God's Priority: People or Property?

Hey Everyone,
Check out my article, "God's Priority - People or Property?" just published in The Plain Truth Magazine. You'll find it in the right hand column of this blog under "Articles." Thanks!

Martin

T.F. Torrance: The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ, pt. 10

This post is the first of a two-part series on Torrance’s view of the relationship between the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

As a Protestant theologian, Torrance acknowledges “two basic sacraments” of the Gospel: baptism and the Eucharist. While baptism and the Eucharist are acts of human response to the proclamation of the Gospel, they are “above all divinely provided, dominically appointed ways of response and obedience of a radically vicarious kind.” Just as ancient Israel was not allowed to come before God with offerings and sacrifices of their own choosing, but rather was commanded to approach him in the divinely provided cultic liturgy centred around circumcision and Passover, so also in the new covenant appropriate forms of human response are “vicariously provided in Jesus Christ” and are represented by baptism and the Eucharist. The sacraments “replace the rites of circumcision and Passover in accordance with the fundamental change in the covenant relation between God and his people brought about through the Incarnation and Atonement” (Torrance, 1992:89-91). Torrance continues:

As such they are sacraments of the vicarious human response to God effected by Jesus Christ in his representative and substitutionary capacity in our place and on our behalf. They are sacraments of the finished work of Christ to which we can add nothing, sacraments which have as their substance and content none other than Jesus Christ clothed with his Gospel of atoning mediation and reconciliation, and thus sacraments which in their unique way represent the indivisible oneness of Christ’s Word and Act and Person as Mediator between God and man.

For Torrance, the sacraments must be understood as “having to do with the whole historical Jesus Christ from his birth to his resurrection and ascension, for their content, reality and power are constituted ... by the act of God fulfilled in the humanity of Christ.” Thus, “the primary mysterium or sacramentum is Jesus Christ himself” (Torrance, 1976a:82). Baptism and the Eucharist direct us away from ourselves toward Jesus Christ. While they are liturgical responses we are commanded to make, they add nothing to the finished work of Jesus Christ, for they are not sacraments of what we do but of what Christ has done in our place and on our behalf. They are “instruments of the Holy Spirit‘s operation” by which we are “exercised,” as John Knox put it, in our union with Christ. In baptism we are ingrafted into Christ and in the Eucharist we are continually nourished through our union with Christ. “Both sacraments tell us that we live not out of ourselves, but that we find our life and righteousness outside of ourselves, in Christ alone, through union and communion with him.” “As such,” argues Torrance, “they are liturgical acts of prayer in the form of divinely provided ordinances of response, sealing to us within the new covenant our sharing in the vicarious obedience of Christ” (Torrance, 1992:90; 1996b:152).

Baptism

In order to explicate his understanding of the relationship between baptism and the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, Torrance (1976a:83, 84; 1988a:292) carefully distinguishes between the Greek words, baptisma and baptismos. In speaking of Christian baptism, notes Torrance, the New Testament uses the unusual word baptisma, not the more common baptismos. While the latter is regularly used in Greek to refer to a “repeatable” rite of ceremonial cleansing, the former refers not to the rite itself but to the “reality signified” by the rite, that is, the unique saving event in Christ on which the rite rest. This appears to be the reason, notes Torrance, that New Testament writers do not describe the rite of baptism, for they are concerned with the objective reality behind the ritual more than the rite itself. In this respect, baptisma is like kerygma, which refers not to the “proclamation” of the Gospel as such, but to the “reality” proclaimed, for it is not the proclamation itself that saves, but the one who is proclaimed, that is, Jesus Christ. Like kerygma, the word baptisma in the New Testament directs us beyond the rite of baptism to its “objective ground and reality, Christ clothed with the saving truth of his vicarious life, death and resurrection.” In regard to both kerygma and baptisma, the primary reference of both words is the mystery of Christ, “God manifest in the flesh,” while the secondary reference is to the Church’s activity in preaching and baptising. Thus, baptisma does not refer merely to the baptising of an individual, but rather to “the baptism with which Jesus Christ himself was baptised for our sakes in the whole course of his redemptive life from his birth to his resurrection, the one baptism which he continues by his Spirit to apply to us in our baptism into him, thereby making himself both its material content and its active agent.” Torrance (1976a:84) continues:

All this helps to make it clear that while baptism is both the act of Christ and the act of the Church in his Name, it is to be understood finally not in terms of what the Church does but in terms of what God in Christ has done, does do and will do for us in his Spirit. Its meaning does not lie in the rite itself and its performance, nor in the attitude of the baptised and his obedience of faith—even the secondary reference of baptism, by its nature as a passive act, in which we receive baptism and do not administer it to ourselves, directs us to find its meaning in the living Christ who cannot be separated from his finished work and who makes himself present to us in the power of his own Reality.

Comment: The “rite” or “ritual” of baptism has no salvific content. As Torrance rightly argues, it is not the rite that saves us; rather, we are saved by the objective Reality that underlies the rite and to which the rite points: Jesus Christ. Torrance’s understanding of baptism precludes any notion of “baptismal regeneration.” Also, when the significance of baptism is found in the objective Reality underlying the rite, rather than in the rite itself, questions as to the manner of baptism (immersion, sprinkling, pouring) or the age of the baptisand (infant, believing adolescent) become far less important and devisive.

