doctrines of the atonement have departed from the soteriological emphasis of the incarnation found in the early centuries of Christianity. Consequently, the atonement has been regarded in the Latin West primarily as an “external transference of penalty” between sinners and God, rather than as “the culmination of God’s incarnational penetration into the alienated roots of humanity in order to cancel sin and guilt and undo the past, and to effect within it once for all atoning reconciliation between the world and himself” (Torrance, 1986b:476; 1992:39).

In asserting the assumption of sinful human flesh, Torrance (1986b:477, 478, 480; cf. 1990:232, 233; 1992:40, 41; 1993:237-239; 1994:58, 59) rejects what he terms the “Latin heresy,” that is, a “dualist” understanding of the person and work of Christ, traceable to Leo’s Tome sent to the Council of Chalcedon, that provided the Western church its paradigm for a formulation of atoning reconciliation in terms of “external” relations, whether exemplary, as in Abelard, or juridical, as in Anselm. In asserting the Son of God assumed a “neutral” human nature, that is, human nature in its perfect original state as it existed before the Fall, unaffected by sin and guilt and not under divine judgement, the Latin position insists that Jesus Christ did not assume our “original sin,” lodged within the roots of personal and social human being, but only our “actual sin.” This led to the Roman doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary, which continues to divide the Latin and Greek branches of the church. Consequent to this view, argues Torrance, Protestantism was forced to deal with original sin by an appeal to a separate and subsequent work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit, while Roman Catholic theology dealt with original sin through the “healing medicine” of grace merited by Christ and dispensed by the church in the holy sacraments.

In asserting the assumption of a neutral humanity, Latin theology rejected the cardinal soteriological principle, associated with Nicene theology, that “the unassumed is the unhealed.” In arguing that Jesus assumed a neutral human flesh, Latin theologians split apart the intrinsic relation between the person and work of Christ by construing the atonement in an “instrumentalist” way, wherein the incarnation was regarded simply as a means of supplying a sinless human being who could live in perfect obedience to the law of God and take our place on the cross. Subsequently, atonement was regarded either as an external moral transaction or as an external penal transaction, wherein the penalty for sin is transferred from sinners to the sinless Saviour. Either view, however, created a separation (i.e., dualism) between the incarnation and atonement by construing Christ’s saving act in external terms, whether exemplary or juridical, rather than in terms of the internal Father-Son relation, wherein the atoning work of Christ is a function of his incarnate constitution as the eternal Son who is homoousios to Patri. Protestant theology, particularly Evangelicalism, has generally followed the Latin church in this regard, specifically in its development of various theories of the atonement, all of which, in varying ways, dualistically divide the incarnation and the atonement by separating the person and work of Christ (Torrance, 1986b:476). As Torrance (1992:40) argues:

If the incarnation is not held to mean that the Son of God penetrated into and appropriated our alienated, fallen, sinful human nature, then atoning and sanctifying reconciliation can be understood only in terms of external relations between Jesus Christ and sinners. That is why in Western Christianity the atonement tends to be interpreted almost exclusively in terms of external forensic relations as a judicial transaction in the transference of the penalty of sin from the sinner to the sin-bearer.

In regard to this external, “transactional” view of atonement, Torrance notes that Federal theology, arising from post-Reformation Protestant Scholasticism, works on the premise of an “contract” or “bargain” made between the Father and the Son in eternity past, and interpreted in causal, necessary, and forensic terms (Habets, 2008:344). Torrance sees this “transactional notion” of atoning reconciliation in post–Reformation Calvinism, particularly in the Westminster Confession of Faith (VIII:v), where the incarnate Son is said to have “purchased” reconciliation for us. Implied here is an external, transactional view of atonement, wherein Jesus’ suffering on the cross is regarded as the fulfilment of a “divine requirement, on the ground of which the Father was induced to reconcile us, and was as it were ‘bought off.’” This transactional view of the cross departs from the teaching of the New Testament, in which, according to Torrance, there is no suggestion that reconciliation is “bought” from God. He argues further that the notion of reconciliation as purchased from God departs from Calvin (2008:II.16.4; 326, 327), who cited Augustine in arguing that the Father’s love for humanity is prior to the atoning reconciliation of the cross (cf. Rom 5:8); that is, God does not love us because of what Christ has done; rather, it is because God first loved us that he came in Christ to reconcile us to himself (cf. Jn 3:16). As Torrance notes, “the truth of the prevenient love and grace of God in Christ was one of the primary principles of the Reformation” (Torrance, 1996c:19, 139; 2009:146).

In contradistinction to the gospel of external relations that characterizes the Latin heresy, Torrance (1992:41) follows Patristic theology in arguing that the incarnation and the atonement are “internally linked,” for “atoning expiation and propitiation are worked out in the ontological depths of human being and existence into which the Son of God penetrated as the Son of Mary.” As Torrance (1994:59) argues, if the incarnation itself is essentially redemptive rather than instrumental, that is, merely a means to an end, then “atonement must be regarded as taking place in the ontological depths of Christ’s incarnate life, in which he penetrated into the very bottom of our fallen human being and took our disobedient humanity, even our alienated human mind, upon himself in order to heal it and convert it back in himself into union with God.” Jesus penetrated to the depths of our original sin “in order to redeem us from it by bringing his atoning sacrifice and holiness to bear upon it in the very roots of our human existence and being.” Noting that in his genealogy recorded in Matthew, “Jesus was incorporated into long line of sinners,” Torrance (1992:41) eloquently argues:

[H]e made the generations of humanity his very own, summing up in himself our sinful stock, precisely in order to forgive, heal and sanctify it in himself. Thus atoning reconciliation began to be actualised with the conception and birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary when he identified himself with our fallen and estranged humanity, but that was a movement which Jesus fulfilled throughout the whole course of his sinless life as the obedient Servant of the Lord, in which he subjected what he took from us to the ultimate judgment of God’s holy love and brought the healing and redeeming power of God to bear directly upon it in himself. From his birth to his death and resurrection on our behalf he sanctified what he assumed through his own self-consecration as incarnate Son to the Father, and in sanctifying it brought the divine judgment to bear directly upon our human nature both in the holy life he lived and in the holy death he died in atoning and reconciling sacrifice before God.

In contradistinction to the Latin tradition, Torrance (1992:41, 42) argues that we must “recover the awesome truth that through his Incarnation the Son of God appropriated our fallen humanity under the judgment of God.” Throughout the whole course of his life, the incarnate Saviour brought his healing and redeeming power to bear upon sinful Adamic flesh, even in the deep recesses of original sin, in order to heal, cleanse, and sanctify it in atoning reconciliation.

References

Calvin, J. 2008. Institutes of the Christian Religion (translated by H. Beveridge). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. 1,059 pp.

Habets, M. 2008. The Doctrine of Election in Evangelical Calvinism: T. F. Torrance as a Case Study. Irish Theological Quarterly, vol 73. pp. 334-354.

Torrance, T.F. 1986b. Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 461-482.

Torrance, T.F. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1993. The Atonement. The Singularity of Christ and the Finality of the Cross: The Atonement and the Moral Order. In N. Cameron, ed. Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House. Chapter 8.

Torrance, T.F. 1994. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 71 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1996c. Scottish Theology from John Knox to John McLeod Campbell. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 330 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2009. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 489 pp.

T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 2

Torrance’s doctrine of atonement, or incarnational redemption, arises as he follows Christ in order to penetrate, as much as humanly possible, into the salvific significance of the Nicene homoousion and the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ. These two elemental forms of Torrance’s scientific theology provide the framework for understanding his doctrine of the mediation of reconciliation in Jesus Christ.

Torrance grounds his doctrine of incarnational redemption in the unitary relation between the “being” of Jesus Christ, who is homoousios to Patri, and his redemptive “act” of atonement. For Torrance, the incarnation and the atonement are intimately and inseparably related; that is, incarnational redemption, or atoning reconciliation, is a direct function of the incarnate constitution of the Mediator. In his incarnate constitution as God and man joined together in the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in one person, Jesus Christ ‘is’ atoning reconciliation.

