The Cosmic Importance of the Incarnation

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The Cosmic Importance of the Incarnation

by J. Matthan Brown
link here

Why did God become man? Was this simply a reaction to Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? Is the Incarnation merely contingent upon this event? Or is there more to this story?

When I was a Protestant I often focused exclusively on one aspect of the Incarnation–namely its leading to the death of Christ and the atonement for sins. While this is obviously of central importance (Christ most certainly did come to lay down his life for the world) it can lead to some misconceived and even detrimental notions. One of them being that the Incarnation was simply an “accident”; namely, that it was not absolutely essential for the redemption of creation. For many Protestants (not all) the Incarnation is viewed as merely a reaction to a particular event – the Fall of man into sin – rather than part of the cosmic destiny of creation itself.

I had this conversation in a course in philosophical theology I took last Fall. Having read multiple essay’s written in defense of Calvin’s notion of penal substitutionary atonement we engaged in a rather lively class discussion. Several of my classmates seemed to view the Incarnation itself as superfluous to our salvation and destiny. Everything, for them, hinged upon Christ taking our sins upon himself, dying on the cross, and satiating the wrath of God. Some didn’t even seem to find the mode of Christ’s death necessary–it was merely the “best possible way” to both satiate God’s wrath and offer an example for us to live by. To be fair, this view was not held by everyone in class, but did seem to be the predominate view of the author’s we were discussing.

This stands in marked contrast to the Catholic (and I include here Eastern Orthodox as well) tradition which understand’s the Incarnation to be more than a contingent event; a mere accidental happening in the history of the world. Consider this statement made by Peter Kreeft:

“Jesus is not merely the universe’s savior; He is the universe’s purpose. The Incarnation was not a last-minute fix-it operation. And it was not undone in the Ascension. He is still incarnate, still with us. He is with us in different ways. He is with us through the material things, for He created them and He sanctified all matter by incarnating Himself in matter.”

From the perspective of Catholic theology it has always been God’s intention to unite creation to Himself in an intimate way. In this sense the Incarnation was inevitable. Consider this, often neglected passage, from St. Paul:

“For he [Christ] has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10).

While the Incarnation clearly has soteriological implications, leading to forgiveness of sins and personal salvation, it is also a cosmic event. It is God’s plan to unite all things, in heaven and on earth, to perfect creation, and to offer creation a share in His eternal reality.

In the words of St. Maximus the Confessor:

“Because of Christ–or rather, the whole mystery of Christ [i.e., the Incarnation]–all the ages of time and the beings within those ages have received their beginning and end in Christ. For the union between a limit of the ages and limitlessness, between measure and immeasurability, between finitude and infinity, between Creator and creation, between rest and motion, was conceived before the ages. This union has been manifested in Christ at the end of time, and in itself brings God’s foreknowledge to fulfillment . . .”

Christ is not only the creator of the universe but its telos, its end and purpose. From this standpoint the Incarnation has much broader implications than the forgiveness of sins (although this is surely a central part of it). The Incarnation is not simply a reaction to the Fall of mankind but is mankind’s destiny. It is only from this perspective that we can arrive at the necessity of the Incarnation and appreciate the full scope of God’s redemptive work.

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Penal Substitution, Sola Fide and the New Docetism

by J. Matthan Brown
link here


Earlier this month I spoke about the cosmic importance of the Incarnation. Today I’d like to build upon this reflection. As I noted before, many Christians fail to see the Incarnation as the cosmic destiny or telos of Creation and, likewise, fail to see the work of Christ as including the sanctification, redemption, and renewal of the body and the physical/material world in general. For many, the work of Christ is narrowly construed. It was merely to satiate the wrath of God the Father so as to take away the punishment necessitated by sin (i.e., Penal Substitutionary Atonement). This popular view of the atonement is accompanied by another important doctrine classically referred to as Sola Fide or “salvation by faith alone.” It is this doctrine which teaches that belief—often understood as a sort of mental assent—in Jesus’ work on the cross is the sole means of our salvation.

I submit that both Penal Substitutionary Atonement (henceforth, PSA) and Sola Fide represent a form of “Neo-Docetism.” Unlike classical Docetism, which explicitly denied the Incarnation (that the Word actually became flesh), Neo-Docetism places such little significance on the Incarnation, and such heavy emphasis on Sola Fide (i.e., a mental assent to the propositional truth of PSA) it implicitly denies the Incarnation as being absolutely necessary for our salvation. Unfortunately, when we fail to view theology, and especially soteriology, through the lens of the Incarnation we run into major problems. Before we elaborate on this point, however, let us first take a closer look at Docetism as it was originally espoused.

Classical Docetism

Classical Docetism rejected the Incarnation outright and, in consequence, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (which was overwhelmingly accepted by all orthodox Christians for over a thousand years). Evidently, the original Docetist’s also rejected works of mercy as being crucial or necessary aspects of true faith in Christ. We learn this from the letters of St. Ignatius—who, consequentially, knew St. Peter and was installed as the Bishop of Antioch after St. Peter traveled to Rome . In his letter to the Smyrnaeans these three common threads of Docetism–the rejection of the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and works of mercy—are made very clear. St. Ignatius writes:

“But look at the men [i.e., the Docetist’s who deny the Incarnation] who have those perverted notions about the grace of Jesus Christ which has come down to us, and see how contrary to the mind of God they are. They have no care for love, no thought for the widow and orphan, none at all for the afflicted, the captive, the hungry or the thirsty. They even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayers, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness afterwards raised up again. Consequently, since they reject God’s good gifts, they are doomed in their disputatiousness. They would have done better to learn charity, if they were ever to know any resurrection.”