Baptism is “the sacrament of our incorporation into Christ on the ground of his finished work” (Torrance, 1992:90); thus, it is not a sacrament of what the Church does but of what “God has done for us in Jesus Christ, in whom he has bound himself to us and bound us to himself, before ever we could respond to him” (Torrance, 1976a:103). As Torrance (1992:90, 91) argues, we are baptised “out of ourselves” and into Christ, who has taken our place. Baptism expresses the “character of faith in which our faith is implicated in the faith and faithfulness of Christ.” He continues:

Thus Baptism tells us that in our believing we do not rely upon our own faith but upon the vicarious faith of Christ which in sheer grace anticipates, generates, sustains and embraces the faith granted to those who are baptised. [As St. Paul teaches] it is by grace that we are saved through faith, and that is not our own doing for it is God’s gift. Quite consistently we do not baptise ourselves but are baptised, for Baptism proclaims to us that we are saved by the unconditional grace of Christ alone ... who has cleansed us and set the seal (sphragis) of his ownership upon us. As such Baptism constitutes the divinely provided witness (martyria) that we are no longer our own but belong to Jesus Christ our Redeemer and Lord. It is in that belonging that faith takes its source and out of it that it continues to grow.

As Torrance (1976a:86, 87) argues, the whole course of Jesus’ obedient life, from his birth of the Virgin Mary though his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension was a “baptism,” not for his sake but for our sakes, for he received the “baptism” meant for sinners. Torrance continues:

In our human nature he received the divine judgement upon sin; in our human nature he made atonement, and in our human nature he rose again from the dead. When he was born, died and rose again, it was our human nature which was born, died, and rose again in him. For Jesus ... became one with us, taking upon himself our unrighteousness, that his righteousness might become ours.

Hence, the baptism of individual persons is to be understood as their “initiation” into the one vicarious baptisma of Jesus Christ, whereby we are given to share in his righteousness and are sanctified in him as members of the one Body of Christ (Torrance, 1976a:87). Torrance continues:

Through his birth they have a new birth and are made members of the new humanity. Through his obedient life and death as the incarnate Son their sins are forgiven and they are clothed with a new righteousness. Through his resurrection and triumph over the powers of darkness they are freed from the dominion of evil. Through his ascension to the Father the Kingdom of Heaven is opened for them, and they wait for his coming again to fulfil in them the new creation. Through sharing in his Spirit they are made members of his Body and are initiated into the communion of the Holy Trinity.

As an ordinance, then, baptism sets forth not what the Church or the individual believer does but what God has already done in Christ and continues to do through his Spirit. Thus, it is appropriate that we “are baptised.” Our part is only to receive passively what Christ has done for us, for we can add nothing to his finished work. By his Spirit, Christ acts upon us in terms of his “atoning and sanctifying incorporation of himself into our humanity” in such a way that it effects our “ingrafting” into Christ and our “adoption” into the family of God. Our understanding of the ordinance of baptism, therefore, cannot be separated from what Christ has done in his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension. “It is precisely that union or inseparable relation which is the very meaning of the sacrament in which we are baptised into Christ’s baptism, and why the sacrament is spoken of [in the New Testament], not as baptismos, but as baptisma.” The rite of baptism, therefore, does not constitute a “new” or “separate” baptism, but a “participation in the one all-inclusive baptism common to Christ and his Church, wrought out vicariously in Christ alone but into which he has assimilated the Church through the baptism of the one Spirit, and which he applies to each of us through the same Spirit. Hence, it is baptisma in the Name of the Triune God” (Torrance, 1976a:87, 88).

For Torrance (1988a:294), this is surely how St. Paul’s teaching on baptism (cf. Rom 6) is to be understood, wherein “the implied rite was, so to speak, stereoscopically related to the reality discerned through it.” Noting that Paul was accustomed to speaking of our dying and rising in Christ in the aorist tense (e.g., Eph 2:1-6), Torrance argues that it was not the “rite” of baptism to which Paul referred, but to what had “once and for all” taken place in Jesus Christ on our behalf, and in which we are implicated. Torrance continues:

[A]t the Jordan it was our humanity which was baptised in him, so that it was our humanity that was crucified and resurrected in him. When he died for us and was buried, we died and were buried with him, and when he rose again from the grave, we were raised up with him—that is the truth sealed upon us in “one baptism.”

In emphasising the objective, once-for-all aspect of baptism (baptisma), that is, the unrepeatable reality signified by the rite, Torrance follows Athanasius. Torrance (1988a:292) writes:

For Athanasius, the decisive point ... was that in his baptism in the Jordan the incarnate Son of God received the Spirit upon the humanity he had taken from us, not for his own sake, but for our sake. That is to say, it was our humanity that was baptised, anointed, sanctified, and sealed in him. Thus when he was baptised for us we were baptised in him. Our baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity, therefore, is to be understood as a partaking through the Spirit in the one unrepeatable baptism of Christ which he underwent, not just in the Jordan river, but throughout his life and in his death resurrection [sic], on our behalf.

Torrance (1988a:293, 294) follows Athanasius in arguing that Jesus’ vicarious baptism on our behalf is the “objective truth” to which the “one baptism” of the creed refers (cf. Eph. 4:4-6). Jesus Christ underwent “one baptism” vicariously as Redeemer. By uniting us to himself by the Holy Spirit, he makes us participate “receptively” in his one baptism as those whom he has redeemed. Torrance continues:

The central truth of baptism, therefore, is lodged in Jesus Christ himself and all that he has done for us within the humanity he took from us and made his own, sharing to the full what we are so that we may share to the full what he is. Baptism is the sacrament of that reconciling and atoning exchange in the incarnate Saviour.

Note here Torrance’s connection between the sacrament of baptism and the “wonderful exchange” embodied in the incarnate constitution of Jesus Christ.