A clearer understanding of Torrance’s unitary approach to incarnational redemption, wherein the person and work of Christ are fully integrated, may be facilitated by prior inquiry into the nature of the flesh assumed by the eternal Word in the incarnation, as well as an investigation of what Torrance calls the “Latin heresy.”

Assumption of Adamic Flesh

The inherent connection Torrance sees between the incarnation and atonement depends heavily upon a particular view of the nature of the flesh the eternal Word assumed in the incarnation. The previous chapter examined the epistemological and soteriological significance of the humanity of Jesus Christ without concern for the manner of the flesh he assumed from the Virgin Mary. In regard to the precise nature of the humanity of Jesus Christ, however, we encounter one of the more controversial aspects of Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Christ: his assertion that the incarnate Word assumed sinful Adamic flesh (Torrance, 1988a:161ff; 1990:202-205; 1992:65; 1994:58-60). In the hypostatic union, argues Torrance (1988a:163; cf. 1994:58), the eternal Word assumed “our sinful and corrupt humanity in conflict with God.” Following Athanasius (Contra Arius; Torrance, 1988a:161 n. 52), Torrance argues that in taking upon himself “the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7), Jesus Christ assumed “fallen Adamic humanity” from the Virgin Mary, that is, “our perverted, corrupt, degenerate, diseased human nature enslaved to sin and subject to death under the condemnation of God.” Elsewhere, Torrance (1992:39) writes:

[T]he Incarnation was the coming of God to save us in the heart of our fallen and depraved humanity, where humanity is at its wickedest in its enmity and violence against the reconciling love of God. That is to say, the Incarnation is to be understood as the coming of God to take upon himself our fallen human nature, our actual human existence laden with sin and guilt, our humanity diseased in mind and soul in its estrangement or alienation from the Creator.

In becoming flesh, the Son of God “became what we are as sinners alienated from God and existing down to the roots of our being in a state of disobedience against him” (Torrance,1990:203). Torrance continues:

[I]n his incarnation the Son of God penetrated into the dark recesses of our human existence and condition where we are enslaved in original sin, in order to bring the redeeming love and holiness of God to bear upon us in the distorted ontological depths of our human being.

The assumption of fallen human flesh was “a doctrine found everywhere in the early Church in the first five centuries,” argues Torrance (1992:39). From the time of Irenaeus, the Greek fathers interpreted the teaching of St. Paul (e.g., Rom 8:1ff; Gal 3:13; 2Cor 5:21) to mean that “in the incarnation the Son of God condescended to assume from us our fallen, corrupt, mortal human nature, on the ground that what he did not assume did not come within his healing, saving and sanctifying power.” The Greek fathers argued that in becoming flesh, the incarnate Son was not merely “externally” or “accidentally” related to us, for without being united with us in “our condition of sin, corruption and slavery,” he could not save us (Torrance, 1990:202).

As Torrance (1990:204) notes, it is important to realise that “in the very act of taking our fallen nature upon himself Christ was at work healing, redeeming and sanctifying it.”Torrance views the incarnate Son’s assumption of fallen Adamic flesh as a “reconciling, healing, sanctifying and recreating activity.” In becoming one of us, Jesus took what is ours and gave us what is his. In great compassion, he gathered up our fallen humanity to himself “in order to purify it and quicken it in his own sinless life-giving life” (Torrance, 1988a:162).

Torrance’s assertion of the assumption of fallen Adamic flesh in order to heal and cleanse it in the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ is based on the soteriological principle that “only what the incarnate Son has taken up from us into himself is saved,” a principle given central place in the theology of the Cappadocian fathers, but also asserted by Athanasius and Cyril (Torrance, 1988a:163-165). Torrance quotes Basil’s assertion that Jesus Christ could not have “slain sin” and reunited fallen humanity to God if he had not come in “our flesh.” As Torrance notes, however, it was Gregory Nazianzus who gave the principle “its most epigrammatic expression” in a trenchant refutation of Apollinarianism: “The unassumed is the unhealed; but what is united to God is saved. If only half Adam fell, then what Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of him who was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.” In addition, Torrance notes Gregory Nyssa’s assertion that Jesus came to bring home “the whole sheep, not just the fleece,” leaving “no part of our nature which he did not take up into himself” (Torrance, 1988a:163, 164 n. 62-64). The early fathers understood that if the whole man was to be healed, the whole man had to be assumed in the incarnation, for the unassumed is the unhealed, and that which is not taken up by Christ is not saved (Torrance, 1992:39).

In arguing that Jesus assumed sinful Adamic flesh in order to heal and cleanse it, Torrance follows the Greek fathers in placing special emphasis on the healing of the rational human mind. Against the Apollinarian assertion that the mind of the Logos replaced the human mind of Jesus, Torrance argues that it is the rational human mind that is assumed and redeemed in the incarnation, for it is in the mind, not merely in the flesh, that human sin is most deeply entrenched (Torrance, 1988a:164, 165). Torrance (1990:40) writes:

Divine salvation and reconciliation had to do with human beings, not only in the corruption of their physical nature, but in the depravity of their spiritual nature in which they had become alienated and enemies in their minds so that they turned the very truth of God into a lie. Thus the Incarnation had to be understood as the sending of the Son of God in the concrete form of our own sinful nature . . . in which he judged sin within that very nature in order to redeem man from his carnal, hostile mind.

As Dawson (2007:58-60, 74) notes, following Torrance, the necessity of the assumption of fallen human flesh, including the rational mind, is related to the disease that lies at the root of our existence: our sinfulness. The innumerable problems of human existence, whether evil thoughts, murder, adultery, theft, lying or slander are the symptoms of a problem that is located at the centre of our being, in our very hearts (cf. Jer 17:9; Mt 15:18, 19). The depth of our need, therefore, requires a redemption that issues from the depth of our being. If we are to be saved, we must be cleansed from the root of our existence, in the ontological depths of the human heart. Therefore, in order for our redemption to reach to the root of our sinfulness, Jesus had to become what we are, in order that we might be made what he is. Jesus had to assume our diseased, corrupted flesh in order to heal and cleanse it “from the eternal inside out.” As Hart (2008:86) notes, Jesus assumed from the Virgin Mary humanity in the precise condition in which it needs to be redeemed.

Torrance’s assertion of the assumption of fallen Adamic flesh takes seriously St. Paul’s teaching that “Christ was made man in the concrete likeness of the flesh of sin under the law of sin and death” (cf. Rom 8:3), and inexplicably was “made sin” (2Cor 5:21) and “made a curse” for us (Gal 3:13), in order to redeem and save us from sin and death. Yet, in assuming our sinful flesh, Christ did not himself sin; rather, “by bringing the perfect holiness and righteousness of God in himself to bear upon it, he condemned sin in the flesh, and through his atoning self-offering and self-consecration in our place he healed, redeemed and sanctified in and through himself what he had assumed” (Torrance, 1990:203, 204; cf. 1994:58). Torrance quotes Hilary’s assertion (De Trinitate; Torrance, 1988a:162; n.54) that “God took upon himself the flesh in which we have sinned that by wearing our flesh he might forgive sins; a flesh which he shares with us by wearing it not by sinning in it.” Torrance also quotes Gregory Nyssen’s dramatic assertion (Against Apollinaris; Torrance, 1988a:162 n. 56) that “[a]lthough Christ took our filth upon himself, nevertheless he is not himself defiled by the pollution, but in his own self he cleanses the filth, for it says, the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not overpower it.”

As Torrance (1986b:476) argues, Eastern theologians from Irenaeus to Cyril of Alexandria taught that “in becoming one with us and one of us in Jesus Christ, God had humbled himself to take our lost cause upon himself by assuming our fallen human nature, our humanity diseased in mind and soul, our actual human existence enslaved to sin and subjected to judgment and death, precisely in order to save us in the very heart of our depraved condition where we are in enmity with God.” In assuming our diseased and corrupt humanity, the eternal Word was not contaminated by it; rather, he condemned sin in the flesh by living a life of perfect obedience “inside” the flesh of Adam, bringing his holiness to bear upon it and healing and sanctifying it.

References

Dawson, G.S. 2007.Far as the Curse is Found: The Significance of Christ’s Assuming a Fallen Human Nature in the Torrance Theology. In G. Dawson, ed. An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour. London: T & T Clark. Ch. 3.

