All Things Torrance: Final Post

For the past two and one-half years we have followed in this blog my exploration of the doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ in Torrance’s scientific theology. During that time, I have identified a basic order or progression of ideas that helps me to understand Torrance’s doctrine of mediation.

This basic order begins with the methodological axiom that is fundamental to Torrance’s scientific theology. As Torrance repeatedly argues, in any field of scientific inquiry, knowledge must be developed according to the nature (kata physin) of the object of study as it reveals itself in the course of scientific investigation. From this fundamental axiom, two other basic principles naturally emerge: these are the principles of “onto-relationality” and “theological holism.”

Because reality is interrelational, an inquiry into the nature of the object of study requires that it be investigated within the nexus of “being-constituting” interrelations, or “onto-relations,” that disclose its identity. In keeping with this principle, I have located Torrance’s doctrine of mediation within the three nexuses of “onto-relations” that, according to Torrance, disclose the identity of Jesus Christ as incarnate Saviour of the world. These are Christ’s interrelations with 1) Israel, 2) with God, and 3) with humanity.

I began by following Torrance in grounding the mediation of Christ in the nexus of his interrelations with historical Israel, a matrix of interrelations Torrance calls the “womb of the incarnation.” Then I followed another fundamental principle of Torrance’s scientific theology, one he adapted from Einstein: “logical simplicity.” In my work on Torrance, I have adapted this principle to reduce Torrance’s vast and seemingly disconnected material on the mediation of Jesus Christ to a minimal number of elemental forms. By organising the themes of revelation and reconciliation in the mediation of Jesus Christ around these basic constitutive concepts, I have intended to facilitate the understanding and appreciation of Torrance’s thought by non-professional theologians.

The elemental forms around which I have organised Torrance’s material on revelation and reconciliation in the mediation of Jesus Christ are the Nicene homoousion, the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union, the doctrine of incarnational redemption, and the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Having examined Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ, it has become clear to me that Torrance’s thought on this subject could easily be reduced to only two overarching elemental forms: that is, the homoousion and the hypostatic union. Indeed, these two elemental forms are the primary “christological tools” of Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Christ. Torrance’s doctrine of incarnational redemption and the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ could easily be subsumed under his doctrine of the hypostatic union, for they are plainly corollaries of this doctrine.

In addition, the elemental forms of Torrance’s thought are related to another fundamental aspect of his scientific theology: theological holism. Each elemental form displays a unitary, non-dualist character. The homoousion precludes a dualism between Jesus and the Father, such as is found in adoptionist christologies, while the hypostatic union precludes a docetic dualism that separates Jesus from humanity. At the same time, Torrance’s doctrine of incarnational redemption guards against a dualism between the incarnation and the atonement, or between the person and work of Christ, by asserting that the incarnation is inherently redemptive while redemption is inherently incarnational. Finally, Torrance’s doctrine of vicarious humanity describes the intrinsic connection between the faith and obedience of Jesus Christ and our own salvation.

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I hope these posts on Torrance have been beneficial to many of you. I know that the work I have done, and continue to do, on this great theologian has greatly strengthened my relationship with Jesus Christ. I shall forever be grateful to T.F. Torrance for taking me deep into the loving heart of the Triune God.

At this point in my doctoral work, I am required to read many other dissertations-theses that have been written on Torrance in recent years. This itself is a vast undertaking. I will continue to write on subjects related to Trinitarian-incarnational theology as I am able, sharing with you what I am learning. No doubt, as time goes on, I will have much more to say about the greatest English-speaking theologian of our time.

T.F. Torrance: General summary

The following is a general summary of all the posts that have appeared in this blog, beginning October 2009, on the doctrine of the mediation of Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance.

General Summary

The doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance rests on the fundamental scientific axiom, derived from the natural sciences, that knowledge is developed in accordance with the nature (kata physin) of the object as revealed in the course of scientific inquiry. To know God through the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who is of “one nature with the Father” (homoousios to Patri), is to know God in strict accordance with God’s nature and, hence, in a scientific theological way. As Torrance argues, scientific theology will operate on a christological basis, for the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the “controlling centre” for the Christian doctrine of God.

A corollary to Torrance’s fundamental principle of kataphysical inquiry is the “interrelationality” of reality. As Clerk Maxwell argued in his “field theory” of electromagnetism, a theory in which Torrance invests significant theological capital, the “object” of scientific inquiry exists within a nexus or matrix of “being-constituting” interrelations, or “onto-relations,” that disclose its identity. Because the fundamental aspects of reality are relational rather than atomistic, the goal of Torrance’s scientific theology is to investigate and articulate the essential interrelations embodied in our knowledge of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. If being-constituting relations (i.e., “onto-relations”) are to be given their proper place in an inquiry into the mediation of revelation and reconciliation, then Jesus Christ must be viewed within three specific nexuses of “onto-relations” that disclose his identity: these are his interrelations 1) with historical Israel, 2) with God, and 3) with humanity.

Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ is rooted historically in the incarnate Son’s relationship with ancient Israel, a nexus of interrelations Torrance cogently describes as the “womb of the incarnation.” The cultic liturgy, particularly as enacted on the annual Day of Atonement, constituted the all-significant “middle term,” whereby a sinful, rebellious people could approach a holy God in appropriate worship. This “covenanted way of response,” which God graciously provided Israel, established permanent structures of thought and speech about God. Torrance describes these “conceptual tools” as the “essential furniture of our knowledge of God.” Apart from the pattern of divine revelation imparted in God’s historical dialogue with ancient Israel, particularly as enacted in the cultic liturgy, the mediation of Jesus Christ, as High Priest and sacrifice, Offerer and offering, would be quite incomprehensible.