When we receive baptism within the Church, we are granted by the grace of God participation in the “one all-inclusive incarnational baptisma of Jesus Christ” and are made to become members of his Body and children of our heavenly Father. This takes effect through the Spirit bestowed upon us according to the promise of Jesus Christ, yet, its “taking effect” is not a different and subsequent event (Torrance, 1976a:89). Torrance explains:

Our adoption, sanctification and redemption have already taken place in Christ, and are fully enclosed in his birth, holy life, death and resurrection undertaken for our sakes, and proceed from them more by way of realisation or actualisation in us of what has already happened to us in him than as new effect resulting from them: we have been adopted through his incarnational assumption of us into himself, sanctified through the obedient self-offering of Christ in his life and death, and we have been born again in his birth of the Spirit and in his resurrection from the dead.

Comment: If I understand Torrance correctly, then our own baptism adds nothing to what Christ has already done for all humanity. Everyone, whether they believe or not, is included in the one baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River, where, as the new Adam, he was baptised in place of and on behalf of all. Our own baptism is a “partaking” of that one unrepeatable baptism in the Jordan River, not in the sense that we were not already included in Jesus but in the sense of a “realisation” of the relationship that has always been ours.

Commenting on this passage, Hunsinger (2001:144, 145) observes that “the perfect tense determines the present tense.” In the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, the “definitive” sanctification of our humanity has taken place. In the incarnate assumption of fallen Adamic flesh, as lived out through the whole course of his obedience, “our human nature has been judged, purified, and renewed.” Therefore, as Torrance notes above, salvation comes to us more by the “realisation” or “actualisation” in us of what has already been accomplished in Christ than by a “new effect” in us as a consequence of our own salvific experience. Here, the implications of Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ are clearly articulated: 1) humanity is “adopted” into the family of God through the incarnational assumption of Adamic flesh; 2) we are “sanctified” by the whole course of Christ’s obedient life, and 3) we are born again, both in Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and in his new birth in the resurrection from the dead. Hunsinger (2001:144) sums this up simply: “Vicarious humanity means that everything Christ has done and suffered in his humanity was done and suffered in our place and for our benefit.”As Torrance (1976a:89) argues, “As Jesus Christ is, so are we in this world, for what happened to Him as Head of the Body happens to us also who are members of the Body.” This is why baptism (baptisma) must be understood in terms of its “dimension of depth,” as it relates to the objective reality that underlies it, that is, to the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, “for it belongs to the peculiar nature of baptism that in it we partake of a redemption that has already been accomplished for us in Christ.” As Torrance argues, in baptism, the “end” is already given to us in the “beginning.” In the sacrament of baptism, we look away from ourselves, seeing beyond the Church’s activity in the administration of the rite, toward the crucified and risen Christ, who, in his vicarious humanity assumed for us, is the “content, reality and power” of baptism.

Thus, as Torrance (1988a:294) notes, when we think of baptism (baptisma) objectively, that is, in relation to the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, we are directed away from ourselves to what took place “in Christ in God.” But if we think of baptism (baptismos) subjectively, then we can only give it meaning in terms of our own subjective experience, or in terms of its “efficacy” as a rite. Torrance (1976a:88-99) details how, partly in consequence of the Augustinian dualism between the intelligible and the sensible worlds, baptisma was gradually detached from its objective reality in Jesus Christ and reduced to baptismos, wherein the rite itself ascended in importance as a means of grace to “bridge” the gap between the divine and the material. Among the problems that arose from this view was the issue of rebaptism for those who had committed serious sins after their initial baptism.

Finally, Torrance (1988a:297- 299) notes that, in baptism, “we partake of the whole substance of the Gospel.” In the Nicene Creed, baptism is closely connected to “the remission of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come,” for these are “the saving benefits that flow from union with Christ through one baptism and one Spirit, and are enjoyed in one Body.” As Torrance argues, to be united to Christ through baptism “necessarily” carries with it a sharing with him in the resurrection and the life of the world to come. In the incarnation, Jesus Christ takes upon himself our physical existence enslaved to sin and makes our corruption, death, and judgement his own, so that by offering himself as substitute for us, he might destroy the power of corruption and death to which we are enslaved. Through the bodily resurrection of the human nature he assumed in the incarnation, “Christ has set us upon an altogether different basis in relation to God in which there is no longer any place for corruption and death.” The “central focus” of Christian belief, therefore, is upon Jesus Christ, who, in his resurrection from the dead, has conquered death and brought with him immortality, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the dead “into which we are once for all baptised by the Holy Spirit.”

In this regard, notes Torrance (1976a:94; cf. Hunsinger, 2001:145), Irenaeus described baptism as the “sacrament of the incarnational reversal of the estate we have lost in Adam and of our participation in the new humanity of Jesus Christ.” Just as Adam’s disobedience was reversed by Christ’s obedience, so also our lost, fallen condition is reversed through our participation in Christ’s new humanity, first objectively (extra nos), then subjectively (in nobis). The reality of baptism, therefore, is to be found in the objective reality of what Christ has already done for us in the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father. This reality is “savingly operative” in us through union and communion with Christ effected by the Holy Spirit.

Thus, the central focus of our faith is far from being a promise for the future only; rather, it is an “evangelical declaration” of what has already taken place in Christ and continues in him as a “permanent triumphant reality” throughout the course of time until its consummation in his return, when he will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. In the ongoing life of the Church, notes Torrance, we live “in the midst of the advent-presence of Christ, already partake of the great regeneration (palliggenesia) of the future, and share in its blessings with one another.” All that is said in the creedal assertion of “one baptism for the remission of sins” is “proleptically conditioned” by the future, so that we might look beyond our present participation in the death of Christ through his vicarious humanity to our own participation in the resurrection from the dead at the return of our Lord and Saviour (Torrance, 1988a:299, 300).