Torrance, T.F. 1986b. Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 461-482. Also available in Torrance (1990).

Torrance, T.F. 1988a. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1994. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 71 pp.

T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 1

Ash Wednesday is a fitting day to begin a series of weekly posts on T.F. Torrance’s understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ. All previous posts on Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Christ have been leading to this point. Before we can understand the saving work of Jesus Christ, we must first understand who he is as incarnate Saviour of the world. Hence, I have posted a great deal of material on the homoousion, that is, the creedal assertion of the consubstantial Father-Son relation, as well as on the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ. These important historical/scriptural doctrines of orthodoxy teach us that the incarnate Word is fully God and fully human, joined in eternal union in the one person of Jesus Christ. Torrance, following Barth and Patristic theology, shows us how this union of God and humanity in Jesus Christ is, in fact, a healing, reconciling union, one which obtains for the entire cosmos. So let’s get started with the good news of what God has done for every one of us in Jesus Christ. To be sure, the news is good: really good!


The Nicene homoousion and the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union are among the primary elemental forms, or basic constitutive concepts, of Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ. These primary christological tools are thoroughly integrated in Torrance’s doctrine of incarnational redemption or atoning reconciliation.

For Torrance, there is an intrinsic connection between the incarnation and the atonement; hence, his doctrine of atoning reconciliation is intimately interwoven with his understanding of the consubstantial Father-Son relation and the doctrine of the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ. As noted earlier, in the Torrance theological tradition, the “Who?” question is prior to the “how?” question. Torrance does not attempt to articulate a doctrine of the salvific work of Jesus Christ until he has articulated his thinking in regard to “who” Jesus Christ is as the incarnate Saviour of the world.

Moreover, because of the intrinsic connection between the person of Jesus Christ and the atonement, Torrance does not articulate a doctrine of the hypostatic union only to state subsequently a doctrine of atoning reconciliation, as if the latter were something added to the former. “On the contrary,” Torrance argues, “we have to see that reconciliation is the hypostatic union at work in expiation and atonement, and therefore that [the] hypostatic union cannot be expounded aright except in terms of Christ’s active ministry within our darkness and estrangement, bringing revelation and reconciliation to bear revealingly on one another.” If Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the eternal purpose of God to bestow eternal love upon us and gather us back into eternal life, it is paramount to understand that the doctrine of Christ’s atoning reconciliation presupposes the doctrine of the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ, “for the whole work of reconciliation depends upon the fact that one person acts both from the side of God, and from the side of man, both in his divine acts and in his human acts, and that these acts are really and truly identical in the person of the mediator” (Torrance, 2008:183, 184).

In his important article on the atonement, Torrance (1993:225, 226) identifies a number of verses in the New Testament that witness to the “singularity” and “finality” of the mediation of Jesus Christ in atoning reconciliation between God and sinful man, as well as the “range” or scope of the atonement. By “singularity,” Torrance refers to “the one unrepeatable particularity of [Jesus Christ’s] incarnate reality as God and man, Creator and creature, indivisibly united once and for all in one Person . . . the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega of all God’s ways and works.” Torrance opens his article with scriptural references to Jesus Christ as “ransom.” He quotes the Gospels (Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45): “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ‘ransom’ for many.” In addition, Torrance cites Paul’s assertion (1Tim 2:5, 6) that there is only one Mediator between God and man: the man, Jesus Christ, who gave himself a “ransom” for all. He also notes John’s assertion that Jesus Christ is the “propitiation” for the sins of the whole world (1Jn 2:2). In a passage that is of primary importance for his understanding of the relationship between creation, incarnation, and atonement, Torrance quotes a lengthy passage from Paul’s letter to the Colossians (1:14-20), a passage that identifies Jesus Christ as the one “in” whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. This same Redeemer is the one “by,” “through,” and “for” whom all things are created and “in” whom all things consist or hold together. Through Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God dwells, God has reconciled all things to himself, whether visible or invisible, making peace by the blood of the cross. Finally, Torrance notes one of the many passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews (9:12, 15) that refer to the singularity and finality of the atoning work of Jesus Christ, who, as the Mediator of the new covenant, entered the heavenly Holy of Holies once for all, to secure by his own blood eternal redemption from the transgressions under the first covenant.

Though not specifically cited in his article on the atonement, another important passage for understanding the relationship between creation, incarnation, and redemption is found in the opening to the Epistle to the Hebrews (1:2, 3). Here the Son of God is identified as the one through whom God made the worlds and who upholds all things “by the word of his power.” In addition, the Prologue to the Gospel of John (1:1-14) identifies the Word who became flesh as the one through whom all things were made. This same creator Word, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is later identified as “the Lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29). As will be shown below, the relation between creation, incarnation, and atonement is of vital importance to Torrance’s doctrine of the atoning mediation of Jesus Christ, particularly in regard to the “range” of atoning reconciliation.

In approaching the subject of the death of Christ, Torrance reminds us that we are dealing with a great mystery. In the liturgy of Old Testament Israel, after the cultic sacrifice was made, the high priest “ascended” into the Holy of Holies, where, behind the veil, hidden from public view, he sprinkled the blood shed in sacrifice onto the mercy seat (Lev 16:12-14, 17). God ordained that the mystery of atoning reconciliation, particularly its most “solemn and awful part,” should be veiled from the eyes of the people, so that the “innermost heart of atonement” should remain hidden and ineffable. In the same way, even though the veil in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Mt 27:51; Mk 15:38; Lk 23:45), the resurrected Jesus ascended to the heavenly Holy of Holies, into the immediate presence of the Father, where, beyond the view of humankind, he acted as our High Priest and Mediator in a work whose nature is “unutterable.” The mystery of atonement, therefore, can neither be “spelled out” nor “spied out”; rather, it is a mystery “more to be adored than expressed.” As Torrance reverently notes, as we delve into the mystery of the blood of Christ, the blood of God incarnate, “we must clap our hand upon our mouth again and again for we have no words adequate to match the infinitely holy import of atonement” (Torrance, 2009:2).

It is precisely because the mystery of atonement is ineffable and unutterable, argues Torrance (2009:2, 3), that, on the night before his death, Jesus gave us a tangible, earthly reminder of atonement in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. “[T]he broken bread and the poured out wine enacted in solemn anamnesis” [“remembrance,” “calling to mind again”] communicate to us what mere human words are unable to do; that is, “the inexpressible mystery of atonement through the body and blood of the saviour.” This sacrament, “ordained to communicate Christ to us in action,” forbids us to presume that we can enclose the mystery of atonement in human words or doctrinal formulations, or to think that we can articulate any adequate account of its meaning.

The death of Jesus Christ is an act of God that undercuts the ground of all human religion and entails a complete reversal of our previous attitudes and preconceptions, so that we can only understand the cross by repentance and a change of mind (Gr., metanoia). This reversal of our preconceived ideas means that we cannot think our way into the death of Christ; we can only think our way from it by following the new and living way opened by the cross. Because the cross of Christ is a “mystery of unearthly magnitude before which we can only bow in utter humility,” we can never reduce the act of God at Calvary to any mere “theory” of atonement (Torrance, 2009:3, 4). As Torrance (2009:4) cogently argues:

No merely theoretical understanding is possible, for abstract theoretic understanding does away with the essential mystery by insisting on the continuity of merely rational explanation. But that is just what we cannot give of the awful fact of the descent of the Son of God into our hell and the bearing by the Son of God of divine judgement on our behalf, for all rational explanation must presuppose a basic continuity here between man and God, but that is just what the atonement reveals to be wanting by the very fact that God himself had to descend into our bottomless pit of evil and guilt in order to construct continuity between us and God.

As Torrance argues, rather than seeking to understand the cross through abstract theoretical explanations or logical presuppositions derived from the assumption of a basic continuity between man and God, we must put together “conjunctive statements based upon the inherent synthesis to be found in the person of the mediator,” for there is a continuity that God himself achieves through his atoning “act” and the intervention of his own divine “being.” To understand the cross, we must “follow Christ” and think only a posteriori, allowing our minds to be conformed to Jesus Christ, who is himself “the truth” (Jn 14:6). “That is the only way to understand and at the same time to reverence the infinite mystery and majesty of this atoning deed on the cross which by its very nature reaches out beyond all finite comprehension into eternity” (Torrance, 2009:4, 5). As Torrance (1993:228, 229) notes elsewhere, the “singularity” of the mediation of Jesus Christ in atoning reconciliation cannot be expressed in the language of abstraction. As a unique and unrepeatable reality, the atonement can only be understood out of itself.