The mediation of revelation and reconciliation in Jesus Christ must also be viewed within the nexus of Jesus’ interrelations with God. In developing his scientific theology according to the divine nature as revealed in Jesus Christ, Torrance adheres to his fundamental methodological principle of kataphysical inquiry, a methodology which requires him to develop his epistemology a posteriori, as he allows God’s self-disclosure in Jesus Christ to guide his thinking. Torrance follows Barth in rejecting natural theology as an a priori, antecedent conceptual system developed ‘independently’ of the divine self-disclosure in the incarnate Son, then offered as a preamble to faith. Torrance also rejects anthropological approaches to the knowledge of God, for example, Schleiermacher’s “feeling” of dependence, regarding these as mythological projections of the human psyche onto the heavens. For Torrance the Nicene homoousion, that is, the creedal assertion that Jesus Christ is “of one being (nature) with the Father,” is the epistemological linchpin in the knowledge of God and the sine qua non of his doctrine of the mediation of revelation and reconciliation in Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is not God in the same way the Father is God, then his mediation of revelation lacks divine content. Moreover, if Jesus Christ is not God, then his mediation of reconciliation lacks divine validity, for only God can save.

The mediation of Jesus Christ must also be viewed within the matrix of his interrelations with humanity. Torrance draws upon the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union to argue that 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. 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. At the same time, the deity of Jesus Christ ensures that his human word is also the divine Word of God. To mediate divine revelation to us, therefore, Jesus Christ must be both God and human, yet he must be God and humanity joined in hypostatic union, so that his word and act are predicates of one divine person. Otherwise, his divine word is not human speech to us and his human speech is not the word of God. Because the words spoken by Jesus Christ are the words of very God, Torrance rightly identifies Jesus Christ, not the Holy Bible, as “The Word of God.” The humanity of Jesus Christ is the “real text” underlying the written word of God and by which scripture must be interpreted.

In addition to its epistemological implications, the hypostatic union has vital implications for human salvation. 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. Consistent with his non-dualist, unitary theology, Torrance asserts there are not two acts in the life and death of Jesus Christ, but only a single, unitary action that is simultaneously Godward and humanward. If atonement is to be real, it must take place from the side of humanity if we are 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. To be sure, Jesus Christ, who is both Son of God and son of Mary, fulfils the covenant, both from the side of God and from the side of humanity, in one unitary movement of atoning reconciliation.

A corollary to Torrance’s doctrine of the hypostatic union is his doctrine of incarnational redemption, that is, the Godward-humanward aspect of the unitary movement of atoning reconciliation. In keeping with his unitary, holistic theology, Torrance asserts an intrinsic, internal connection between the incarnation and the atonement. For Torrance, the incarnate Son is no mere agent of reconciliation; rather, Jesus Christ “embodies” atoning reconciliation in his incarnate constitution as God and humanity hypostatically united in reconciling, sanctifying union. Simply stated, atonement is not what Jesus “does”; it is what he “is.” For Torrance, there is an unbroken unity between the person and work of Jesus Christ; that is, the incarnation is inherently redemptive and redemption is inherently incarnational. The unitary connection Torrance sees between the incarnation and the atonement is heavily dependent upon his controversial assertion of the assumption of “fallen” human nature in the incarnation. In contradistinction to the “Latin heresy,” that is, the view that the eternal Word assumed “neutral” human flesh as it existed in its perfect state before the Fall in order to offer it as an instrument in an “external” juridical transaction with the Father, Torrance supports the Patristic assertion that the “unassumed is the unhealed,” arguing that Jesus Christ had to assume Adamic nature in order to penetrate to the ontological roots of our fallen humanity in order to bend the rebellious human mind and will back to God in reconciling union. For Torrance, the hypostatic union is not merely a static union; it is a dynamic atoning union, wherein the actual condition of human estrangement is brought into reconciling, sanctifying union with God.

Torrance further articulates the intrinsic connection between incarnation and atoning reconciliation in terms of Calvin’s “wonderful exchange,” wherein Christ takes our poverty in order to give us his riches, and in the Patristic doctrine of theopoiesis, wherein Christ becomes what we are that we might become what he is. For Torrance, the atoning exchange “is” incarnational redemption, and incarnational redemption “is” atoning exchange, all worked out in the one person of the incarnate Son of God within the ontological depths of fallen humanity. An important aspect of the wonderful exchange between Jesus Christ and humanity concerns the reception of the Holy Spirit. All who partake of the nature of Adam are implicated in the Spirit’s descent upon the incarnate Son in the Jordan River. This has profound implications for the “range” of the atoning exchange. The range of atoning reconciliation is anchored in the nature of God, whom scripture describes as “love.” Because the love of God is unlimited and inexhaustible, argues Torrance, to limit the range of atonement is to introduce a limitation in the nature of God. Because the incarnate Son, the eternal Logos, in whom all humanity coheres and the very one “by” whom and “through” whom all things are created and “in” whom all things consist, has united himself to creation, all things, including all human beings without exception, are ontologically bound up in the incarnate reality of Jesus Christ, and are, in a profound sense, already redeemed, resurrected, and consecrated for the glory of God.