Neo-Docetism

By minimizing the soteriological importance of the Incarnation, and, in fact, failing to make it the measure of their theologizing, the Neo-Docetist’s appear to follow the same pattern as their ancient predecessors. They reject the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist—and, thus, renounce the Sacramental Worldview held by the earliest Christians. In so doing, they fail to see how the love of neighbor (in tangible ways) is of soteriological importance. In point of fact, Sola Fide flatly rejects the idea that works of love and mercy are necessary for authentic faith and, thus, for salvation. For some the Neo-Docetist attitude has morphed into a full blown Gnosticism which views the human body as superfluous (e.g., we’re just “spirit-beings” waiting to escape the body), considers matters of social justice of secondary importance, and almost completely ignores the environment. Interestingly, these Neo-Docetist/Gnostic tendencies play a major roll in why Millennials seem to be drifting away from evangelicalism.

Incarnational Theology

In contrast, theology viewed through the lens of the Incarnation recognizes the broader implications and importance of, “the Word [who] became flesh and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). It recognizes Creation as being essentially good (Genesis 1:31) and as originally intended to be in full communion with God. It knows that nature is ultimately designed to direct us to its Creator. It thus maintains a Sacramental Worldview which acknowledges the Holy Spirit works in and through the Created world to sustain and renew it.

It further understands that sin has subjected all of Creation to futility because sin estranged the Creation from its Creator. Affirming with St. Paul that:

“The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:20-22).

Incarnational theology understands that, by taking on a real body, the Word of God, through whom and for whom all things where made (Colossians 1:16), sanctified the flesh and ushered in the renewal of Creation. As a real man Christ lived a life of perfect faith—obeying the will of the Father, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, feeding the hungry, turning men away from their sin— admonishing us to do the same. Saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Thus, showing us that to have a living faith is to be like Christ; to love the world as He loved it; to obey the will of the Father; to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is why St. James says:

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14-17).”

Thus, salvation understood in light of the Incarnation is holistic–encompassing the whole of man. Jesus requires we give God everything we are. It is the first and greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:36). Mental assent given to a set of propositions about Jesus (i.e. Sola Fide) is not enough; for, “even the demons believe–and shudder” (James 2:19). Faith certainly has a knowledge component but is not merely knowledge. Faith is tangible–it is played out through us as we live our lives in the corporeal world.

The Eucharist

In accordance with everything that has been said, Incarnational theology also recognizes the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It embraces the most controversial of Jesus’ teachings because it knows that He desires to draw us—in our entirety, body and soul–into full communion with Him; for this is the very point of the Incarnation. Thus, it understands what Jesus means when He emphatically states:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56).

The Word became flesh to give his flesh for us; to transform us; to redeem us; to restore us to what we truly are: men and woman made in the image and likeness of God. What amazing grace this is–that the God who formed the universe would unite Himself to it in order to preserve and keep it. This is the Gospel message–the kingdom of God is at hand! The Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth draws near! Intimately and, some might say, uncomfortably near. It is the most provocative message ever proclaimed by any teacher in all of history.

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Bump!

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Why Jesus Came Into the World


Now the virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world, as was also her offspring, and the death of the Lord; three mysteries of renown, which were wrought in silence by God. How, then, was He manifested to the world? A star shone forth in heaven above all the other stars, the light of which was inexpressible, while its novelty struck men with astonishment. And all the rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a chorus to this star, and its light was exceedingly great above them all. And there was agitation felt as to whence this new spectacle came, so unlike to everything else [in the heavens]. Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death.

- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Ephesians)



We have, then, now stated in part, as far as it was possible, and as ourselves had been able to understand, the reason of His bodily appearing; that it was in the power of none other to turn the corruptible to incorruption, except the Savior Himself, that had at the beginning also made all things out of nought and that none other could create anew the likeness of God's image for men, save the Image of the Father; and that none other could render the mortal immortal, save our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Very Life; and that none other could teach men of the Father, and destroy the worship of idols, save the Word, that orders all things and is alone the true Only-begotten Son of the Father.

- St. Athanasius of Alexandria (On the Incarnation of the Word)



The reasons why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world are these: 1. The love of God for the human race: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16). 2. The restoration in fallen humanity of the image and likeness of God, as the holy Church celebrates it: "Man who, being made in the image of God, had become corrupt through sin, and was full of vileness, and had fallen away from the better life Divine, doth the wise Creator restore anew" (First Canon of Matins for the Nativity of Christ). 3. The salvation of men’s souls: "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). And so we, in conformance with the purposes of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, should spend our life in accordance with this Divine teaching, so that through it we may obtain the salvation of our souls.

- St. Seraphim of Sarov (The Reasons Why Jesus Christ Came into the World)

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The Incarnation: The Redemption and Glorification of Matter

It is 251 AD. A group of persecuted Christians in the catacombs are about to begin their evening prayers – called Vespers. They stand before two paintings, one of their Lord Jesus and the other of His Mother. Right before starting, some of their friends burst into the room joyously. Their secret mission to recover the bones of their slain brethren, who died as martyrs, was a success. They gather around the relics, each one kissing them and whispering a prayer. This gathering is not a macabre, secret cult. Rather, these beautiful bones testify to eternal life in Christ.

Most of these Christians converted from paganism, which, with its dualistic philosophy, held a low view of the body – that it was nothing more than a cage entrapping the spirit. What cosmic event could have created such an extreme paradigm shift in the way that humans viewed matter?


FALLING FROM PERFECTION

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Mankind himself was created in the “image and likeness of God.” After everything was formed, God looked upon all creation and declared it to be “very good” (Genesis 1:1,26,31). However, mankind fell into sin, bringing death, corruption, and decay into the world. Now, the matter that was once perfect groaned under the weight of sin and death. It needed redemption, but how? Mankind continued in sin, becoming worse and worse. Eventually, the Law of Moses was given. But that could not free matter from its bondage to death, nor could it empower man to overcome his slavery to sin. The chosen Israel of God continually mixed worldly ideas and pagan spirituality into their lives. Prophets were sent by God to warn the people; Israel was captured and exiled when they would not listen; yet, in none of these things could redemption from the formidable grave be found.