While Torrance’s doctrine of incarnational redemption does not fit neatly into any one of the major theories of atonement that have arisen in the history of Christian theological thought, his view of the atonement is closely related to the “representative theory” or “theory of vicarious repentance” associated with the Scottish pastor and theologian, John McLeod Campbell (1800-1872) (Torrance, 1996c: 287ff). Elements of this view are also found in P.T. Forsyth (1848-1921) and Karl Barth (1886-1968). In this model of atonement vicarious identification is stressed over penal substitution. The cross is viewed as the “creative sympathy of the holy” rather than a propitiation of the wrath of God (Bloesch, 2006:157). In his insistence that the atonement is a mystery to be adored rather than rationally expressed, Torrance is in harmony with Eastern Orthodox Christians who tend to shy away from rational explanations of the atonement in favour of embracing mystery (cf. Olson, 2002:261). In regard to the extent to which salvation is a “gift” or a “task” (Olson, 2002:267), Torrance, with his emphasis on atonement as the dynamic expression of the hypostatic union, identifies with the Reformed tradition by clearly affirming salvation as “gift.”

References

Bloesch, D.G. 2006. (orig. ed. 1978.) Essentials of Evangelical Theology (vol 1): God, Authority, and Salvation. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. 265 pp.

Olson, R.E. 2002. The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 365 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1993. The Atonement. The Singularity of Christ and the Finality of the Cross: The Atonement and the Moral Order. In N. Cameron, ed. Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House. Chapter 8.

Torrance, T.F. 1996c. Scottish Theology from John Knox to John McLeod Campbell. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 330 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2008. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove:IVP. 371 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2009. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 489 pp.

Torrance Hypostatic Union, pt 9: A Summary and Critique

The following post is a summary and critique of my previous eight posts on Torrance’s understanding of the hypostatic union.

The New Testament proclaims that Jesus is Lord and provides both explicit and implicit indications of the unity of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. While the Nicene Creed follows the biblical witness in asserting the divinity and humanity of the incarnate Son, the early church struggled with what Torrance describes as the “constant problem of theology”: how to apprehend and articulate the relationship between the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ. In Alexandria and Antioch, rival schools of thought arose with different emphases on the nature of salvation, each finding expression in their rival christologies. With their emphasis on divinization as the goal of salvation, the Alexandrians emphasized the assumption and transformation of human flesh by the divine Logos, while preserving the unity of the two natures of Jesus Christ at the cost of his full humanity. Alexandrian christology, with its tendency to lose the humanity of Jesus Christ in favour of a “one-natured” incarnation, reached its extreme point in the thought of Apollinaris, who asserted that the divine mind of the Logos replaced the human mind of Jesus. Apollinarianism was condemned at the Council of Constantinople, following the teaching of Gregory Nazianzus, who argued that the unassumed is the unhealed. The Antiochenes, on the other hand, with their concern for the moral-ethical aspects of salvation, emphasized the full humanity of Jesus Christ at the cost of the unity of the divine and human natures. Antiochene christology reached its extreme point in the thought of Nestorius, who so compartmentalized the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ that the incarnation appeared to result in two persons: the Son of God and the Son of Mary. Nestorius was opposed by Cyril of Alexandria, who argued that the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ existed in “hypostatic union”; that is, the subject of the life of Jesus Christ is the divine Logos, the eternal Son of God, who assumed a human nature while remaining fully divine. While Nestorius was condemned at the Council of Ephesus, Cyril is regarded in church history as one of the great defenders of orthodox christology.

The great christological debates were considered settled at the Council of Chalcedon. Striving to preserve the truth of the rival christological positions while avoiding the extremes of either, the Chalcedonian Definition asserts that the eternal Logos is the subject of the incarnation. The divine Son, Jesus Christ, is one person or hypostasis in two natures, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” The Chalcedonian Definition remains the orthodox expression of the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The epistemological and evangelical significance of the doctrine has been thoroughly articulated by T.F. Torrance.

Along with the Nicene homoousion, the doctrine of the hypostatic union as articulated at Chalcedon constitutes one of the primary elemental forms in Torrance’s understanding of the mediation of Christ. In describing the union of divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ as a “mystery” that can only be understood “out of itself’” as it declares itself to us, Torrance consistently applies his realist epistemology and scientific theological method to the doctrine of the hypostatic union, a mystery that can be known not in terms of a priori assumptions about the nature of God but only a posteriori, as we allow the nature of the object of inquiry to reveal itself to us. At the same time, in acknowledging the mystery as one that can be known only by the gracious act of God, Torrance maintains his position that faith is a vital part of the epistemological process.

For Torrance, the humanity of Jesus Christ is essential for the mediation of revelation and is the guarantee that revelation is accessible to us within the limitations of our own creaturely existence. Because the eternal Word of God has entered space and time, human beings can know divine truth in creaturely form within the limits of historical human existence. The Word made flesh is “God’s articulate self-utterance” to mankind through the medium of human word and rationality. Against the Kantian assertion of a bifurcation between the knower and the known, Torrance, as an epistemological realist, describes the hypostatic union as a union between divine and created word, revealing divine word in human form and enabling divine revelation to be comprehended within the limitations of human thought and speech. Because God has become human, it is possible for us to know him, not as a result of an innate human capacity to know God, but solely on the ground that God has met us within the limitations of our creaturely existence. In denying an innate capacity to know God, Torrance maintains his epistemological stance that knowledge of God is not derived independently of Jesus, as in natural theology or Schleiermacheran subjectivity.

Torrance’s insistence that divine revelation is mediated to us through the human word of Jesus Christ can better be seen in light of his position on the relation of the written word of God to the Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. Torrance distinguishes between Holy Scripture as the word of God and the divine Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. The Bible is not “the word” of God; rather, Jesus Christ is “The Word” of God. According to Torrance, there is an ontological, or “first-order,” relationship, between divine Word and the human words spoken by the incarnate Son; that is, the human word of Jesus Christ is ontologically “identical” to divine revelation. In short, the words of Jesus Christ are the words of God. The written word of God that grew out of the apostolic community of faith, on the other hand, stands in a “second-order” relation to the Word of God; that is, the words of scripture are not identical to the Word of God that proceeds from the mouth of Jesus. Thus, there is an “assymetrical” relation between the Word of God revealed in Christ and the written word of God recorded by the apostolic community. Scripture is ontologically different from the incarnate Word in that it reflects that Word rather than constituting it. Scripture is the divinely provided medium through which the Word of God is mediated to us. The humanity of Jesus Christ is the “real text” underlying the written word of God and by which scripture must be understood and interpreted. Thus, ontological priority and authoritative primacy must be given to the divine revelation mediated by the incarnate Word and not to the Bible. In asserting the ontological identity of divine Word and the human word of Jesus Christ, Torrance remains true to his scientific theological method, wherein knowledge of God unfolds as it is disclosed by the nature of the object of inquiry.

In the hypostatic union, divine word and human word are eternally united in the one person of Jesus Christ. The incarnate Word reaches back to and into the heart of God and reaches out and down to us through the Holy Spirit and the written word of scripture. Thus, the truth is identical with Jesus Christ, who is “of one being with the Father.” To know this truth is to know God in his triune being, in the person of Jesus Christ. The Word of God is Jesus Christ speaking to us in scripture and communicating himself through it. The Word of God, therefore, may not be abstracted from Jesus Christ, for it is “identical” with him.