The universal range of atoning reconciliation bears directly on Torrance’s doctrine of election. Torrance’s rejects the Calvinist predilection for locating predestination or election in an inscrutable decree of God hidden in eternity past. For Torrance, Jesus Christ “is” the eternal word or decree of God. To detach election from the incarnation makes election precede grace and implies a higher will in God than the grace revealed in Jesus Christ. While Torrance rejects the traditional Calvinist doctrine of predestination, with its logical corollary of limited atonement, Torrance is no universalist. Notwithstanding the boundless nature of the atoning exchange, Torrance develops a doctrine of reprobation. In contradistinction to a doctrine of double predestination, he argues that reprobation is not the result of a divine decree but, rather, of the reprobate’s free but inexplicable decision to reject the reconciliation Christ has already provided for all.

An additional corollary to Torrance’s doctrine of the hypostatic union is his doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Emphasising the humanward-Godward aspect of the unitary movement of atoning reconciliation, this doctrine asserts that, as God and man joined in hypostatic union, Jesus acts from within the depths of the fallen humanity he assumed in the incarnation to offer to the Father the perfect response of faith and obedience on behalf of, and in place of, all. This vicarious response includes not only Jesus’ passive obedience on the cross but also the entirety of his active obedience offered to the Father throughout the whole course of his life. The key to this doctrine is found in Galatians 2:20, where Torrance translates pistis christou as a subjective genitive to assert that we live by the faith “of” Jesus Christ. This passage functions in a hermeneutical manner to provide a significant point of access for understanding Torrance’s theological vision of conversion, worship and prayer, the sacraments, and evangelism. In all these important aspects of discipleship, Jesus acts as both representative and substitute, offering to the Father perfect faith, obedience, worship, and prayer on behalf of, and in place of, all. Jesus’ response on our behalf, however, does not undermine our own response, but, rather, undergirds it as he takes our feeble efforts and unites them with his own self-offering to the Father. The sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist are visible forms of the Church’s participation in the self-offering and ongoing priesthood of Jesus Christ. Each sacrament finds its meaning, not in the rite itself, but in the objective reality underlying it, that is, the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and his self-offering to the Father. When the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ is emphasised in preaching the Gospel, evangelism becomes an invitation for hearers to become what they are, that is, to participate actively in the reality of the salvation that is already theirs in Jesus Christ.

Finally, Torrance models his understanding of the “movement” of grace in redemption on the “logic” of grace in the anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet. Transcending monergistic and synergistic views of the relationship between divine and human agency, Torrance asserts that “all of grace includes all of man.”

New blog link

Greetings everyone,
I am adding another blog to the "links" in the right-hand column of this page. Bobby Grow, at "The Evangelical Calvinist," is writing his doctoral thesis (dissertation) on Torrance's doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Bobby has been posting for years and has compiled a wealth of material on Torrance, Barth, and many important subjects related to Trinitarian-incarnational theology. Check him out at http://growrag.wordpress.com/. His work is well worth your time.

Martin

T.F. Torrance: The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ, pt. 13

The Logic of Grace
As Torrance (1992:xii) notes, some may feel that his stress on the unconditional grace of God, particularly in regard to the vicarious word and act of Jesus Christ in our place and on our behalf, undermines the integrity of the personal response of faith and repentance we are called to make in acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Saviour. Yet, as Torrance rightly argues:

Part of the problem here is that unconditional grace is too costly, for it calls into question all that we are and do, so that even in our repenting and believing we cannot rely upon our own response but only upon the response Christ has offered to the Father in our place and on our behalf.

While Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ radically undermines any Pelagian approach to redemption (i.e., the heretical teaching that we possess, at least in part, the resources to save ourselves), as Colyer (2001a:117, 118) rightly observes, Torrance’s doctrine of vicarious humanity includes the human response to the Gospel, yet in such a way that may require rethinking the relationship between divine and human agency.

Torrance’s view of the “inner logic of grace,” as it relates to divine and human agency, can be approached through the “theological couplet” of anhypostasis-enhypostasis, a technically precise expression that guards against certain heretical christologies. Though Torrance first learned it in interaction with Karl Barth, this concept is traceable through older Scots theology back to Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril conceived the terms to guard against a “schizoid” christology, such as Nestorianism, by asserting the “indivisible union of the divine and human natures in their undiminished reality in the one Person of Jesus Christ.” The negative term, anhypostasis, means that “apart from the incarnation of the Son of God Jesus would not have come into being.” Against adoptionist christologies, anhypostasis means that Jesus would not have existed apart from the incarnation of the Logos, for, in the incarnation, there was no “independent” human hypostasis (person) or reality which was “adopted” into union with the eternal Logos. On the other hand, the positive term, enhypostasis, asserts that “with the incarnation Jesus came into being and exists as a completely human person in the full hypostatic reality of the incarnate Son of God”; that is, the human nature of Jesus became enhypostatic “in” the pre-existent Son, so that the divine and human natures of Christ constitute “in their union one indivisible subsistent person.” In other words, against monophysitism, enhypostasis asserts that in the incarnation there is a real, fully human Jesus of Nazareth who exists in perfect “oneness” with the divine nature of Christ (Torrance, 1990:125, 199, 200; 1993:230; 1996c:71).