THE TURNING POINT

Within the remnant of righteous Israel, humanity produced the best possible offering they could bring to God: a young Hebrew girl called Mary who was dedicated to the service of God from her youth. She grew up in the holy of holies, being fed the bread of angels and dedicating her entire being to God. “In this way she made it clear,” states the divine Palamas, “and declared in advance to as many as have understanding, that she was to be the true shrine and resting-place of God, an incomparably better mercy-seat for Him, and the divinely beautiful treasure-house of the highest pinnacle of the Spirit’s mysteries.”[i]

From this holy young virgin, God took flesh and became incarnate, initiating the greatest mystery and event in all of human history. St. Gregory continues, “God emptied Himself in an indescribable way, came down from on high to the lowest state of man’s nature, and indissolubly linked it with Himself…He gathered both things into one, mingling humanity with divinity, and by so doing He taught everyone that humility is the road which leads upwards.”[iii]

In the womb of this Virgin, the divine nature was mingled with human nature in the Person of Christ Jesus, who assumed a human body, soul, and spirit – in order to heal our entire human nature. Our Lord did not mingle with only a little bit of our humanity, but embraced it all. St. Gregory the Theologian wrote, “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.”[iv]

To humanity, the Virgin offered God in her womb; likewise, the Son brought humanity into the Father’s bosom. “The Lord’s Body [was given] as a gift to God…placing it in the bosom of the Father,”[v] wrote St. Nicholas Kavasilas.

Forever human nature was changed as well as the entire purpose of life. No longer did those who followed the Lord God do so in the hope of receiving earthly blessings. Instead, man’s one goal and purpose became union with God, also called deification, divinization, or theosis (Greek). Unlike cannot unite with unlike – oil and water cannot be mixed. For that reason, God became man and mingled divinity into human nature so that the two could come together. Now, we are lifted up to divinity by grace without the necessity of pulling God down to something less than divine, being partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Like is united to like in the mystery of the Incarnation.

Through sin and disobedience, mankind, the crown and head of all creation, brought everything into death and ruin. A head cannot sustain injury – and fall to the ground – without bringing the body down with it. But through the New Man, the Second Adam, grace and life flooded into the physical world, initiating the healing and redemption of all creation. As the Apostle testifies, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17). And a little later he writes,

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly…creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:19-23).

This promise of redemption is not yet fully realized, but hints of it are streaking into the cosmos like sunbeams through gaps in the clouds on a rainy day. Panayiotis Nellas, summarizing the theology of St. Kavasilas, states,

The portion of creation initially assumed by Christ became henceforth ‘chrism’ for the rest of creation. The movement is twofold. Christ is extended within time, and the world is assumed. Christ is extended as he assumes the world. The Church is not a static state, purely and simply a sacred institution in the world. It forms a dynamic, transforming movement. It is the endless marriage within time and space of the Creator with His creation, the enduring mingling of the created with the uncreated. In this unconfused mingling in Christ of created with uncreated nature, creation is recast within the flesh of the Lord; it is reconstructed sacramentally, transformed without being destroyed – sin is destroyed – and [creation] becomes [the] Body of Christ and lives as such.[vi]

INCARNATIONAL WORSHIP

Matter has become the chosen instrument of God’s divinizing grace. We are no longer to think of it as evil, or even as morally neutral. It is something “very good,” and beyond good, since God Himself has united it to His divine Hypostases (Greek for “Person”). St. John of Damascus confirms the ontological change that occurred in our humanity due to the Incarnation. He writes,

“And of old, Israel neither set up temples in the name of human beings nor celebrated their memorial – for human nature was still under the curse and death was condemnation, therefore they were enjoined that one who even touched the body of someone dead was to be reckoned unclean – but now, since the divinity has been united without confusion to our nature, as a kind of lifegiving and saving medicine, our nature has been truly glorified and its very elements changed into incorruption.”[vii]

IMAGES

Because our Lord took on a body, we can depict Him in images, for He is now circumscribed. To paint images of our Lord Jesus Christ is not idolatry, but a recognition and affirmation of the grace that God bestows upon us through the matter that He took as his flesh. However, we do not depict that which has not become circumscribed, such as the Father or the Holy Spirit. As St. John of Damascus wrote, “But if anyone dare to make an image of the immaterial and incorporeal divinity, we reject them as false.”[viii] If current photographing technology existed 2,000 years ago, then we would doubtless have thousands of pictures and videos of our Lord. But it did not, so the ancients painted his image. According to tradition, the Apostle Luke painted the first icons. St. John of Damascus confirms how we can now depict God, “In times past, God, without body and form, could in no way be represented. But now, since God has appeared in flesh and lived among men, I can depict that which is visible of God.” We do not merely depict it, but we even venerate God through these images. St. John continues, “I do not venerate the matter, but I venerate the Creator of matter, who became matter for me, who condescended to live in matter, and who, through matter, accomplished my salvation; and I do not cease to respect the matter through which my salvation is accomplished.”[ix]

THE BODY AND THE EUCHARIST

Our salvation is completely dependent on the deification of matter. By venerating matter, we are witnessing to God’s work in it. We are also acknowledging the obvious truth that we humans are both material and spiritual, therefore, we need a form of worship that engages both body and soul. St. John of Damascus reveals its necessity, “We can only arrive at the spiritual through the material, for we are created twofold, possessing both soul and body.”[x]

Relics, like icons, are witnesses of the deification of matter. We venerate them, not simply because the life of the saint was inspirational, but because we recognize that these men and women have been deified through God’s grace. Likewise, we even give our departed Orthodox brethren the last kiss of peace at their funerals, acknowledging God’s grace within that person as a fellow partaker of Christ.