In this regard, Torrance argues that the Bible must not be reduced to a collection of propositional truths, abstracted and considered apart from the Word of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. Rather than regarding the Bible as a static repository of divine truth, Torrance takes a deeper view of scripture, wherein its truth is to be found in the living person of Jesus Christ to whom it points. For Torrance, the “inspiration” of scripture lies in the fact that it is inspired and shaped by the Holy Spirit to be the written word that leads us to Jesus Christ, while it is itself shaped by and patterned around Jesus Christ (cf. Walker, 2009:lxxxi, lxxxii). The Bible is used rightly when the reader attends simultaneously both to the words of the text and to the divine reality to which they point, so that scripture may fulfil its semantic function as “sign” by pointing not to itself but to the independent reality that underlies it. For Torrance, scripture is like a finger pointing at the moon; it is not the moon itself, but the “sign” that points us toward its objective reality.

Torrance’s realist position in regard to scripture places him somewhere between fundamentalism, with its insistence on the inerrancy, infallibility, and plenary verbal inspiration of scripture, and liberalism, with its reduction of scripture to the comparatively low status of myth, folklore, or fairy tale. As Torrance (1986b:471, 472) notes, both fundamentalism and liberalism detach the word of God from Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate. Fundamentalism detaches scripture from Jesus Christ by elevating it to the status of an independent, static repository of propositional truth, which can be considered apart from the dynamic Living Truth mediated to us by the Holy Spirit. Liberalism, on the other hand, detaches the word of God from Jesus Christ by reducing it to nothing more than the projections of the human religious consciousness. Rather than elevating scripture to a divine status independent of the realities to which it bears witness, as in fundamentalism, Torrance esteems scripture as the divinely provided medium through which the Word of God is mediated to us by the Holy Spirit. Rather than demythologizing scripture, as in liberalism, Torrance, as a theological realist, is committed to the objective reality to which scripture bears witness. Torrance’s position frees us from entanglement in the troublesome web of biblical inerrancy and infallibility and solves many hermeneutical, historical, and scientific problems, for example, those associated with the early chapters of the Book of Genesis. Rather than place our faith in the Bible itself, while attempting to defend it in terms of scientific accuracy and historical factuality, Torrance frees us to look beyond the words of scripture to the divine reality toward which they point and whose presence is communicated to us by the Holy Spirit through the medium of scripture. Moreover, Torrance unburdens us from an attempt to micro-manage the text of scripture, again with the understanding that the individual words of scripture are of secondary importance to the reality that underlies them. As Torrance might argue, the individual words of the text are not “the truth”; Jesus Christ is “The Truth.” Rather than a repository of propositional truths to be considered apart from Jesus Christ, scripture is a divinely provided medium through which the Holy Spirit transforms our minds and brings us into a vital relationship with “The Truth” in the incarnate Word of God.

In addition to the importance of the humanity of Jesus Christ for the mediation of revelation, it is essential that his mediation be grounded in the reality of God. While the humanity of Jesus mediates revelation in a means amenable to human understanding, his divinity ensures that his human word is also the divine Word of God. To mediate revelation to us, therefore, Jesus Christ must be both God and man. If Jesus Christ were not man, then God’s revelation would not be revelation to man; if Jesus Christ were not God, then his mediation of revelation would not be divine revelation, for only God can reveal God. His divinity is the guarantee that God has made himself known in Jesus Christ ‘as he is’. Because Jesus is God, his human speech and actions are divine revelation. In him, the Revealer and revelation are identical; Jesus Christ is the revelation he brings. Without the hypostatic union, we would not hear God in Jesus’ creaturely speech; yet, because divinity and humanity exist in the one person of Jesus Christ, his creaturely speech is the language of God. As the express image of God, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, all true knowledge of God comes through him.

Torrance’s understanding of the relation between the doctrine of the hypostatic union and the mediation of revelation may be briefly summarized as follows: While the humanity of Jesus means that God has entered human history as one of us, speaking within the creaturely constraints of human thought and speech, so that we may understand, the deity of Christ means that God has entered history as one of us, so that the human word of Jesus Christ is also the divine Word of God (cf. Torrance, 2008:188).

As Purves (2001:73, 74) notes, however, there is a “christological constraint” to the knowledge of God revealed in Jesus Christ, for we have communion only with Christ in his human nature. Purves rightly notes that Torrance’s “genius” is that he has investigated the possibility of knowledge of God in Jesus Christ to the extent that he has. At the same time, Purves questions whether Torrance has elevated critical realism above christology and moved beyond the “reverential limits” of our knowledge of God. As Purves argues, Torrance’s critics fail to realize that Torrance’s epistemology rests on christological convictions that Torrance is unwilling to give up, for they derive their content from, and are limited by, Jesus Christ himself. Nevertheless, while Purves appears to be sympathetic to Torrance’s epistemology, his concern that Torrance has elevated critical realism above christology is questionable. Torrance’s critical realism is a direct function of his christology; that is, Torrance identifies himself as a critical realist precisely because he believes, by faith, that God has revealed himself in space-time history in Jesus Christ. His realism, therefore, is a direct consequence of his christological convictions and cannot be separated from them. Against possible assertions that Torrance has exceeded the “reverential” limits of the knowledge of God, Torrance is merely articulating in the language of his scientific theology exactly what Jesus said in simpler terms: “I have come to reveal the Father.” There is no knowledge of God “according to his nature” (kata physin) apart from Jesus Christ. In his sovereign freedom, God has chosen to reveal himself in the consubstantial Father-Son relation. Torrance is simply elaborating, to the extent possible, the epistemological implications of God’s self-revelation in Christ. Charges of exceeding reverential limits should more properly be applied to epistemologies and methodologies that attempt to circumvent Jesus Christ in arriving at knowledge of God, for example, natural theology and Schleiermacheran subjectivism.

In addition, is Purves right to argue for a “christological constraint” to our knowledge of God because that knowledge is limited to Jesus’ humanity? To the contrary, such a constraint would only occur in the case of a dualist bifurcation in the person of Christ. If the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ were rigidly compartmentalized, as in a Nestorian dualism, then Jesus’ humanity would reveal nothing of his divinity, for his human and divine acts would be those of two persons, not one. At the same time, if we fall prey to presuppositions of divine immutability, arising from the Greek cosmological dualism that has plagued christology since the days of the early church, we could understandably argue that Jesus’ humanity reveals little or nothing of God, for his divinity is unmoved by his humanity.

Olson (1999:234, 235) offers a helpful critique in this regard, particularly in relation to the persistent dualism that plagued even the Chalcedonian understanding of the person of Christ. Notwithstanding attempts to guard the mystery of the union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union is plagued by an inherent ambiguity (cf. Olson, 1999:219). Despite the assertion that the Logos is the personal subject of the incarnation, the Chalcedonian fathers were constrained by the ubiquitous Greek philosophical assertions of divine immutability and its corollary, divine impassibility. Hence, they argued that the divine Logos was unaffected by the assumption of human nature; that is, God did not actually suffer in the incarnation; rather, he suffered only through the humanity he assumed as the instrument of the incarnation. Yet, the assertion that God remains undisturbed and unchanged by the experiences of the incarnate life is regarded by many contemporary Roman Catholic and Protestant thinkers, not as a mystery, but as “sheer nonsense.” Is it really accurate to say that God was incarnate in Jesus Christ if God remains entirely unmoved and untouched by his humanness? If the Logos is the personal centre of consciousness in the hypostatic union, who is it that experienced fear and anguish at Gethsemane? Who was tempted forty days in the wilderness? As Olson wisely asks, “Can an ‘impersonal’ nature be tempted?” The great reformer, Martin Luther, who embraced both Nicaea and Chalcedon as respected landmarks in the history of Christian doctrine, rejected the pagan notion of divine impassibility and attributed “creaturely” experiences to the incarnate Son of God. Luther rightly carried the communicatio idiomatum to its logical conclusion by asserting that God can not only be born, but can suffer at Calvary as well.

Despite the obeisance of the fathers to Greek metaphysics, dualist presuppositions founded on divine immutability must collapse in the face of the Chalcedonian assertion that Jesus Christ is “one person.” If divine and human acts are predicates of the one whole Christ, as Cyril’s communicatio idiomatum would indicate, then, as Torrance argues, the human acts of Jesus are the acts of God, and, hence, are revelatory of the divine nature. We are not, therefore, under a “christological constraint,” but, rather, an epistemological constraint, wherein knowledge of God is limited, not by God’s self-revelation in Christ, but by a limited human capacity that allows us to apprehend but not comprehend God.