References

Hunsinger, G. 2001. The Dimension of Depth: Thomas F. Torrance on the Sacraments. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 6.

Torrance, T.F. 1976a. 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. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1996b. (orig. ed. 1965). Theology in Reconstruction. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 288 pp.

God for Us! Third Anniversary

Hey Everyone,

This week marks the third anniversary of God for Us! This blog has given me the opportunity to play a small part in putting the good news back into the Good News! Yes, folks, the news is good! Really good!! In Christ, God has reconciled all things to himself. That includes you, me, your cantankerous uncle, your dope-smoking cousin, and the Tibetan holy man, serene in his temple, obscured by thick clouds of oh so fragrant incense (see 2Cor5:19). Nothing remains to be done for our salvation. There is nothing we must add by our own efforts to what Christ has already done for all humanity. Our seat at the great feast is assured; each one of us has a place card at the Father's Table with our names on it, a place that can never be taken away. All the Father asks of us is to put on our wedding garments and join the party.

For those of you who began reading this blog during the series on T.F. Torrance (which is almost complete), I encourage you to return to the first posts back in October, 2008. I began this blog by writing on the doctrine of the Trinity, and why it matters. I attempted to show through a series of posts how the doctrine of the Trinity was relegated over time to the status of a minor appendix to a more thoroughly devloped doctrine of the One God (the "omnigod"), so that the "Christian" doctrine of God was developed apart from Jesus Christ! I hope each of you will take a look at these posts.

I also encourage you to read the "articles" I have written, mostly for the Plain Truth magazine, listed in the right column of this blog page.

Also, if you are so inclined, you might help me out by ordering a copy of my book, Ashes into Gold, which you can obtain by clicking on the book picture on the right. I personally handle the orders from this blog and the money goes into my pocket, not to a third-party online seller.

Thanks to all of you for following this blog, especially to those who have sent encouraging comments.

Martin

T.F. Torrance: The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ, pt. 9

Worship and Prayer

For Torrance, the relationship between the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and the Church’s worship is rooted in God’s covenant relationship with ancient Israel, wherein God required the people to walk before him and be perfect, while graciously providing them, in the cultic liturgy, the appointed way of response to his divine requirement. The prophets, insisting that this vicarious response be enacted by way of obedience into the life of Israel, pointed ahead to the servant of the Lord as the chosen instrument for its actualisation. The role of the servant of the Lord in fulfilment of the covenanted way of response is exactly what occurred throughout the whole course of the obedient life of the incarnate Son (Torrance, 1971:158). Torrance continues:

[Jesus Christ] fulfilled in Himself the Word of God tabernacling among men, the covenanted way of response to God set forth in the ancient cult, and constituted Himself our Temple, our Priest, our Offering and our Worship. It is therefore in His name only that we worship God, not in our own name, nor in our own significance but solely in the significance of Christ’s eternal self-oblation to the Father.

The cultic liturgy of Israel is now embodied in Jesus Christ. Throughout the entirety of his life, through death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus Christ fulfils the covenanted way of response by offering himself through the Spirit on our behalf, so that “he remains for ever our sole offering in deed and word with which we appear before God.” Like Israel of old, we draw near to God neither empty-handed nor through worshipful “self-expression” but only with “hands of faith filled with the self-oblation of Christ,” who, in his vicarious humanity, constitutes “the eloquent reality of our worship” (Torrance, 1971:158). Elsewhere (1992:87) Torrance writes:

Jesus Christ embodied in himself in a vicarious form the response of human beings to God, so that all their worship and prayer to God henceforth became grounded and centred in him. In short, Jesus Christ in his own self-oblation to the Father is our worship and prayer in an acutely personalised form, so that it is only through him and with him and in him that we may draw near to God with the hands of our faith filled with no other offering but that which he has made on our behalf and in our place once and for all. (emphasis in original)

In regard to worship and the vicarious humanity of the incarnate Son, “the whole of our worship and ministry reposes upon the substitutionary work of Christ.” By standing in our place, Jesus Christ substitutes his humanity for our humanity, so that we must deny ourselves and follow Christ (cf. Matt 16:24), displacing our own “centrality” by letting him take our place. From first to last, the ministry and worship of the Church is governed by the fact that Jesus Christ stands in our place as our substitute, so that our worship is displaced by his. Thus, when we appear before God, it is not in our own name, or by virtue of our own acts of confession, contrition, worship, and thanksgiving, but solely by virtue of what Christ has done in our place on our behalf (Torrance, 1960:243).

Following John McLeod Campbell, with whom he is clearly in agreement, Torrance (1976a:139, 140) describes worship as “a form of the life of Jesus Christ ascending to the Father in the life of those who are so intimately related to him through the Spirit, that when they pray to the Father through Christ, it is Christ the Incarnate Son who honours, worships and glorifies the Father in them.” Thus, while our worship of the Father through the priestly mediation of the Son is still the worship of the Church on earth, it is “essentially a participation in the heavenly worship beyond where Christ ever lives in the presence of the Father, for it is worship in the one Spirit by whom we have access through Christ to the Father . . .” Torrance’s younger brother James (J. Torrance, 1996:71) describes the human response of worship more simply: “[Worship is] the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father and his mission from the Father to the world, in a life of wonderful communion.”