Comment: Anhypostasis: no incarnation, no Jesus. Apart from the incarnation, Jesus would not have existed. This rules out any “adoptionist” notion that the incarnation occurred when the Holy spirit came upon the man Jesus.

Enhypostasis: Jesus of Nazareth is fully human as well as fully divine. This rules out any Apollinarian notion that Jesus lacked a human mind or any monophysite notion that Jesus lacked a human will. Jesus was fully human just as we are.

Torrance (1993:230) applies the “logic of grace” embodied in the incarnation, as expressed in the anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet, to the relationship between divine and human agency in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He writes:

[T]he incarnation was brought about through the grace of God alone, without any human cooperation, yet in such a way that through the sheer act of divine grace the human nature of Christ, the incarnate Son, was given complete authentic reality as human nature in inseparable union with his divine nature. This gives expression to the singular “logic of grace” embodied in the incarnation: “all of grace” involves “all of man.” Instead of discounting human nature the downright act of God’s grace incarnate in Christ creates and uphold human nature.

Thus, while the human Jesus had no independent existence apart from the divine act of God in the incarnation (anhypostasis), at the same time, the human agency of Jesus is no less real because of its indivisible union with the divine nature (enhypostasis).

Comment: That last sentence is crucial for understanding Torrance’s articulation of the “logic” of grace.

Torrance (1990:190) applies the “logic of grace” embodied in the incarnation to the “movement” of grace by which we become children of God. He writes:

The theological couplet anhypostasia/enhypostasia expresses in succinct hypostatic terms the essential logic in the irreversible movement of God’s grace. It is by grace alone that man comes into being and by grace alone that he is saved and made a child of God, which he cannot achieve for himself. However, by grace alone does not in any way mean the diminishing far less the excluding of the human but on the contrary its full and complete establishment.

Hence, for Torrance (1992:xii), “all of grace” does not mean “nothing of man.” Rather “all of grace means all of man,” for God’s gracious act toward us in Jesus Christ “includes the fullness and completeness of our human response in the equation.” Thus, the anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet expresses the logic of grace, wherein “all of grace” (i.e., full divine agency) includes “all of man” (i.e., full human agency).

Comment: All of grace=divine agency; all of man=human agency

As Torrance (1992:xii), argues, the relationship between divine and human agency cannot be understood logically, because logically, “all” of grace would mean “nothing” of man. As Colyer (2001a:120, 121) rightly notes, however, to assert that the relationship between divine and human agency cannot be understood logically does not imply that it is illogical. For Torrance, the complex, ineffable relationship between divine and human agency is sui generis, that is, unique or in a class by itself. It cannot be reduced to logico-causal categories of thought. The problem is similar to that faced in modern physics, with its lack of an adequate conceptuality to schematize the nature of light as both wave and particle.

Nevertheless, thinking in terms of logical, causal, or necessary relations has led to the development of classic, competing theological explanations for the relationship between divine and human agency: for example, “monergism,” in which God is the sole agent in salvation (Augustinianism, Calvinism) and “synergism,” wherein agency is apportioned both to God and man (Arminianism) (Colyer, 2001a:120; Olson 2002:276ff). Against those who would divide the responsibility for human redemption into that which God does for us and that which we must do for ourselves, Torrance (1992:xii) argues:

All of grace means all of man! We must remember that in all his healing and saving relations with us Jesus Christ is engaged in personalising and humanising (never depersonalising or dehumanising) activity, so that in all our relations with him we are made more truly and fully human in our personal response of faith than ever before. This takes place in us through the creative activity of the Holy Spirit as he unites us to the perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary and raised again from the dead.

As Colyer (2001a:119) notes, just as there is full divine and human agency in Jesus Christ, there is an “analogous” fully divine and fully human agency in the human response to the Gospel. For Torrance (1990:125, 199), the relationship between divine and human agency is given “archetypal” or paradigmatic expression in the Virgin birth, an act that is at once fully divine and fully human.

The “inner logic of grace” embodied in the incarnation applies to “all the ways and works of God” in his dealings with humanity. Torrance’s emphasis on the gracious nature of Jesus’ vicarious acts in our place and on our behalf does not rule out human involvement in redemption; yet, our response to Christ is not under our own disposal, nor is it determined by the very human will we are called to renounce. Nevertheless, as noted above, human faith has its proper place in the “polar relationship” between God and humanity, wherein our weak and faltering faith is lifted up and undergirded by the faith “of” Jesus Christ. Our response of faith is a free participation in the faithful response of Jesus Christ already made on our behalf. Consequently, our faith, and human response to the Gospel in general, is not made redundant by the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ; rather, it is established, undergirded, and empowered.

Comment: Think about the Virgin birth for a moment. The incarnation came about when the Holy Spirit (“all of grace”) came upon the Virgin Mary (“all of man”). Thus, the incarnation is an event that is at once both fully divine and fully human.

While the incarnation of the Son of God remains an ineffable mystery, it is a mystery that has a wider application. We have already seen that the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, who believes and obeys in our place and on our behalf (“all of grace”), does not negate, nullify, or render redundant our own faith (“all of man”). Rather, it undergirds and establishes it. Now apply this “logic” to the “inspiration” of Scripture. Is the Bible a divine product or a human product? It is both! Both fully divine, hence trustworthy and reliable, and fully human, thus containing differing human recollections (e.g., the details of the resurrection stories). Torrance’s conception of the logic of grace allows us to transcend centuries-old arguments, including the relationship between divine and human agency (monergism vs synergism) and the relationship between divine and human agency in the recording of Holy Scripture.