All of this comes to a climax in the Eucharistic banquet. We are commanded by our Lord Himself, at the Last Supper, to eat His flesh and drink His blood. As we give thanksgiving at every Divine Liturgy, we remember “all those things which have come to pass for us: the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Sitting at the right hand, and the second and glorious Coming.”[xi]

St. Paul wrote the divine command, “Do this in remembrance of me,” (1 Corinthians 11:24), which is not a mere practice of the will, mind, nor imagination. As Florovsky wrote, “It is undoubtedly not a mere commemoration of the Last Supper. In fact, it is the Last Supper itself. Christ Himself is actually present in the sacred rite…In the strong words of St. John Chrysostom, each Eucharistic celebration is actually the Last Supper itself, in its full reality, without any diminution. ‘This table is the same as that and has nothing less’” (In Matt. Hom. 82).[xii]

Speaking on Christ’s behalf to us, regarding the Eucharist, St. John Chrysostom writes,

“I united and joined thee to myself, ‘Eat Me, drink Me,’ I said. Above I hold thee, and below I embrace thee… I descended below: I not only am mingled with thee, I am entwined in thee. I am masticated, broken into minute particles, that the interspersion, commixture, and union may be more complete. Things united remain yet in their own limits, but I am interwoven with thee. I would have no more any division between us. I will that we both be one.”[xiii]

Matter has been redeemed; it is now salvific and it unifies us to God Himself.

End Notes:

[i] St. Gregory Palamas, “On the Entry of the Theotokos into the Holy of Holies II.” St. Gregory Palamas: the Homilies. Translated by Dr. Christopher Veniamin, pg. 423.

[iii] Ibid. Pg. 479.

[ii] -removed-

[iv] St. Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzen), NPNF Series II Volume VII, “Letter to Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius” (Ep. CI.), pg. 440.

[v] St. Nicholas Kavasilas. “Redemption or Deification?…”

[vi] Ibid, pg. 27.

[vii] St. John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, SVS Press, 2003. Translator: Andrew Louth, pg. 91.

[viii] Ibid

[ix] St. John of Damascus. Quoted from “’Never as Gods’ – Icons and their Veneration” by Constantine Scouteris.

[x] Ibid

[xi] The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Hieratikon, Volume Two. Hieromonk Herman and Vitaly Permiakov, St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2017, pg. 132.

[xii] Florovsky, Georges. “The Worshipping Church.” The Festal Menaion, Met. Kallistos & Mother Mary, St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1990, pg. 29. (Emphasis in the original quote)

[xiii] St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy, XV. NPNF Series I Volume XIII, pp. 463-464.

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Merry Christmas!!

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On the Incarnation of the Word




By St. Symeon the New Theologian

The Way in Which the Word Became Flesh

At the creation of our foremother Eve, God took the animate rib from Adam’s side and formed it into a woman. This is why He didn’t breathe into her, as He had done with Adam, but instead, the flesh that had been taken was made into the whole body of a woman. And the first-fruit of the spirit, which was taken at the same time as the animate flesh, was perfected into a living soul, so that another person was made from these two parts together. In precisely the same way, God the Creator and Maker took flesh from the holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, as if from a small piece of leavened dough- that is, from the soul and body together- and united it with His own unapproachable and incomprehensible Divinity. Or rather, He really did unite the whole of the Person of His divinity with our own nature, He compounded it separately with that nature and made it a holy temple to Himself. In this way, the Maker of Adam became irrevocably and immutably a perfect human being.

Just as He made a woman from the rib of Adam, as we said above, so He borrowed flesh from the daughter of Adam, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, Mary, and was born in the same manner as the first-born Adam, that is without seed. Through his transgression, Adam became the start of our birth into corruption and death, and similarly Christ our God, by fulfilling all righteousness, became the first-fruit of our renewal as incorrupt and immortal beings. This is what Saint Paul means when he says: ‘The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is the Lord from heaven. Those who are of dust are like the man of dust, while those who are of heaven are like the man from heaven’. And again: ‘Christ comes first, and then those who belong to Christ’.



Just as Christ became perfectly human in both soul and body, the same as us in everything except sin, He thus transfers His divinity to us through our faith in Him and makes us His kin, in accordance with His nature and His essence. Note this strange, new wonder. God took flesh from us, which He didn’t have by nature, and became a human person, which He hadn’t been. Since then He’s given His divinity to those who believe in Him – something which no angel or human being had ever before achieved- and they become gods by grace and position, which they hadn’t been. In this way, He grants them the authority to become children of God. This is why there have always been such people and always will be. Listen to Saint Paul on the subject: ‘And as we bore the image of the earthly, so let us bear the image of the heavenly’.

The Aim of the Incarnation of the Word

What is the aim of the incarnate dispensation of God’s Word, preached in all the Holy Scriptures but which we, who read them, do not know? The only aim is that, having entered into what is our own, we should participate in what is His. The Son of God has become Son of Man in order to make us, men, sons of God, raising our race by grace to what He is Himself by nature, granting us birth from above through the grace of the Holy Spirit and leading us straightway to the kingdom of heaven, or rather, granting us this kingdom of heaven within us (Luke 17:21), in order that we should not merely be fed by the hope of entering it, but entering into full possession thereof should cry: our ‘life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3)

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The Incarnation of God: The Cause of Man's Deification

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

The Church Fathers say that God became man in order to make man a god. Man would not be able to attain deification (gr. theosis) if God had not become incarnate.

In the years before Christ, many wise and virtuous people had appeared. For example, the ancient Greeks had reached quite high standards of philosophy about the good and about God. Their philosophy, in fact, contained seeds of the truth, the so-called ‘spermaticos logos’. They were very religious people, after all; they were not at all atheist, as some of our contemporaries are trying to present them, who do not know the facts well. But of course they did not know the true God; they were idolaters, yet very pious and god-fearing people. For this reason, by attempting to remove its faith in God from the psyche of our devout people, even without their consent, educators, teachers, politicians and civil governors act in a way inconsistent to the memory of the Greek nation, and so they commit "hubris" (gr. hybris) in the ancient meaning of the word. In essence, they attempt its de-hellenization, because the Tradition of the Greeks, throughout our ancient, recent and modern history, is a Tradition of piety and respect for God, on which all the worldwide cultural contribution of Hellenism was and is based.

In the philosophy of the ancient Greeks we discern a certain yearning for the unknown God; a yearning for the experience of God. They were faithful and pious, but they did not have the correct and completed knowledge of God; Communion with God was lacking. Deification (gr. theosis) was not possible for them.