In addition to its epistemological implications, the hypostatic union has vital implications for human salvation. Jesus Christ must be not only homoousios with God; he must be homoousios with humanity as well. Because only God can save, Jesus Christ must be divine; yet, in order for his saving activity to reach us, he must also be human. As Torrance notes, the gospel is emptied of saving import if Jesus Christ is not fully human as well as fully God. The fact that God became man in order to save us means that the humanity of Jesus Christ is essential for our salvation.

Against adoptionist christologies, Torrance argues that the incarnation must be understood as God really become man, not merely God participating in man. In Jesus Christ, God acts “as” man, not merely “in” man. Against Docetic christologies that break the link between God and man, Torrance draws upon the Johannine statement, “the Word became flesh,” to assert that the incarnation must be understood as God becoming fully man, in the undiminished reality of human being. Against static interpretations of divine immutability, Torrance rightly argues that the incarnation involves a real “becoming” on the part of God in which God acts as man on our behalf. The stark actuality of his blood and bone guarantee that God has come among us in Jesus Christ. In Christ’s humanity, God is one “of” us and one “with” us. Against Apollinarian and monothelist christologies, Torrance echoes Gregory Nazianzus in asserting that Jesus Christ redeems the whole man by becoming fully human and identifying himself with every aspect of our fallen humanity. Because the unassumed is the unhealed, the Son of God assumed complete human flesh “for us and our salvation.”

Following the Nicene fathers, Torrance notes that in the incarnation, the Son of God took not only the form of man but also the form of a servant. Jesus assumed our servile condition under the slavery of sin in order to act on our behalf from within our actual existence. The eternal Word’s condescension to assume flesh “from the lump of Adam,” however, did not involve a diminution of the infinite being of God; rather, it involved the self-abnegating love that God expressed in abasing himself for our salvation. By taking upon himself our servile condition and offering himself on our behalf, Jesus Christ fulfilled the role of both servant and priest, ministering both the things of God to man and the things of man to God. The real humanity of Jesus Christ is the “veil” under which the transcendent God draws near to us, holding mankind at “arm’s length,” while giving us time to draw near in decision and faith.

Against a Docetic view of Christ, Torrance argues that the humanity of Jesus Christ is essential for our salvation: if the humanity of Jesus Christ is imperfect, atonement is imperfect and we remain in our sins. The mediation of reconciliation is possible only when the mediator acts both from the side of God as God and from the side of man as man. In the full humanity of Jesus Christ, as it is joined eternally to his deity, both in incarnation and atonement, humanity is restored to its place before God from which it has fallen.

The humanity of Jesus Christ is the guarantee of God’s action in human space-time history. At the same time, the deity of Christ is the guarantee that his mediation of revelation and reconciliation has divine validity and authority. As Torrance often notes, the humanity of Jesus Christ means that God has acted among us as man; at the same time, the deity of Jesus Christ means that God has acted among us as man. The mediation of revelation and reconciliation in Jesus Christ is not merely the act of a man; it is the act of God, for human salvation must be an act of God if it is to be effective. The reality and validity of our salvation, therefore, is dependent upon the reality of Christ’s deity. The deity of Jesus Christ is the guarantee that his saving acts are the acts of God for our salvation. To deny the deity of Jesus Christ by putting God in heaven and a mere man crucified at Golgotha is to make a monstrosity of the cross.

While it is essential for our salvation that Jesus Christ be both divine and human, it is also essential that the divine and human natures exist in hypostatic union in one person. The humanity of Jesus Christ has no saving significance apart from his deity; his deity has no saving significance apart from his humanity. Both the revelatory and saving significance of the divine and human natures lies in their union. The doctrine of the hypostatic union is the assertion that in the mystery of Christ, divine and human natures are truly and completely united in one person or hypostasis. In asserting that the divine and human acts of the incarnate Son are all predicates of “the one whole Christ,” Torrance aligns himself with Cyril’s doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum.

The doctrine of the hypostatic union of God and man in Jesus Christ is the objective heart of Torrance’s doctrine of atoning reconciliation. The significance of the atonement lies in the fact that God has acted at once from the side of God as God, and from the side of man as man in an act of real and final union between God and humanity. Consistent with his non-dualist, unitary theology, Torrance carefully asserts there are not two acts in the life and death of Jesus Christ, only a single action that is at once Godward and manward. If atonement is to be real, it must take place from man’s side if man is to be reconciled to God; yet, it must also take place from the side of God if it is to be effectual. Thus, atonement must be the work of the one God-man, God and man in hypostatic union, not merely God “in” man but God “as” man. If the natures of the incarnate Son are divided, then the mediation of reconciliation in Jesus Christ is “illusory,” for his human acts are not the acts of God, and his divine acts are not the acts of man for us and our salvation. For Torrance, the doctrine of the hypostatic union of two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ is the “mainstay” of a doctrine of atoning reconciliation, for only he can be “bridgemaker” who is himself the “bridge.”

References

Olson, R.E. 1999. The Story of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 652 pp.

Purves, A.P. 2001. The Christology of Thomas F. Torrance. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 3.

Torrance, T.F. 1986b. Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 461-482.

Torrance, T.F. 2008. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 371 pp.

Walker, R.T. 2009. Editor’s Introduction. In T.F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 489 pp.

Stay tuned! Beginning next month, I will present a series of posts on Torrance’s doctrine of the atonement. I assure you, it is wonderful stuff!!

Torrance Hypostatic Union, pt 8: Hypostatic Union and the Mediation of Reconciliation

Not only is the humanity and deity of Jesus Christ essential for the mediation of reconciliation; the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ is also essential for our salvation. As is characteristic of his unitary approach to theology, Torrance rejects any form of Nestorian dualism that would disrupt the unified integrity of the hypostatic union by bifurcating the person (being) and work (acts) of Jesus Christ.

Comment: Nestorius created a dualism (separation) in the person of Jesus Christ by arguing that Jesus is” two persons," one divine, one human, and there is no union between the two (hence, a dualism). If Nestorius is right, then God is not involved in any meaningful way at the cross, for, according to Nestorius (and others), Jesus suffered in his humanity only. His argument has been rightly rejected in orthodox Christianity. Remember, the correct (orthodox) understanding of Jesus Christ is that he is "one person in two natures."

Because humanity and deity are joined together in the one person of the incarnate Son, the divine acts in the human nature of Jesus Christ and the human acts in the divine nature of the eternal Word “are both acts of one and the same person.” Because the divine and human natures are “one and indivisibly united,” the divine and human acts of Christ are indivisibly united. In short, the divine and human acts of the incarnate Son are all predicates of one person: “the one whole Christ.” All the acts of Christ in the mediation of revelation and reconciliation are the acts of God as he is antecedently and eternally in himself, so that the love of Jesus manifest in his self-sacrifice arises from the eternal love and decision of God. The doctrine of the hypostatic union is the assertion that, in the mystery of Christ, “divine and human natures and acts are truly and completely united in one person or hypostasis.” Also known as “personal union,” the hypostatic union transcends even the intimate union of two persons in marriage, for the unity of divine and human acts in Christ inhere in only one person (Torrance, 2008:190, 191). In asserting that the divine and human acts of Jesus are predicates of one person, Torrance aligns himself with the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum associated with Cyril and Alexandrian christology.