In terms of their “for us-ness,” the implications of Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ for human response to the Gospel are astonishing, for his vicarious word and act includes “all of man.” In his faithful response to the Father, Jesus Christ believes “for us.” In regard to obedience, he offers the perfect human response to God “for us.” He justifies and sanctifies humanity in himself “for us.” Moreover, he worships “for us.” He even makes the “personal decision” of faith “for us.” Our faith, our obedience, our personal decision, our justification and sanctification are all implicated in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and his self-offering to the Father, so that we are fully and completely accepted by the Father in him. To be sure, the Gospel is truly “good news,” for Jesus Christ, in his vicarious humanity, is truly “God for us.”

References

Colyer, E.M. 2001a. How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 393 pp.

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

Iron Sharpening Iron

Scripture tells us that “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Prov 27:17). This is exactly what is happening on Tim Brassell’s Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/tjbrassell in response to my latest post on “evangelism” and the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Tim graciously encouraged his readers to view my post and I thank him for that.

One of Tim’s readers and friends is rightly concerned with the place of individual repentance, discipleship, etc., in the light of Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. He used the all-too-real example of a meth-addict who shows up at church on Sunday morning. How is the community of faith to approach this suffering soul in the light of his inclusion in the Triune life of God?

Personal repentance is an important issue in Torrance’s theology. For Torrance, there is an “urgency” to the preaching of the Gospel because of the very real possibility that some may reject the love of God given for all in Jesus Christ. Because, the issue of reprobation and “hell” is real in this tradition, Torrance calls for a proclamation of repentance.

I do not know of a specific definition or description of repentance in Torrance’s writing, however (If any one does, please let me know). I am familiar with the descriptions of repentance offered by other students of Torrance, but I won’t attempt to repeat them here. For me, repentance involves both changing our thinking and behavior, changes related to the gospel proclamation that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not (as NT Wright puts it). Therefore, get on board the Jesus train and become part of what he is doing here and now.

In regard to the preaching of repentance, however, there are two very different approaches, as I mentioned in the previous post. One approach is the “turn or burn” approach, particularly characteristic of older, and some, contemporary, evangelicalism. This approach regards repentance as a condition of salvation: If you repent, you will be saved. Inevitably, other conditions are added on: if you believe, if you obey, if you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, if you persevere, etc., you will be saved. This is the very form of “legal’ repentance which the Reformers fought against. This is NOT what I want to tell the meth-addict who comes to my church. More on him (or her) later.

In contradistinction to legal repentance is the good news proclaimed by the Reformers, what Calvin called “evangelical” repentance. “You are loved, you are chosen, you are saved: therefore, repent!” Here, repentance is a response to salvation, not a condition for it. This is what I want to tell the meth-addict.

I grew up in an alcoholic home. My parents divorced at a time when divorce was uncommon. Shame and guilt were my constant companions. A feeling of unworthiness has haunted me much of my life, especially in relation to all things “religious.” Moreover, the church has heaped enough shame, guilt, and condemnation on us poor sinners. We need some good news for a change. In this regard, Torrance’s approach to evangelism is vital and crucial.

When I was younger, if I came to your church and you told me I had better repent or God was going to send me to an eternity of hell-fire, I would have offered you the universal single-fingered gesture of contempt as I walked out the door. I’ve had enough condemnation; I don’t need any from you, thank you!

On the other, hand if you had told me:

God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very Being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. (TF Torrance)

then I might have been ready to listen. I might have even listened to your suggestions about getting help for my addiction.

In this regard, I want the meth-addict to come to my church. I want to tell him that God loves him unconditionally, that God has always loved him unconditionally, and that God will always love him unconditionally, no matter what. I’m telling you, brothers, this will preach!

Yet, this is not the end of it; this is only the beginning. I want to help the meth-addict get out of hell now and start living in the freedom of Jesus Christ. The meth-addict needs to repent, and I have a responsibility to tell him so. At the very least, his repentance would include abstinence from crystal meth and participation in a recovery program. If I am to mirror God’s unconditional love to this suffering soul, then I may need to direct him to a 12-Step meeting. I may need to get him into a treatment centre. There may be many things I need to do to minister to this suffering addict and in so doing, to minister to Jesus Christ (Mt 25). I will also need to assure him that God is with him in his brokenness, and will never let him go. Even if he relapses into active addiction, God will be there to pick him up out of the dirt and begin with him again on the road to recovery. And for the record, God will be there with him even in the hell of his using, but his addiction will blind him to the spiritual presence all around him.

Returning specifically to the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, this doctrine does not negate the importance of personal faith, repentance, obedience and discipleship. To the contrary, it empowers it. As Torrance repeatedly argues, Jesus takes up our puny, feeble attempts at faith and obedience and unites them to his own, including them in his High-Priestly offering to the Father. Thus we are free to obey, knowing that our failures and shortcomings are made whole in the self-offering of Jesus Christ. Where we fall short, he hits the mark; where we stumble, he stands tall. This is good news. Now my faith and obedience can be offered in thanksgiving and gratitude to God. I can give God the gift of myself (the only thing God wants from me), not out of fear of punishment but out of loving gratitude for the riches that are mine in Christ.