The relationship between the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and worship also applies to prayer, for worship and prayer are intimately connected in Torrance’s thought. In the fallen Adamic humanity Jesus assumed from the Virgin Mary, Jesus stands in for us, vicariously offering to the Father the perfect human response of prayer and worship we are unable to offer. The incarnate Son of God has stepped into the covenant relationship in order to bring “God and man and man and God” near to each other, even in worship and prayer. He stands in that place where we cry out to God and “makes himself our prayer,” not a prayer in word and act only, “but a prayer which he is in his own personal Being” (Torrance, 1992:87). Torrance continues:

Just as in Jesus Christ God addresses his word to us in such a way that he himself is wrapped up in his word in the form of personal being, so in Jesus Christ God has provided us with prayer that is identical with the personal self-offering and self-oblation of Jesus Christ to the Father on our behalf. It is as such that Jesus Christ stands in our place where we pray to the Father, so that from deep within our humanity, where he has united himself to us, and from out of it, assimilated to his own self-consecration to God, he prays: “Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. . . .”

When we pray, therefore, we rely solely on Christ’s prayer to the Father offered on our behalf.  To turn away from our own prayer in order to rest in Jesus’ vicarious prayer for us is what it means to pray “in Christ’s name” (Torrance, 1976a:141). Because we are unable to pray as we ought, Jesus “puts his prayer . . . into our unclean mouth,” so that we may pray in, with, and through him to the Father and be received by the Father in him. Citing an old hymn, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling,” Torrance notes that we do not come to the Father in our own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ, taking refuge solely in his atoning sacrifice (Torrance, 1992:88). He continues:

In worship and prayer Jesus Christ acts in our place and on our behalf in both a representative and substitutionary way so that what he does in our stead is nevertheless effected as our very own, issuing freely and spontaneously out of ourselves. Through his incarnational and atoning union Jesus Christ has united himself with us in such a reconciling and sanctifying way that he interpenetrates and gathers up all our faltering, unclean worship and prayer into himself, assimilates them to his one self-oblation to God, so that when he presents himself as the worship and prayer of all creation, our worship and prayer are presented there also.

Torrance (1992:88, 89) sums up the vicarious nature of Jesus’ prayer with poignant reference to his own private devotion:

At the end of the day when I kneel down and say my evening prayer, I know that no prayer of my own that I can offer to the heavenly Father is worthy of him or of power to avail with him, but all my prayer is made in the name of Jesus Christ alone as I rest in his vicarious prayer. It is then with utter peace and joy that I take into my mouth the Lord’s Prayer which I am invited to pray through Jesus Christ, with him and in him, to God the Father, for in that prayer my poor, faltering, sinful prayer is not allowed to fall to the ground but is gathered up and presented to the Father in holy and eternally prevailing form.

Noting that the Father has promised to send the “Spirit of the Son,” mediated to us through the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, Torrance is assured that when he cries, “Abba, Father,” he is, despite his own infirmities, caught up in the “inarticulate intercession” of the eternal Spirit of the Father and the Son, from whose love nothing in heaven and earth can separate him (Torrance, 1992:89).

In regard to worship and prayer, Torrance clearly sets force the Pauline principle, “I, yet not I but Christ.” Because we are inseparably united with Jesus Christ in his incarnational assumption of our humanity, we are gathered up in him, so that we may pray and worship as we could not do otherwise. When the Father accepts us in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, there is no distinction between Jesus’ prayer and our prayers, for they are “one and the same,” “wholly his and wholly ours.” As Torrance argues, we can adapt Galatians 2:20 to our prayers and worship and rightly say, “We pray, and yet it is not we who pray but Christ who prays for us and in us; and the prayers which we now offer in the flesh, we offer by the faithfulness of the one who loved us and offered himself for us.” In all our prayer and worship, whether formal or informal, we come before God in such a way that Jesus Christ takes our place, replacing our offering with his own, “for he is the vicarious worship and prayer with which we respond to the love of the Father” (Torrance, 1992:88; J. Torrance, 1996:89).

Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ has profound implications for the Church’s worship, for our doctrine of God determines our understanding of worship and prayer (J. Torrance, 1996:71, 72). Throughout his life and work, Torrance sought to recover a Christ-centred, trinitarian worship for the Church, one that is evangelical, orthodox, and catholic (Newell, 2008:49). Torrance argues that over the course of time an over-reaction to adoptionism and Arianism caused the Church to focus on the “perfect deity” of Christ, with a consequent emphasis on his divine priesthood. As the Church in both the East and the West lost sight of the saving significance of Jesus’ humanity and his human priesthood, a “liturgical Apollinarianism” arose, as evidenced in the hymnody that praises the exalted Christ, rather than the human Suffering Servant who assumed our poverty. As the humanity of the incarnate Son was obscured by the emphasis on his divine nature, not only did the veneration of the human saints arise, but a powerful “substitute priesthood” began to mediate between God and man in the place of Jesus Christ. Torrance rightly calls the Church to recover an emphasis on the incarnation as God coming “as” man, as a “human” priest who vicariously does for us what we are unable to do for ourselves (Torrance, 1976a:185ff; cf. Newell, 2008:49ff).

Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and his substitutionary and representative role in both worship and ministry brings a much-needed critique to all forms of sacerdotalism, whether Roman Catholic or even Protestant. Against Roman sacerdotalism, Torrance rightly asserts only Jesus Christ is Priest; only Jesus represents humanity; only Jesus presents our prayers before God; only Jesus brings an offering with which the Father is well-pleased. To be sure, no one stands between God and man but Jesus Christ, who, in his incarnate constitution of divine and human natures, is the only Mediator. Against what he calls “Protestant sacerdotalism,” Torrance adds a timely critique of the personality-cult of much contemporary Evangelicalism. He accurately notes that in much modern Protestantism, the whole worship and life of the Church revolve around the personality of the minister. He or she is the one who stands at the centre of worship, offering the prayers of the congregation, and mediating between the people and God by conducting worship entirely on his or her own. Consequently, the humanity of Jesus Christ is displaced by the humanity of the charismatic leader, who obscures the person of Christ by his or her own personality. Against all forms of sacerdotalism, including any ministry that displaces Jesus Christ as its centre, Torrance cogently argues that Jesus Christ must be given his rightful place as “the Head and Lord of the Church, as its sole Prophet and Priest and King” by “being set right in the centre” of the worship, ministry, and life of the congregation “as the Body of Christ alone” (Torrance, 1960:244-246; cf. 1976a:206).

References

Newell, R. J. 2008. Apollinarianism in Worship Revisited: Torrance’s Contribution to the Renewal of Reformed Worship. Princeton Theological Review, vol XIV, no 2, issue 39, pp. 49-63.

Torrance, T.F. 1960. Justification: Its Radical Nature and Place in Reformed Doctrine and Life. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 13, pp. 225-246. Also available in Torrance (1996b:150-168).

Torrance, T.F. 1971. God and Rationality. London: OUP. 216 pp.

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

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

T.F. Torrance: The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ, pt. 8

Conversion

The Gospel calls us to repent and believe, even to make a “personal decision” for Christ. That is something each of us must do for ourselves. No one can substitute in that “ultimate act of man in answer to God,” no one, that is, notes Torrance, “except Jesus.” If we fail to allow Jesus Christ to substitute for us at the point of conversion, argues Torrance, we make his substitutionary atonement “partial” and, thereby, empty it of saving significance (Torrance, 1992:84).

In regard to our need of conversion, Torrance likens our fallen humanity to the prodigal son, who ran away from his father into the “far country” (Lk 15:11ff). By making himself one with us in our fallen and estranged humanity as it was running away from the Father, Jesus Christ “reversed its direction and converted it back in obedience and faith and love to God the Father.” In the incarnation, Jesus assumed our sinful humanity, and laid hold of us, even in the depths of our fallen minds where we were alienated and estranged from God, and “altered them from within and from below in radical and complete metanoia, a repentant restructuring of our carnal mind,” converting it into a “spiritual” mind.  As Torrance notes, in our fallenness, we were unable to escape from our self-will and the sin ingrained in our minds, so that we were unable to repent. Yet, Jesus Christ laid hold of our fallen minds, turning them around through his “vicarious repentance,” when he bore God’s righteous judgements on our sinful minds and, as the firstborn of every creature, “resurrected our human nature in the integrity of his body, mind and soul from the grave” (Torrance, 1992:84, 85).

Comment: Against Apollinarianism, that is, the wrong belief that the human mind was NOT assumed in the incarnation, Torrance follows the Chalcedonian fathers in rightly asserting the assumption of the human mind in the incarnation. The eternal Son assumes the sinful human mind and converts it back to the Father in “radical and complete metanoia.”

In regard to this great transformation of the human mind in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, Torrance continues:

It is significant that the New Testament does not use the term regeneration (paliggenesia), as so often modern evangelical theology does, for what goes on in the human heart. It is used only of the great regeneration that took place in and through the Incarnation and of the final transformation of the world when Jesus Christ will come again to judge the quick and the dead and make all things new. That is to say, the Gospel speaks of regeneration as wholly bound up with Jesus Christ himself.

Thus, for Torrance, conversion, or the “new birth,” does not apply to what happens in the heart of the individual believer but, rather, to the regeneration (paliggenesia) that takes place in the incarnation and the final transformation that will occur when Christ returns.

Comment: “Conversion” is not an emotional experience or a radical change in heart as the repentant sinner tearfully trods the sawdust trail beneath the billowing dome of the revival tent; it is about what happens in the regeneration of the human mind in the incarnation. May I suggest that we think of conversion “christologically” rather than “anthropologically”?

In this regard, Torrance (1992:85, 86; cf. J. Torrance, 1996:75) describes a conversation he had when he was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. When asked “if” he was “born again,” Torrance replied affirmatively. When asked “when” he had been born again, Torrance replied that he had been born again “when Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the virgin tomb, the first-born from the dead.” When asked to explain, Torrance replied: “[Jesus] took my corrupt humanity in his Incarnation, sanctified, cleansed and redeemed it, giving it new birth, in his death and resurrection.” That is, our “new birth,” “regeneration,” or “conversion” has taken place in Jesus Christ himself, so that when we speak of these terms, we are referring to “our sharing in the conversion or regeneration of our humanity brought about by Jesus in and through himself for our sake.” Torrance continues:

In a profound and proper sense, therefore, we must speak of Jesus Christ as constituting in himself the very substance of our conversion, so that we must think of him as taking our place even in our acts of repentance and personal decision, for without him all so-called repentance and conversion are empty.

Comment: Our conversion or “new birth,” is a sharing in the conversion of the human mind wrought in the healing assumption of Adamic flesh in the incarnation. Our new birth is a prior act of sheer grace, whereby, through no merit of our own, we are given to participate in the “conversion” of Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus Christ is its “substance,” conversion in a “truly evangelical sense” calls for a turning away from ourselves toward Christ. As Torrance (1992:86) argues, we must be converted from our “in-turned notions” of conversion to a doctrine of conversion grounded in, and sustained by, Jesus Christ himself.