In examining the significance of the two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ, we find that the humanity of Christ has no revealing or saving significance apart from his deity; likewise, his deity has no revealing or saving significance apart from his humanity. As Torrance (2008:191, 192) carefully explains:

The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of true and complete humanity in full union with true and complete deity, and it is in that union that the significance of both revelation and reconciliation lies. It is such a union that the presence of full and perfect humanity does not impair or diminish or restrict the presence of full and perfect deity, and the presence of full and perfect deity does not impair or diminish or restrict the presence of full and perfect humanity. It is such a union that true Godhead and true humanity are joined together in Jesus Christ in such a way that they cannot be separated, and yet that they can never be confused, in such a way also that one does not absorb the other, nor do both combine to form a third entity which is neither divine nor human. In the hypostatic union, God remains God and man remains man, and yet in Christ, God who remains God is forever joined to man, becomes man and remains man. In this union God has become man without ceasing to be God, and man is taken up into the very being of God without ceasing to be man. This is the mystery of Jesus Christ in whom we have communion through the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the hypostatic union of God and man in Jesus Christ is the “objective heart” of Torrance’s doctrine of atoning reconciliation. In assuming our “flesh of sin” in the hypostatic union, God “has judged sin in the flesh and made expiation for our sin in his own blood shed on the cross, and so has worked the hypostatic union right through our alienation into the resurrection, where we have the new humanity in perfect union with God, and in that union we are given to share.” Torrance (2008:195) continues:

The significance of that atonement lies not merely in that Jesus Christ as man offered a perfect sacrifice to God, nor does it lie merely in that God here descended into our bondage and destroyed the powers of darkness, sin, death and the devil, but that here in atonement God has brought about an act at once from the side of God as God, and from the side of man as man; an act of real and final union between God and man. Atonement means that God’s action was translated into terms of human action, for only in so doing does it reach men and women and become relevant to them as saving act; but it remains God’s action, for only so does it touch and lay hold of them, and raise them up to salvation in reconciliation with God.

In summary, the significance of the atonement lies in that fact that God has acted both from the side of God as God and from the side of man as man in an act of real and final union between God and humanity.

In keeping with his non-dualist, unitary theology, Torrance is careful to assert that there are not two acts in the life and death of Jesus Christ, but only one act by the God-man, a single action which is at once “Godward” and “manward.” If atonement is to be real, it must take place from man’s side if man is to be reconciled to God; yet, it must also take place from the side of God, that is, as atonement by God for man, if it is to be effectual. Echoing Athanasius (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei), Torrance argues that only the Word through whom man was made, by himself becoming man, can act in man’s place and for man in such a way as to recover and restore that which man lost (cf. Kruger, 2003:15ff). Hence, atonement is the work of the God-man, of God and man in hypostatic union; it is not merely the work of God “in” man but an act of God “as” man. “Atonement is possible on the ground of the hypostatic union, and only on the ground of atoning reconciliation can the oneness of the Word and our flesh of sin be brought to its full telos [i.e., “end” or “purpose”] in the hypostatic union of God and man in the risen Jesus Christ” (Torrance, 2008:195).

Torrance (2008:196) reinforces his argument for atoning reconciliation by stating it differently. If the natures of Christ were divided, that is, separated into a divine person and a human person, then his human acts would not be the acts of God, and his divine acts would not be the acts of a human being. In that case, reconciliation would be “illusory,” for there would be no union of God and man. To be sure, it is the doctrine of two natures in ‘one’ person that Torrance calls the “mainstay” of a doctrine of atoning reconciliation, for the hypostatic union is central to the mediation of reconciliation and lies at the heart of the atonement. He continues:

The purpose of atonement is to reconcile humanity back to God so that atonement issues in union between man and God, but it issues in union between man and God because the hypostatic union is that union already being worked out between estranged man and God, between man’s will and God’s will in the one person of Christ. It is the hypostatic union, or hypostatic at-onement, therefore, which lies embedded in the very heart of atonement. All that is done in the judgement of sin, in expiation of guilt, in the oblation of obedience to the Father is in order to bring humanity back to union with God, and to anchor that union within the eternal union of the Son and the Father, and the Father and the Son, through the communion of the Holy Spirit.

In the indivisible, inseparable, unconfused, and unchangeable personal union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ lies the mystery of our salvation. In order to reveal God to man, Jesus must be God speaking within the limitations and constraints of human thought and speech. In order to reconcile man to God, Jesus must be human, so that his acts reach us; at the same time, he must be divine, for only God can save. Yet, for the mediation of revelation and reconciliation to be valid, all Jesus’ acts “for us and our salvation” must issue from one person, so that every act is both human and divine. As Torrance notes, “Only he can be mediator who is himself the union of God and man, only he can be pontifex [“bridge-maker”] who is himself the pons [“bridge”]” (Torrance, 2008:190).

References

Kruger, C.B. 2003. Jesus and the Undoing of Adam. Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press. 72 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2008. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 371 pp.

Torrance, Hypostatic Union, pt 7: Jesus’ Divinity and the Mediation of Reconciliation

If the humanity of Christ is the guarantee of God’s historical action among human beings as a human being, the deity of Christ means that his work of revelation and reconciliation is not “hollow and empty”; rather, it is the guarantee that in Jesus Christ we have to do with “the full reality of God himself.” Torrance (2008:187) continues:

What Jesus does in forgiveness is not just the work of man, but the work of God, and is therefore of final and ultimate validity. Only God against whom we sin can forgive sin, but the deity of Christ is the guarantee that the action of Christ in the whole course of his life is identical with the action of God towards us. It is not something of God that we have in Christ, but God himself, very God of very God.

In short, the significance of the deity of Christ lies in the fact that it is God himself who acts in Jesus. As Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9) (Torrance, 2008:187; cf. Kelly, 2007:79, 80). As Torrance (2008:188) notes, if Christ is not God, then God has not come and dwelt among us:

Thus as the obverse of the fact that Christ’s real humanity means that God has actually come to us and dwells among us, Christ’s deity means that God himself has come to save us. The dogma of the humanity of Christ asserts the actuality in our world of the coming of God, and the dogma of the deity of Christ asserts the divine content of our knowledge and salvation, the objective reality of our relation to God himself. The dogma of the deity of Christ means that our salvation in Christ is anchored in eternity: that it is more sure than the heavens.

The reality and validity of our salvation, therefore, is dependent upon the reality of Christ’s deity. Man’s salvation must be an act of God. If Jesus is man only, then his actions are not the actions of God on our behalf. Human salvation depends on the fact that it is God in Christ who suffers and bears the sin of the world, and reconciles the world to himself. Torrance (2008:189) continues:

The validity of our salvation depends on the fact that he who died on the cross under divine judgement is also God the judge, so that he who forgives is also he who judges. The reality of our salvation means that its reality is anchored on the divine side of reality, that the lamb is slain before the foundation of the world, that he has ascended to the right hand of God the Father almighty, and sits down with God on his own throne because he is God. Everything depends upon the fact that the cross is lodged in the heart of the Father.

To deny the deity of the incarnate Son is to separate the work of Christ from God and make a “monstrosity” of the cross. If we put God in heaven and only Jesus the man crucified at Golgotha, we destroy all hope and are left with a doctrine of despair. But if we put God on the cross, the cross becomes salvation for the whole world. As Torrance argues, “The whole gospel rests upon the fact that it is God who became incarnate, and it was God who in Christ has reconciled the world to himself” (Torrance, 2008:189, 190; cf. Kelly, 2007:81).

References

Kelly, D.F. 2007. The Realist Epistemology of Thomas F. Torrance. In G. Dawson, ed. An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour. London: T & T Clark. Ch. 4.

Torrance, T.F. 2009. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 489 pp.

Torrance Hypostatic Union, pt 6: Jesus Humanity and the Mediation of Reconciliation

The homoousial relation between Jesus and the Father is vital. Because only God can save, if the ontological bond between the Father and Son is severed, the bottom falls out of the gospel. Following the Council of Nicaea, however, it became clear to the fathers that the humanity of Jesus Christ was as important to our salvation as his divinity. If in Jesus Christ God did not really become one with sinful humanity by taking our actual human nature upon himself, then the work of Christ on our behalf is emptied of saving content, for the work of Christ would have no connection with our side of the gulf opened between God and man by human sin. To be mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ must not only be homoousios with the Father, but also homoousios with humanity; that is, Jesus Christ must be fully divine and fully human. If Jesus Christ is not fully man as well as fully God, the Gospel is emptied of evangelical and saving import (Torrance, 1988a:3, 4, 146).