To me, the difference between a “gospel” of repentance as a condition for salvation and repentance as a joyful response to salvation is immeasurable.

Thanks again to Tim Brassell and those participating in the conversation on his Facebook page. We need more of this to sharpen us all up!

Martin

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T.F. Torrance: The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ, pt. 12

Evangelism

For Torrance (1992:92, 93), Jesus Christ must take centre stage when the Gospel is proclaimed. Noting Jesus’ teaching that we must deny ourselves to follow him, and that we must lose our own lives for his sake (Mt 16:24, 25), Torrance writes:

Face to face with Christ all would-be followers find themselves called into radical question, together with their preconceptions, self-centred desires and self-will, for to have him as Lord and Saviour means that he takes their place in order to give them his place.

Giving centre place to Jesus Christ is made difficult, however, by the “unevangelical” way in which the Gospel is often preached, for the call to repentance and faith seems to turn its hearers back upon their own faith and obedience rather than that of Jesus Christ. Torrance (1992:93) continues:

There is, then, an evangelical way to preach the Gospel and an unevangelical way to preach it. The Gospel is preached in an unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelism, when the preacher announces: This is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Saviour. Or: Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him.

Torrance describes this “unless,” “if” form of evangelism as a doctrine of “conditional” grace which “belies the essential nature and content of the Gospel as it is in Jesus” by telling “poor sinners” that the final responsibility for their salvation is transferred from the shoulders of the Lamb of God to their own shoulders. This conditional or legalist proclamation may lead sinners to doubt their salvation, notes Torrance, for if the chain that binds them to God in Jesus Christ has for even one of its links their own weak faith, then the integrity of the entire chain is in question. Because they are aware that the very self that is being called upon to make a decision for Christ is in need of salvation, the Gospel is not really “good news” for them unless it is announced that Jesus Christ, in his unconditional love, has put the human self on an entirely different basis by replacing it with his own vicarious faith and obedience (Torrance, 1992:93).

Comment: Modern evangelicalism proclaims a conditional “gospel”: If you repent, you will be saved. To the contrary, the apostolic/Patristic kerygma (proclamation) is unconditional: You have been, are being, and will be saved by Jesus Christ; therefore, repent (2Cor 5:14-21). Repentance is not a requirement for salvation; it is a response to it. As the Apostle Paul argues, you are reconciled to God; therefore, be reconciled!

For Torrance (1992:94), the Gospel can only be preached in a genuinely evangelical way “when full and central place is given to the vicarious humanity of Jesus as the all-sufficient human response to the saving love of God which he has freely and unconditionally provided for us.” According to Torrance, the Gospel is preached evangelically as follows:

God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very Being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.

Comment: We need to hear the above quote in many sermons!

Torrance (1992:94) goes on to assure us that Jesus Christ, “as man,” has acted in our place, even in our personal response to the love of God and our acts of faith. He continues:

He has believed for you, fulfilled your human response to God, even made your personal decision for you, so that he acknowledges you before God as one who has already responded to God in him, who has already believed in God through him, and whose personal decision is already implicated in Christ’s self-offering to the Father, in all of which he has been fully and completely accepted by the Father, so that in Jesus Christ you are already accepted by him. Therefore, renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.

Comment: Jesus Christ has already made a “personal decision of faith” in place of and on behalf of every one of us. We don’t “accept the Lord” in order to be saved; he has already “accepted” us and included us in his High-Priestly self-offering to the Father. That is what the doctrine of vicarious humanity is all about. Therefore, get off the fast track and get on board the Jesus’ train! All aboard!!

To preach the Gospel in this way, notes Torrance (1992:94, 95), is “to set before the people the astonishingly good news of what God has freely provided for us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ.” The evangelical proclamation frees us from doubts about the adequacy of our own faith, for it is not our faith, belief, and commitment that we rely on, but rather upon what Jesus Christ has done for us, in our place and on our behalf. Thus, we are liberated from all “ulterior motives” in following Christ on the ground of his vicarious response for us, so that we are “free for spontaneous joyful response and worship and service” in a way that we could not otherwise be.

Comment: Does Jesus set us free so that we can take up the chains of bondage and live again in the dark dungeon of sin, alienated from our Father? Of course not. He acts vicariously on our behalf, offering for us the perfect response of faith and obedience, so that we are free to worship and serve God. Thus, our service and obedience arise not from dreadful fear of awful punishment but as joyful, grateful responses to the salvation that is already ours in Jesus Christ.

References

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. 11

This post is the second 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.

The second of the two basic sacraments of the Gospel is the Eucharist. While baptism reflects our “once-for-all union” with Christ, the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper, reflects our “continuous participation” in Christ (Torrance, 1992:91).