In regard to the relationship between grace and human salvation, Torrance adheres to the Reformed tradition of election, with its stress upon the priority of God’s action in salvation over against that of human free will (Habets, 2008:350 n. 92). For Torrance, atoning reconciliation is a sheer act of grace on the part of God on behalf of all humanity. Because atoning reconciliation takes place in the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ, Torrance is critical of those who base salvation upon a personal “decision” for Christ. He regards the Arminian assertion that the atoning reconciliation of Jesus Christ is available to sinners only “if” they repentant and believe as “unevangelical,”  for it throws believers back upon themselves for their salvation and has the effect of telling “poor sinners” that, in the last resort, they are responsible for their salvation (Torrance, 1992:93).

In contradistinction to the evangelical insistence on connecting conversion to the individual believer’s personal decision of faith, Torrance locates conversion in the incarnation, wherein Jesus Christ acts in our place, that is, vicariously, even in regard to the personal decision of faith and repentance. When Jesus received the baptism of repentance from John the Baptist, it was not because the sinless Son was in need of repentance. Rather, Jesus was baptised in the Jordan River as a sign of the conversion of human nature wrought in his cleansing, sanctifying assumption of fallen Adamic nature. Thus, as Athanasius, in his Contra Arius (Torrance, 1988a:190 n 152) asserted, when Jesus Christ, as man, was “washed” in the Jordan River, we were “washed.”

References

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, J.B. 1996. Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 130 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. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

Rob Bell: Love Wins: A Big Thumbs Up!

Hey Everyone,

I recently finished Rob Bell's excellent book, Love Wins. It is an easy and enjoyable read. As best I can tell from a quick read through over several bedtimes, Rob is pretty much in line with T.F. Torrance in regard to his view of who's in and who's out and why. This is not surprising since Rob attended Fuller Theological Seminary, where Torrance left a significant influence, not only as a guest lecturer, but also through his student and faculty member, Ray Anderson.

Like most books that attest the universal reconciliation that is ours in Jesus, this book has received much criticism from the usual angry suspects. Like Torrance, Rob is "accused" of being a universalist, as if that were a bad thing! He is not a universalist as a close reading of the book will show. Many vitriolic critics refuse to take the time to distinguish between universal reconciliation and universalism.

I recommend this book. Rob can be very funny in the way he takes a number of evangelical beliefs about hell and "questions" them to the point of absurdity. Give it a try. I think you'll like it.

T.F. Torrance: The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ, pt. 7

Sanctification 
 

The Pauline principle, “I, yet not I but Christ,” applies not only to justification by faith but also to sanctification. Like justification, sanctification is an objective reality already accomplished in Jesus Christ. Torrance (1960:231) writes:

By the sanctification of our human nature we refer to what was wrought by the Son, not only in his active and passive obedience, but through the union he established in his birth, life, death, and resurrection between our fallen human nature and his divine nature. (emphasis in original)

In the incarnation, Jesus not only assumed our fallen flesh from the Virgin Mary; he also “sanctified it in the very act of assumption and all through the holy Life he lived in it from the beginning to the end.” For Torrance, the incarnation itself is a “redeeming event,” beginning with Christ’s birth in Bethlehem and reaching out to its full telos in his death and resurrection. Thus, sanctification is an intrinsic aspect of the incarnation. Jesus’ incarnational assumption of our fallen flesh deals with our original sin by “sanctifying” our human nature as it is brought into union with his holy nature. As Torrance notes, “In his [Christ’s] holy assumption of our unholy humanity, his purity wipes away our impurity, his holiness covers our corruption, his nature heals our nature.” At the same, the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ deal with our actual sin and its penalty. As Calvin wrote in a famous section of his Institutes (2008:II.16.19; 338), this applies to the entire life of Jesus, from birth through death, resurrection and ascension, for throughout the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father, as Torrance argues, “he has sanctified our conception, birth, childhood, youth, manhood, and death, in himself” (Torrance, 1960:231, 232). This is “supremely important,” notes Torrance. He continues:

[F]or it is only through this union of the human nature with his divine nature that Jesus Christ gives us not only the negative righteousness of the remission of sins but makes us share in the positive righteousness of his obedient and saving life lived in perfect filial relation to the Father from the cradle to the grave.

If we neglect the sanctifying aspect of the union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, argues Torrance, we reduce atonement to a “merely forensic non-imputation of sin.” At the same time, we lose the redemptive significance of the humanity of Jesus Christ by failing to give his entire life its proper place in the doctrine of atonement. Thus, in regard to the atonement, full consideration must be given to the union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, for it is this “saving and sanctifying union” in which we are given to share that belongs to the very substance of our faith and life in Jesus (Torrance, 1960:232). In other words, as Torrance continues:

[W]hat we are concerned with is the filial relation which the Son of God lived out in our humanity in perfect holiness and love, achieving that in himself in assuming our human nature into oneness with himself, and on that ground giving us to share in it, providing us with a fullness in his own obedient Sonship from which we all may receive. (emphasis in original)

Thus, for Torrance, both justification and sanctification are objective realities vicariously appropriated for us through the union of God and humanity realised in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Original sin is healed and cleansed through the sanctifying union of divine and fallen Adamic nature, while our actual sin is redeemed through the whole course of Jesus’ obedient life, as he stood in our place, vicariously offering to the Father the perfect response of faith and obedience we are unable to offer.

Rejection of Ordo Salutis

Torrance’s understanding of saving faith as an essential aspect of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ has profound implications for the doctrines of justification and sanctification. Nevertheless, confusion may arise for those who are accustomed to thinking of justification and sanctification as two separate events in a “process” of salvation. In Torrance’s thought, justification and sanctification are objective realities “already” realised in the hypostatic union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ and subjectively appropriated for us throughout the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father. Both justification and sanctification are integral aspects of the “Godward-humanward,” “humanward-Godward” movement of mediation in Jesus Christ. In his union of divine and human natures, Jesus Christ is, at once, the justifying God and man justified (Torrance, 1960:232, 233).