In one of his most straightforward and complete statements on the vital importance of the full humanity of Jesus Christ for the mediation of reconciliation, Torrance (1988a:8) writes:

[I]t is essential to realise that Jesus Christ the Son of God is also man, of one and the same being and nature as we are. If he is not really man, then the great bridge which God has thrown across the gulf between himself and us has no foundation on our side of that gulf. Jesus Christ, to be Mediator in the proper sense, must be wholly and fully man as well as God. Hence the Creed stresses the stark reality and actuality of his humanity: it was for our sakes that God became man, for us and for our salvation, so that it is from a soteriological perspective that we must seek to understand the human agency and life of Jesus Christ. He came to take our place, in all our human, earthly life and activity, in order that we may have his place as God’s beloved children, in all our human and earthly life and activity, sharing with Jesus in the communion of God’s own life and love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

According to Torrance (2008:184, 185), “The very fact that God became man in order to save us, declares in no uncertain way that the humanity of Christ is absolutely essential to our salvation.” To be our merciful and faithful High Priest, and to make propitiation for our sins, Jesus had to be made like his brethren (Heb 2:17). The humanity of Jesus Christ means that God has actually come among us, “in the very same sphere of reality and actuality” to which humanity belongs. If Jesus Christ were not man as well as God, that would mean that God had not actually come all the way to us in order to “gain a foothold” in our creaturely world of space and time. It would mean that God remained far from us, as far as the creature is from the Creator.

Torrance goes to great length to argue that the incarnation is to be understood “as God really become man.” Jesus Christ is not merely man “participating” in God but is himself “essential Deity.” God did not merely descend on Jesus Christ, as on one of the prophets (as in adoptionism); rather, “in Jesus Christ God came to dwell among us as himself man” (Torrance, 1988a:149, 150). Against christologies that compromise the humanity of Jesus Christ, Torrance writes:

The Johannine statement that “the Word became flesh” must be understood to mean “became man,” but “became man” is to be understood in such a way as not to give place to a dualist conception of man, for . . . it is the whole man who is body of his soul and soul of his body, not a body without soul or mind, that is meant.

For Torrance, the Johannine assertion that “the Word became flesh” is decisive, for it means that the incarnation is an act of “God himself” in which he became fully man in “the undiminished reality of human and creaturely being” without ceasing to be God. Against static interpretations of the immutability of God, therefore, Torrance argues that the incarnation is to be understood as a real “becoming” on the part of God, in which God comes ‘as man’ and acts ‘as man’ for us and our salvation. In short, Jesus Christ is to be understood not as God “in” man but God “as” man (Torrance, 1976:227, 228; 1988a:150).

Against Docetic christologies that negate the full humanity of Christ, Torrance (1988a:151) writes:

The incarnation, far from being some sort of docetic epiphany of God the Son in the flesh, involves the full reality and integrity of human and creaturely being in space and time. The immediate focus is undoubtedly centred on the human agency of the incarnate Son within the essential conditions of actual historical human existence, and therefore on the undiminished actuality of the whole historical Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried, and rose again from the dead.

The New Testament makes clear that Jesus Christ is fully human: as bone of bone and flesh of flesh, he eats, drinks, thirsts, grows hungry and tired, and feels pain as well as joy. As one of us, in the same sphere of reality in which mankind lives, the “stark actuality” of his humanity, “his flesh and blood and bone,” guarantee that God has come among us as a particular, historical man among other men, one we could easily pass by, failing to see anything in him other than ordinary humanity (cf. Isa 53:2). As Torrance cogently asserts, “If Christ is not man, then God has not reached us, but has stopped short of our humanity; then God does not love us to the uttermost, for his love has stopped short of coming all the way to where we are, and becoming one of us in order to save us.” Christ’s humanity, however, assures us that God, in the person of the incarnate Son, is one “of” us and one “with” us. Christ’s humanity is the guarantee of the coming of God into our world of space and time. If Jesus Christ were not human as well as divine, that would mean that God had not come all the way to man within the world of space and time, but rather would remain far from us. A docetic view of Christ breaks the link between God and man and destroys the relevance of the divine acts of Jesus for our salvation (Torrance, 2008:185).

Noting that the Nicene fathers defended the full humanity of Jesus on soteriological grounds, Torrance (1988a:152) argues:

It was the whole man that the Son of God came to redeem by becoming man himself and effecting our salvation in and through the very humanity he appropriated from us.If the humanity of Christ were in any way deficient, all that he is said to have done in offering himself in sacrifice “for our sakes,” “on our behalf” and “in our place” would be quite meaningless.

Here Torrance echoes the assertion of Gregory Nazianzus that “the unassumed is the unhealed.” Against Docetic, Apollinarian, and monothelist christologies that compromise the full humanity of the Son, Torrance asserts that the Son of God became a human being, identifying himself with every aspect of our fallen humanity, all “for us and or salvation.”

Again following the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers, Torrance (1988a:153, 154) argues that in the incarnation, the Son of God took on not only the form of a man but the form of a servant. In an act of “utter self-abasement and humiliation,” Jesus assumed our servile condition under the slavery of sin “in order to act for us and on our behalf from within our actual existence.” The Pauline expression, “form of a servant,” however, does not refer to a mere “likeness” or “appearance” that Jesus assumed in the incarnation, “but the actual form of existence which he took over from the ‘lump of Adam’; it was a ‘real incarnation’.” The Pauline kenosis (cf. Phil 2:5ff) did not involve a “contraction, diminution or self-limitation of God’s infinite being”; rather, it involved the “self-abnegating love” expressed in the impoverishment or abasement (tapeinosis) the Son of God freely took upon himself entirely for our sake. Torrance finds here the allied concepts of “servant” and “priest.” “The servant form of Christ was discerned to be essential to his priestly oneness with us in virtue of which he could act on our behalf, in our place, and in our stead, before God the Father.” As both servant and priest, Christ’s person and act, that is, who he was and what he did, were completely one, “for he was himself both the one offered and the one who offered for mankind.” In the mediation of reconciliation, Jesus Christ, both fully God and fully man, ministered the things of God to man and the things of man to God.

In Jesus Christ, God has come to us in the form of a servant, veiling his divine majesty, for we cannot look on the unveiled face of God and live. The humanity of the incarnate Son is the “veil” under which the transcendent God draws near to reconcile and save us. Torrance argues that God could not have come to us in a form other than that of a servant, for had God come in a form unknown to us, or in his unveiled glory, he would have disrupted the conditions of our world and our humanity, so that rather than save us, he would have triggered our disintegration. The humanity of Christ holds mankind at “arm’s length” from God, in order to give him “breathing space, time, and possibility for surrender to God’s challenge in grace, time for decision and faith in him.” As Torrance notes, the humanity of Jesus Christ makes salvation possible, for in the incarnate Son, God comes alongside us as a man and, within our historical existence with its temporal relations, acts upon us personally through word and love to draw us out in surrender to God (Torrance, 2008:194). He continues:

God has come in Jesus to be one with mankind, to act from within humanity, and as man to yield to the Father the obedience of a true and faithful Son, and so to lay hold of God for us from the side of humanity. It is within that union of the Son to the Father that the sinner is drawn, and given to share. In other words, the hypostatic union is enacted as reconciling event in the midst of human being and existence, and in it men and women are given to share by adoption and grace in Jesus Christ.
The humanity of Christ, therefore, is essential to God’s act of reconciliation. The atonement is grounded in the fact that in the humanity of Jesus, God is acting on our behalf. A docetic view of the humanity of Christ would mean that God only appears to act within our human existence; thus, his acts would not reach to the roots of our condition and would have no relevance to our need. Atonement is real and actual only as the mediator acts fully from the side of man ‘as man’ and from the side of God ‘as God’. If the humanity of Christ is imperfect, atonement is imperfect, and we remain in our sins. On the other hand, if Jesus Christ is really and truly man, then his death for our sins is an act of God “in” human nature, not merely an external act “upon” human nature. Moreover, if atonement is to achieve its purpose, it must be not only an act of God in man but also an act of man in response to God, that is, man’s satisfaction for sin ‘by man’ before God. Thus, in the full humanity of Jesus Christ, as it is joined eternally to his deity, both in incarnation and atonement, humanity is restored to its place before God from which it has fallen. “[M]an’s wrong has been set aside in and with the judgment accomplished upon the humanity of Christ, and now in his humanity our new right humanity has been established before God” (Torrance, 2008:186).

References

Torrance, T.F. 1976. Theology in Reconciliation: Essays toward Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 302 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1988a. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2008. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 371 pp.

Next post coming soon!! Jesus’ Divinity and the Mediation of Reconciliation