To rightly understand the meaning of the “Eucharistic sacrifice,” argues Torrance (1976a:117, 118; 1992:91, 92), we must take into account the twofold movement of God in Jesus Christ. First is the Godward-humanward movement, wherein the divine Son assumes our human flesh in the incarnation “in order to identify himself with us to the uttermost,” penetrating into the depths of our disobedient Adamic flesh in order to pour out the love of God upon us, take away our corruption, sin, and guilt and to endow us with his holiness. Yet, the divine Son did not come simply “in” man, as in adoptionist christologies; he came “as” man, consecrating himself for us and offering to the Father the perfect life of filial obedience we have failed to offer. This is the second aspect of the twofold movement of atoning reconciliation, that is, the humanward-Godward movement, wherein Jesus offers to the Father “a holiness from the side of man answering to his own.” It is this humanward-Godward movement that is prominent in the Eucharist, whereby we “participate” through the Spirit in the self-consecration and self-offering of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is the sacrament of our union with Christ in his act of self-consecration, so that we might be consecrated in him, as he offers himself in holy obedience and atoning reconciliation to God on our behalf, then lifts us up and presents us to the Father in his resurrection and ascension. As such, the Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, is the sacrament “in which we offer Christ eucharistically to the Father through prayers and thanksgivings in Christ’s name as our only true worship, but in which the memorial of Christ which we lift up before God is taken by Christ and sanctifyingly assimilated into his own self-offering to the Father through the eternal Spirit.” In regard to our “participation” in the ongoing self-offering of the Risen Son to the Father, Torrance (1976a:118) continues:

That is what we do in anamnesis [remembrance] of him at the celebration of the Supper where Christ through the Spirit is really present in body, mind and will, taking up the Eucharistic memorial we make of him as the concrete form and expression of his own self-giving and self-offering, assimilating us in mind and will to himself and lifting us up in the closest union with himself in the identity of himself as Offerer and Offering to the presence of the Father.

Torrance (1976a:119) describes our partaking of the bread and wine not merely as something we do to “remember” Christ, but as a “communion” (koinonia) in the body and blood of Christ and his eucharistic offering to the Father. Like baptism, the anamnesis of the Eucharist is to be understood in the same “dimension of objective depth,” wherein the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and his self-offering to the Father is the objective reality underlying the rite. In the Eucharist, “Jesus Christ constitutes himself in his paschal mystery as its objective reality, conferring his real presence upon it, so that the anamnesis of the Redeemer in the celebration of the Eucharist becomes the effective form of participation which he grants to us in his self-offering through the eternal Spirit to God the Father.”

As Hunsinger (2001:152, 153) correctly notes, Torrance’s notion of “participation” is the key to the twofold, God to man and man to God, movement of atoning mediation, particularly in its latter aspect. Heaven participates in earth that earth might participate in heaven, yet not in a “synergistic” way, whereby our participation contributes something to our salvation. It is the action of the Holy Spirit, not the Church, which brings us into communion with Christ. To be sure, the Eucharist, like baptism, is both the act of Christ and the act of the Church, but as Torrance (1976a:107) argues, it is the nature of the case that the act of the Church serves the act of Christ and directs us away from itself toward Christ. As Torrance argues, “The Eucharist is what it is not because of what it is in itself as an act of the Church but because of what it is in its grounding beyond in what God in Christ has done, does do, and will do for us in his Spirit.”

As in the case of baptism, serious problems have arisen in the history of the Church when the Eucharist is detached from its objective ground in Jesus Christ. When considered apart from the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist becomes a sacramental rite, the performance of which is interpreted to imply a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ or, at least, to have only a moral meaning as evoked by its symbolism. When grounded objectively in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, however, the Eucharist points away from itself to its “constitutive reality” in Jesus and to “the saving mystery which he is in the unity of his person and work and word as the one Mediator between God and man.” At the Holy Table, our attention must be focused beyond the rite itself to the “inner relations” of the incarnate Son of God, who took our mortal humanity, making it his own in order to heal, sanctify, and renew it in himself, then lift it up in his ascension to communion with the Father (Torrance, 1976a:107-109). Torrance (1976a:109) continues:

Here we have to do both with the kenotic abasement of the Son of God to be one with man, and therefore with the participation and even passion of God in our actual human, historical and creaturely existence, and with the saving and sanctifying assumption of our human nature into the eternal life and love of God, and therefore with its participation and passion in the divine nature.

As with atoning reconciliation, or incarnational redemption, the Eucharist is not to be understood in terms of “external causal relations” between Christ and the Eucharist or between the Eucharist and ourselves. Rather, the Eucharist is to be understood in terms of “our participation through the Spirit in what the whole Christ, the incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Son, is in himself in respect both of his activity from the Father towards mankind and of his activity from mankind towards the Father.” It is Jesus Christ himself who constitutes the “living content, reality and power of the Eucharist” and who gives meaning and efficacy to its celebration by being savingly present in his mediatorial agency, blessing what the Church does in remembrance of him and accepting it as his own act done in heaven (Torrance, 1976a:109). Continuing, Torrance argues:

In so far as the Eucharist is the act of the Church in his name and is also a human rite, it must be understood as an act of prayer, thanksgiving and worship, i.e., as essentially eucharistic in nature, but as act in which through the Spirit we are given to share in the vicarious life, faith, prayer, worship, thanksgiving and self-offering of Jesus Christ to the Father, for in the final resort it is Jesus Christ himself who is our true worship. (emphasis in original)

Even as an act of the Church, the Eucharist is not to be detached from the vicarious, ongoing mediation of Jesus Christ, so as to be regarded as an “independent” act on our part in response to what God has already done for us in Christ. Rather, the Eucharist is an act toward God “already fulfilled in the humanity of Christ in our place and on our behalf, to which our acts in his name are assimilated and identified through the Spirit.” The Eucharist is a “form of the life of Jesus Christ ascending to the Father” in the life of those so intimately united to Christ through the Spirit that when they pray, it is Christ himself who “honours, adores and glorifies the Father” in them. While the Eucharist is an act of human beings, it is a participation in the same Spirit through whom Christ fulfilled his life of filial obedience within our humanity. Thus, participation in the Eucharist is “essentially a participation in the worship of the heavenly sanctuary which Jesus Christ their ascended High Priest renders to the Father . . .” (Torrance, 1976a:109, 110).