This objectively realised, “once and for all,” aspect of justification, however, was lost in the ordo salutis of Protestant Scholasticism, wherein justification and sanctification were assigned different, successive stages in an ongoing “process” of salvation (cf. Olson, 2002:276ff). In the Westminster Standards of later Scots theology, notes Torrance, justification was put first, with union with Christ and sanctification following upon the “judicial act” that takes place in justification. In the New Testament, however, argues Torrance, “sanctification” and “consecration” in Christ are spoken of in the perfect tense and express the same thing. “Christ has already consecrated or sanctified himself for our sakes, so that we are already consecrated or sanctified in him - therefore sanctification or consecration is imputed to us by his free grace just like justification.” These are not, however, two different processes or events. Rather, “sanctification” in the Johannine literature and “consecration” in Hebrews correspond closely to the Pauline concept of “justification” (Torrance, 1960:233, 234).

Torrance finds this teaching “deeply embedded” in Calvin’s theology, although it was obscured in subsequent “Calvinism.” In regard to the “subjective” aspects of justification, wherein God’s righteousness and holiness is translated and appropriated into human life, Calvin, in the Geneva Catechism, spoke of the consecrated and sanctified flesh or life of Jesus in which we are given to share, so that even his obedience is “imputed” to us. Through the union Christ wrought with us in the incarnation and throughout the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father, we are given to share in his holy and obedient life. Essentially the same point was made by Knox, who said that justification, regeneration, and sanctification flow out of our “adoption” in Jesus Christ (Torrance, 1960:234).

For Torrance, justification and sanctification are not sequential steps in a logical, orderly process of salvation. While the two terms can be conceptually distinguished, they are inseparable in Torrance’s thought, for both are objective and subjective realities fulfilled once-for-all in the incarnate constitution of Jesus Christ as lived throughout the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father, as our Representative and Substitute. Thus, justification is in no wise dependent upon the believer’s personal decision of faith; rather, it is an objective reality already subjectively realised on behalf of the believer by Jesus Christ (Torrance, 1960:235, 236).

Sola Gratia

In arguing that Jesus acts on our behalf in all aspects of man’s response to God, Torrance follows Barth, and the Reformed tradition in general, in asserting that salvation is “all of grace.”As Torrance notes, however, both liberal and evangelical theologians object to the assertion that Jesus Christ acts in our place in “all” aspects of our response to God. According to their argument, God may do everything else but he cannot act for us in regard to the personal decision of faith and repentance, which, it is argued, each person must choose for himself or herself. Thus, liberals and evangelicals eschew any doctrine of “total substitution,” arguing in a logical-causal manner that “all of grace” implies “nothing of man” and, thereby, threatens human freedom. Torrance argues, however, that both liberals and evangelicals juxtapose God and man, or grace and human freedom, in a “logical” way in which all of grace must necessarily mean nothing of man. This logical connection between divine grace and human freedom betrays the deep entrenchment of the Latin heresy (see post, 3/9/11) in Western theology, with its construal of the “gospel” in dualist and “abstractive” terms. Torrance notes further that it is an “unbaptised rationalism” of this kind that frequently characterises fundamentalist theology, particularly in its apologetics and polemics (Torrance, 1986b:480).

Justification by faith means that we reject all forms of self-justification. We look away from ourselves and exclusively toward Christ for the locus of justification. As Torrance (1960:238) argues:

Justification by grace alone remains the sole ground of the Christian life; we never advance beyond it, as if justification were only the beginning of a new self-righteousness, the beginning of a life of sanctification which is what we do in response to justification. Of course we are summoned to live out day by day what we already are in Christ through his self-consecration or sanctification, but sanctification is not what we do in addition to what God has done in justification.

Sanctification is not something the believer “adds to” justification by a “new self-righteousness.” Rather, both justification and sanctification are realised in Christo; that is, both are intrinsic to Christ’s incarnate assumption of fallen Adamic life and the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father. Torrance argues, however, that there is a tendency in the Westminster Catechisms, evidenced by their emphasis on the Ten Commandments, to return to the old Roman notion of infused sanctification worked out through strict adherence to legal precepts. The insistence that something must be added to justification and sanctification appears in both liberal and evangelical Protestantism in the idea of “co-redemption” and its emphasis on an “existential decision” as the means whereby we “make real” for ourselves the kerygma of the New Testament. This effectively means, argues Torrance, that in the last resort, our salvation depends on our own personal decision. For Torrance, however, justification by faith calls into question everything we have done as believers. As a Reformed theologian, he rejects any idea of co-redemption and aligns himself with the theology of the old Scots Confession and its assertion that “we willingly spoil ourselves of all honour and glory of our own salvation and redemption, as we also do of our regeneration and sanctification.” As Torrance rightly asserts, justification by grace alone guards the Gospel from corruption, whether by Evangelicalism, liberalism, or Roman Catholicism (Torrance, 1960:238, 239).

Next post circa September 1, 2011 A.D.

References

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

Torrance, T.F. 1960. Justification: Its Radical Nature and Place in Reformed Doctrine and Life. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 13, no 3. pp. 225-246. Also available in Torrance (1996b:150-168).

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

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

Torrance, T.F. 1996b. (orig. ed. 1965). Theology in Reconstruction. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 288 pp.

Torrance, T.F. et al. 1999. A Passion for Christ: The Vision That Ignites Ministry (edited by G. Dawson & J. Stein). Edinburgh: Handel Press. 150 pp.