In the Old Testament, we also find just and virtuous people. But the full union with God, Theosis, becomes possible, is attained, with the incarnation of the Divine Logos.

This is the purpose of the incarnation of God. If the purpose of man's life was simply to become morally better, there would be no need for Christ to come into the world, for all these events of divine Providence to take place; for the incarnation of God; the cross, the death and resurrection of the Lord; all that we Christians believe (gr. pistis) to have happened by Christ. The human race could have been taught to become morally better by the prophets, the philosophers, the righteous men and teachers, just as well.

We know that Adam and Eve were beguiled by the devil and wanted to become gods, but not in collaboration with God; not through humility, obedience, or love; but relying on their own power, their own will, egotistically and autonomously. That is to say that the essence of the fall is egotism. Thus, by adopting egotism and self-reliance, they separated themselves from God, and instead of attaining deification (gr. theosis), they attained exactly the opposite: spiritual death.

As the Church Fathers say, God is life. So, whoever is separated from God is separated from life. Therefore, death and spiritual mortification are the outcome of the disobedience of the first-created.

We all know the consequences of the fall. Separation from God cast man into a carnal, bestial and demonic life. The brilliant creation of God fell seriously ill, almost to death. What had been made ‘in His image’ was sullied. Since the fall, man no longer has the preconditions for proceeding to deification (gr. theosis), as he had before he sinned. In this situation of grave illness, almost dead, he can no longer re-orient himself towards God. Thus there is a need for a new root for humanity; a need for a new man, who will be healthy and able to redirect the freedom of man towards God.

This new root, the new man, is the God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son and Logos of God, who incarnates to become the new root, the new beginning, the new leaven of humanity.

As St. Gregory Nazianzen, the Theologian, says in his theological writings, with the incarnation of the Logos a second communion between God and humanity is realized. The first such communion was in Paradise. This, however, was broken. Man was separated from God. The all-good God then provided for another, a second communion, which can no longer be severed, that is, a union of God and men. Because this, the second communion of God and men happens in the person of Christ.

The God-man Christ, the Son and Logos of God the Father, has two perfect natures: divine and human. These two perfect natures are joined ‘without change, without confusion, without separation, and without division’ in the one person of Christ, according to the famous definition of the Fourth Holy Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon, which, in summary, constitutes the theological armor of our Orthodox Church, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, against Christological heresies of all kinds throughout all ages. Thus, we have one Christ with two natures, divine and human.

Now then, by means of the union of the two natures in the person of Christ, human nature is irrevocably united with divine nature. Because Christ is the eternal God-man. As the God-man, He ascended to heaven. As the God-man, He sits on the right hand of the Father. As the God-man, He will come to judge the world at the Second Coming. Therefore, human nature is now enthroned in the bosom of the Holy Trinity. No longer can anything cut off human nature from God. So, now, after the incarnation of the Lord – no matter how much we as men sin, no matter how much we detach ourselves from God – if, through repentance, we wish to unite again with God, we can succeed. We can unite with Him and so become gods by Grace.

[TER]

The Incarnation and Redemption

Fr. George Florovsky

"The Word became flesh": in this is the ultimate joy of the Christian faith. In this is the fullness of Revelation. The Same Incarnate Lord is both perfect God and perfect man. The full significance and the ultimate purpose of human existence is revealed and realized in and through the Incarnation. He came down from Heaven to redeem the earth, to unite man with God for ever. "And became man." The new age has been initiated. We count now the "anni Domini!" As St. Irenaeus wrote: "the Son of God became the Son of Man, that man also might become the son of God."1 Not only is the original fullness of human nature restored or re-established in the Incarnation. Not only does human nature return to its once lost communion with God. The Incarnation is also the new Revelation, the new and further step. The first Adam was a living soul. But the last Adam is the Lord from Heaven (1 Cor. 15:47). And in the Incarnation of the Word human nature was not merely anointed with a superabundant overflowing of Grace, but was assumed into an intimate and hypostatical unity with the Divinity itself. In that lifting up of human nature into an everlasting communion with the Divine Life, the Fathers of the early Church unanimously saw the very essence of salvation, the basis of the whole redeeming work of Christ. "That is saved which is united with God," says St. Gregory of Nazianzus. And what was not united could not be saved at all. This was his chief reason for insisting, against Apollinarius,2 on the fullness of human nature, assumed by the Only Begotten in the Incarnation. This was the fundamental motive in the whole of early theology, in St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, the Cappa-docian Fathers, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor. The whole history of Christological dogma was determined by this fundamental conception: the Incarnation of the Word as Redemption. In the Incarnation human history is completed. God’s eternal will is accomplished, "the mystery from eternity hidden and to angels unknown." The days of expectation are over. The Promised and the Expected has come. And from henceforth, to use the phrase of St. Paul, the life of man "is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).

The Incarnation of the Word was an absolute manifestation of God. And above all it was a revelation of Life. Christ is the Word of Life, ο λόγος της ζωής… "and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" (1 John 1:1-2).3 The Incarnation is the quickening of man, as it were, the resurrection of human nature. But the climax of the Gospel is the Cross, the death of the Incarnate. Life has been revealed in full through death. This is the paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith: life through death, life from the grave and out of the grave, the mystery of the life-bearing grave. And we are born to real and eternal life only through our baptismal death and burial in Christ; we are regenerated with Christ in the baptismal font. Such is the invariable law of true life. "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die" (I Cor. 15:36).



"Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16). But God was not manifest in order to recreate the world at once by the exercise of His omnipotent might, or to illuminate and transfigure it by the overwhelming light of His glory. It was in the uttermost humiliation that this revelation of Divinity was wrought. The Divine will does not abolish the original status of human freedom or "self-power" [το αύτεξούσιον], it does not destroy or abolish the "ancient law of human freedom."4 Herein is revealed a certain self-limitation or "kenosis" of the Divine might. And more than that, a certain kenosis of Divine Love itself. Divine love, as it were, restricts and limits itself in the maintenance of the freedom of the creation. Love does not impose the healing by compulsion as it might have done. There was no compelling evidence in this manifestation of God. Not all recognized the Lord of Glory under that "guise of the servant" He deliberately took upon Himself. And whosoever did recognize, did so not by any natural insight, but by the revelation of the Father (cf. Matt. 16:17). The Incarnate Word appeared on earth as man among men. This was the redeeming assumption of all human fullness, not only of human nature, but also of all the fullness of human life. The Incarnation had to be manifested in all the fullness of life, in the fullness of human ages, that all that fullness might be sanctified. This is one of the aspects of the idea of the "summing up" of all in Christ (recapitulatio, άνακεφαλαίωσις) which was taken up with such emphasis by St. Irenaeus from St. Paul.5 This was the "humiliation" of the Word (cf. Phil. 2:7). But this "kenosis" was no reduction of His Divinity, which in the Incarnation continues unchanged, ανευ τροπής. It was, on the contrary, a lifting-up of man, the "deification" of human nature, the "theosis." As St. John Damascene says, in the Incarnation "three things were accomplished at once: the assumption, the existence, and the deification of humanity by the Word."6 It must be stressed that in the Incarnation the Word assumes the original human nature, innocent and free from original sin, without any stain. This does not violate the fullness of nature, nor does this affect the Savior’s likeness to us sinful people. For sin does not belong to human nature, but is a parasitic and abnormal growth. This point was vigorously stressed by St. Gregory of Nyssa and particularly by St. Maximus the Confessor in connection with their teaching of the will as the seat of sin.7 In the Incarnation the Word assumes the first-formed human nature, created "in the image of God," and thereby the image of God is again re-established in man.8 This was not yet the assumption of human suffering or of suffering humanity. It was an assumption of human life, but not yet of human death. Christ’s freedom from original sin constitutes also His freedom from death, which is the "wages of sin." Christ is unstained from corruption and mortality right from His birth. And like the First Adam before the Fall, He is able not to die at all, potens non mori, though obviously He can still die, potens autem mori. He was exempt from the necessity of death, because His humanity was pure and innocent. Therefore Christ’s death was and could not but be voluntary, not by the necessity of fallen nature, but by free choice and acceptance.9



A distinction must be made between the assumption of human nature and the taking up of sin by Christ. Christ is "the Lamb of God that taketh the sin of the world" (John I:29).10 But He does not take the sin of the world in the Incarnation. That is an act of the will, not a necessity of nature. The Savior bears the sin of the world (rather than assumes it) by the free choice of love. He bears it in such a way that it does not become His own sin, or violate the purity of His nature and will. He carries it freely; hence this "taking up" of sin has a redeeming power, as a free act of compassion and love.11 This taking up of sin is not merely a compassion. In this world, which "lies in sin," even purity itself is suffering, it is a fount or cause of suffering. Hence it is that the righteous heart grieves and aches over unrighteousness, and suffers from the unrighteousness of this world. The Savior’s life, as the life of a righteous and pure being, as a life pure and sinless, must inevitably have been in this world the life of one who suffered. The good is oppressive to this world, and this world is oppressive to the good. This world resists good and does not regard light. And it does not accept Christ, it rejects both Him and His Father (John 15:23-24). The Savior submits Himself to the order of this world, forbears, and the very opposition of this world is covered by His all-forgiving love: "They know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). The whole life of Our Lord is one Cross. But suffering is not yet the whole Cross. The Cross is more than merely suffering Good. The sacrifice of Christ is not yet exhausted by His obedience and endurance, forbearance, compassion, all-forgivingness. The one redeeming work of Christ cannot be separated into parts. Our Lord’s earthly life is one organic whole, and His redeeming action cannot be exclusively connected with any one particular moment in that life. However, the climax of this life was its death. And the Lord plainly bore witness to the hour of death: "For this cause came I unto this hour" (John 12:27). The redeeming death is the ultimate purpose of the Incarnation."