For Torrance, the celebration of the Eucharist means that, by communion in his body and blood, we are so intimately united to Christ through the Spirit that we participate in his self-offering and self-consecration to the Father made in our place and on our behalf. We appear before God in worship and praise with no other worship and sacrifice than that which is “identical” with Jesus Christ, our Mediator and High Priest (Torrance, 1992:91, 92). Torrance continues:

We come to the Holy Table to worship God, not protesting our own faith or conversion or godliness, but proclaiming the death of Christ who through his atoning exchange has replaced our poverty with his boundless grace. And so we put out empty hands and bread and wine are put into them which we eat and drink in communion with his body and blood, for we have no other offering with which to draw near to God but that one offering which is identical with Jesus Christ himself, through whom, with whom and in whom we glorify the Father.

Note here the all-important “middle term” in the covenant relationship between God and man. As Torrance notes, we bring nothing to the Holy Table, for we have nothing to offer other than what God has provided in his incarnate Son. In this regard, Torrance (et al, 1999:27, 28) finds it easiest to teach and preach the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and his substitutionary role in faith in the context of the Eucharist. Following the call to repentance and faith, we stretch out empty hands to receive the bread and wine. At the Holy Table, we realise we cannot rely on our own faith but only on the vicarious faith of Jesus Christ. Torrance continues:

Faith, as John Calvin taught, is an empty vessel, so that when you approach the Table of the Lord, it is not upon your faith that you rely, but upon Christ and his Cross alone. That is what the Covenant in his body and blood which the Saviour has forged for us actually, practically and really means. It is of the very essence of the Gospel that salvation and justification are by the grace of Christ alone, in which he takes your place, that you may have his place.

Torrance traces the reluctance of many believers to approach the Holy Table to the “subtle Pelagianism” that marks much contemporary preaching and teaching, with its tendency to throw believers back upon their own faith, so that, in the final analysis, the responsibility for their salvation rests upon their shoulders rather than upon Christ. As Torrance argues, believers are pushed away from the Church on Communion Sundays when they fail to understand the absolutely free and unconditional nature of the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ. To be sure, Jesus came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance (Mk 2:17). “Through the miracle of the Cross, he turns our sins and failings into the very means he uses in order to save us and bind us to himself. That is precisely what he pledges to us in the Communion of his Body and Blood” (Torrance, et al, 1999:28).

In regard to differing views of the degree of Christ’s presence in the bread and wine (cf. McGrath, 2001:522-528), Torrance espouses the doctrine of “real presence.” In describing how Christ is present in the Eucharist, Torrance (1971:119, 120) writes:

[I]t is nevertheless the real presence (parousia) of the whole Christ, not just the presence of his body and blood, nor just the presence of his Spirit or Mind, but the presence of the actual Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, ascended, glorified, in his whole, living and active reality and in his identity as Gift and Giver.

In keeping with Reformation theology, Torrance (1976a:119, 120; cf. 126, 127) goes on to assert that “how” Jesus is present in the Eucharist is explicable only from the side of God, “in terms of his creative activity which by its very nature transcends any kind of explanation which we can offer.” Jesus is really present “through the Spirit,” not merely as a spiritual reality “but present through the same kind of inexplicable creative activity whereby he was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the grave.” Torrance continues:

He is present in the unique reality of his incarnate Person, in whom Word and Work and Person are indissolubly one, personally present therefore in such a way that he creatively effects what he declares, and what he promises actually takes place: “This is my body broken for you,” “This is my blood shed for many for the remission of sins.” The real presence is the presence of the Saviour in his personal being and atoning self-sacrifice, who once and for all gave himself up on the Cross for our sakes but who is risen from the dead as the Lamb who has been slain but is alive for ever more, and now appears for us in the presence of the Father as himself prevalent eternally propitiation [sic].

For Torrance, therefore, the Risen Jesus is “personally” present in the Eucharist, making his mediatory activity through the bread and wine “real” and actual for us, not merely symbolic or commemorative, in a mysterious and miraculous way known only from the side of heaven.

In summary, the “key” to understanding Torrance’s view of the Eucharist is found in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ and the priesthood of the incarnate Son, as he represents God to us and us to God. In becoming one with us in the incarnation, he receives the things of God on behalf of humanity; having received what is ours through union with us, he, in turn, offers them to God as Mediator, thereby enabling us to draw near to God in worship. By eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Eucharist, we are given participation in his vicarious self-offering to the Father. Jesus Christ unites us and our worship with his own self-consecration and offers us up to the Father “in the identity of himself as Offerer and Offering.” In other words, we worship the Father through the priesthood of the Son in such a way that “it is Christ himself who is the real content of our worship.” Thus, even in the Eucharist, the Pauline axiom, “I, yet not I but Christ” (Gal 2:20), applies, “for what God accepts as our true worship is Christ himself” (Torrance, 1976a:110, 111).

References

See Torrance, Vicarious Humanity, pt 10