The mystery of the Cross is beyond our rational comprehension. This "terrible sight" seems strange and startling. The whole life of Our Blessed Lord was one great act of forbearance, mercy and love. And the whole of it is illuminated by the eternal radiance of Divinity, though that radiance is invisible to the world of flesh and sin. But salvation is completed on Golgotha, not on Tabor, and the Cross of Jesus was foretold even on Tabor (cf. Luke 9:31). Christ came not only that He might teach with authority and tell people the name of the Father, not only that He might accomplish works of mercy. He came to suffer and to die, and to rise again. He Himself more than once witnessed to this before the perplexed and startled disciples. He not only prophesied the coming Passion and death, but plainly stated that He must, that He had to, suffer and be killed. He plainly said that "must," not simply "was about to." "And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mark 8:31, Matthew 16:21, Luke 9:22, 24:26). "Must" [δει] not just according to the law of this world, in which good and truth is persecuted and rejected, not just according to the law of hatred and evil. The death of Our Lord was in full freedom. No one takes His life away. He Himself offers His soul by His own supreme will and authority. "I have authority," — έξουσίαν εχω — (John 10:18). He suffered and died, "not because He could not escape suffering, but because He chose to suffer," as it is stated in the Russian Catechism. Chose, not merely in the sense of voluntary endurance or non-resistance, not merely in the sense that He permitted the rage of sin and unrighteousness to be vented on Himself. He not only permitted but willed it. He "must have died according to the law of truth and love. In no way was the Crucifixion a passive suicide or simply murder. It was a Sacrifice and an oblation. He had to die. This was not the necessity of this world. This was the necessity of Divine Love. The mystery of the Cross begins in eternity, "in the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, unapproachable for creatures." And the transcendent mystery of God’s wisdom and love is revealed and fulfilled in history. Hence Christ is spoken of as the Lamb, "who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world" (Peter 1:19), and even "that hath been slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). "The Cross of Jesus, composed of the enmity of the Jews and the violence of the Gentiles, is indeed but the earthly image and shadow of this heavenly Cross of love."14 This "Divine necessity" of the death on the Cross passes all understanding indeed. And the Church has never attempted any rational definition of this supreme mystery. Scriptural terms have appeared, and do still appear, to be the most adequate ones. In any case, no merely ethical categories will do. The moral, and still more the legal or juridical conceptions, can never be more than colorless anthropomorphism. This is true even of the idea of sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ cannot be considered as a mere offering or surrender. That would not explain the necessity of the death. For the whole life of the Incarnate One was one continuous sacrifice. Why then was this purest life yet insufficient for victory over death? Why was death vanquished only by death? And was death really a terrifying prospect for the Righteous One, for the Incarnate One, especially in the supreme foreknowledge of the coming Resurrection on the third day? But even ordinary Christian martyrs have accepted all their torments and sufferings, and death itself, in full calm and joy, as a crown and a triumph. The Chief of martyrs, the Protomartyr Christ Himself, was not less than they. And, by the same "Divine decree," by the same "Divine necessity," He "must" not only have been executed and reviled, and have died, but also have been raised on the third day. Whatever may be our interpretation of the Agony in the Garden, one point is perfectly clear. Christ was not a passive victim, but the Conqueror, even in His uttermost humiliation. He knew that this humiliation was no mere endurance or obedience, but the very path of Glory and of the ultimate victory. Nor does the idea of Divine justice alone, justitia vindicativa, reveal the ultimate meaning of the sacrifice of the Cross. The mystery of the Cross cannot be adequately presented in terms of the transaction, the requital, or the ransom.15 If the value of the death of Christ was infinitely enhanced by His Divine Personality, the same also applies to the whole of His life. All His deeds have an infinite value and significance as the deeds of the Incarnate Word of God. And they cover indeed superabundantly both all misdeeds and sinful shortcomings of the fallen human race. Finally, there could hardly be any retributive justice in the Passion and death of the Lord, which might possibly have been in the death of even a righteous man. For this was not the suffering and death of a mere man, graciously supported by the Divine help because of his faithfulness and endurance. This death was the suffering of the Incarnate Son of God Himself, the suffering of unstained human nature already deified by its assumption into the hypostasis of the Word. Nor is this to be explained by the idea of a substitutional satisfaction, the satisfactio vicaria of the scholastics. Not because substitution is not possible. Christ did indeed take upon Himself the sin of the world. But because God does not seek the sufferings of anyone, He grieves over them. How could the penal death of the Incarnate, most pure and undefiled, be the abolition of sin, if death itself is the wages of sin, and if death exists only in the sinful world? Does Justice really restrain Love and Mercy, and was the Crucifixion needed to disclose the pardoning love of God, otherwise precluded from manifesting itself by the restraint of vindicatory justice? If there was any restraint at all, it was rather a restraint of love. And justice was accomplished, in that Salvation was wrought by condescension, by a "kenosis," and not by omnipotent might. Probably a recreation of fallen mankind by the mighty intervention of the Divine omnipotence would have seemed to us simpler and more merciful. Strangely enough, the fullness of the Divine Love, which is intent to preserve our human freedom, appears to us rather as a severe request of transcendent justice, simply because it implies an appeal to the cooperation of the human will. Thus Salvation becomes a task for man himself also, and can be consummated only in freedom, with the response of man. The "image of God" is manifested in freedom. And freedom itself is all too often a burden for man. And in a certain sense it is indeed a superhuman gift and request, a supernatural path, the path of "deification," theosis. Is not this very theosis a burden for a self-imprisoned, selfish, and self-sufficient being? And yet this burdensome gift of freedom is the ultimate mark of the Divine love and benevolence towards man. The Cross is not a symbol of Justice, but the symbol of Love Divine. St. Gregory of Nazianzus utters all these doubts with great emphasis in his remarkable Easter Sermon:



To whom, and why, is this blood poured out for us and shed, the great and most precious blood of God, the High Priest and Victim … We were in the power of the Evil One, sold to sin, and had brought this harm on ourselves by sensuality … If the price of ransom is given to none other than him in whose power we are held, then I ask, to whom and for what reason is such a price paid … If it is to the Evil One, then how insulting is this! The thief receives the price of ransom; he not only receives it from God, but even receives God Himself. For his tyranny he receives so large a price that it was only right to have mercy upon us … If to the Father, then first, in what way ? Were we not in captivity under Him … And secondly, for what reason? For what reason was the blood of the Only Begotten pleasing to the Father, Who did not accept even Isaac, when offered by his father, but exchanged the offering, giving instead of the reasonable victim a lamb?

By all these questions St. Gregory tries to make clear the inexplicability of the Cross in terms of vindicatory justice. And he concludes: "From this it is evident that the Father accepted [the sacrifice], not because He demanded or had need, but by economy and because man had to be sanctified by the humanity of God."16

Redemption is not just the forgiveness of sins, it is not just man’s reconciliation with God. Redemption is the abolition of sin altogether, the deliverance from sin and death. And Redemption was accomplished on the Cross, "by the blood of His Cross" (Col. 1:20; cf. Acts 20:28; Rom. 5:9; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:22; I John 1:7; Rev. 1:5-6, 5:9). Not by the suffering of the Cross only, but precisely by the death on the Cross. And the ultimate victory is wrought, not by sufferings or endurance, but by death and resurrection. We enter here into the ontological depth of human existence. The death of Our Lord was the victory over death and mortality, not just the remission of sins, nor merely a justification of man, nor again a satisfaction of an abstract justice. And the very key to the Mystery can be given only by a coherent doctrine of human death.

Notes:

1. St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, III. 10.2: ut fieret filius hominis, ad hoc ut et **** fieret filius Dei, M.G. VII, c. 875; cf. III. 19.1, coll. 939-940; IV.33.4, c. 1074; V. praef., c. 1120. See also St. Athanasius, De incarnatione, 54, M.G. XXV, c. 192: αυτός γαρ ένανθρώπησεν ίνα ήμεΐς θεοποιηθώμεν.

2. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epist. CI, ad Cledonium, M.G. XXXVII, c. 118-181: o δε ήνωται τω θεφ τούτο και σώζεται.

3. Cf. St. Ignatius, Ephes. VII.2: "in death true life," έν θανάτφ ζωή αληθινή, Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. II, v. II.1, p. 48.



4. The phrase is by St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres, IV.37.1, M.G. VII, c. 1099: "veterem legem libertatis humanae manifestavit, quid liberum eum Deus fecit ab initio, habentem suam potestatem sicut et suam animam, ad utendum sententiam Dei voluntarie, et non coactum a Deo."

5. Ibid., III.18.1: sed quando incarnatus est, et **** factus, longam hominum expositionem in seipso recapitulavit, in compendio nobis salutem praestans." (c. 932); 111,18.7: quapropter et per omnem venit aetatem omnibus restituens earn quae est ad Deum communionem. (c. 937); II.22.4: sed omnem aetatem sanctificans per illam, quae ad ipsum erat, similitudinem . . . ideo per omnem venit aetatem, et injantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes, in parvulis parvulus, sanctificans hanc ipsam habentes aetatem . . ., in juvenibus juvenis, exemplus juvenibus fiens et sanctificans Domino; sicut senior in senioribus etc., c. 784. Cf. F. R. Montgomery Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum, A Study of his Teaching (Cambridge, 1914), p. 158 f.; A. d'Ales, La doctrine de la recapitulation en S. Irenee, Recherches de Science religieuse, VI, 1916, pp. 185-211.

6. St. John Damascene, De fide orth. 111.12, M.G. XCIV, c. 1032: τήν πρόσληψιν, τήν ϋπαρξιν, τήν θέωσιν αυτής υπό του λόγου.

7. St. Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiastes, h. VII, M.G. XLIV, p. UW 725: "evil, considered by itself, does not exist apart from free choice." See on St. Gregory of Nyssa J. B. Aufhauser, Die Heilslehre des hi. Gregor von Nyssa (Miinchen, 1910); F. Hilt, Des hi. Gregor von Nyssa Lehre vom Mensch (Koln, 1890). In St. Maximus the distinction between "nature" and "will" was the main point in his polemics against the monotheletists. There is a "natural will" (θέλημα φυσικόν), and this is sinless; and there is a "selective will (θέλημα γνωμικόν), and this is the root of sin. This "natural will" is just what makes man a free being, and freedom belongs to man by nature, as well as reason. Without this "natural will" or freedom man simply would not be man at all, ου χωρίς εΐναι την άνθρωπίνην φύσιν αδύνατον. See St. Maximus, Ad Marynum, c. 5, M.G. XCI, c. 45: θέλημα γαρ εστί φυσικόν δύναμις του κατά ψύσιν οντος ορεκτική, και τών ουσιωδώς τη φύσει προσόντων, συνεκτικήν πάντων ίδιομάτωσις; cf. 49. This "natural will" is not any definite choice or resolve, not yet a προαίρεσις, but rather a presupposition of all choices and decisions, an innate impulse of freedom, an δρεξις, or an appetitus, as Comfebis renders the term, and not yet a γνώμη, sententia. Cf. Disputatio cum Pyrrho, c. 304: ουδείς γάρ ποτέ θέλειν διδάσκει, άρα φύσει θελητικός ό άνθρωπος, και πάλιν, ει φύσει λογικός ό άνθρωπος, το δε φύσει λογικόν και φύσει αύτεξούσιον. το γάρ αύτεξούσιον. . . θέλησις εστίν. On St. Maximus see H. Straubinger, Die Christologie des hi. Maximus Confessor (Diss. Bonn, 1906). A brief but excellent study on the whole of the theology of St. Maximus is given by S. L. Epifanovich, St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine Theology (Kiev, 1915) [Russian].

8. See also M. Lot Borodine, La Doctrine de la "deification" dans I'Uglise grecque jusqu'au XI siecle, Revue de Vhistoire des religions, t. CV, CVI and CVII, 1932-1933; J. Gross, La Divinisation du chretien d'apres les Veres Grecs (Paris, 1938).

9. Cf. St. Maximus, ad Marynum presb., M.G. XCI, 129: κατ' έξουσίαν άπειροδύναμον, αλλ' ουκ ανάγκη ύπεύθυνον. ου γάρ εκτισις ην ώς έφ' ημών, αλλά κένωσις υπέρ ημών του σαρκωθέντος. That was why St. Maximus categorically denied the penal character of Our Lord's death and sufferings.

10. "Taketh" seems to be a more accurate rendering of the Greek αιρων, than the "taketh away" of both the Authorized and Revised Versions, or rather, both meanings are mutually implied. See Bishop Westcott's The Gospel according to St. John, I (1908), p. 40. The word αϊρειν may mean either (1) to take upon him or (2) to take away. But the usage of the LXX and the parallel passage, 1 John 3:5, are decisive in favor of the second rendering (Vulg. qui to Hit, all. qui aufert) ; and the Evangelist seems to emphasize this meaning by substituting another word for the unambiguous word of the LXX (φέρει, beareth). It was, however, by "taking upon Himself our infirmities" that Christ took them away (Matt. 8:17); and this idea is distinctly suggested in the passage in Isaiah (53:11). The present tense marks the future result as assured in the beginning of the work, and also as continuous (cf. 1 John 1:7). The singular άμαρτίαν "is important, in so far as it declares the victory of Christ over sin regarded in its unity, as the common corruption of humanity, which is personally realized in the sins of the separate men." Cf. A. Plummer's Commentary (1913), p. 80: "taketh away rather than beareth is right, Christ took away the burden of sin by bearing it; but this is not expressed here, although it may be implied"; την άμαρτίαν, "regarded as one great burden or plague." Archbp. J. H. Bernard, Gospel according to St. John (1928), I, 46-47, describes the present tense "taketh" as juturum praesens, "not only an event in time, but an eternal process." "See St. Maximus, ad Marynum, M.G. XCI, c. 220-221: οίκείωσιν δέ ποίαν φασεί; την ουσιώδη, καθ' ην τα προσόντα φυσικώς εκαστον έχοντα οικειοϋται δια την φύσιν ή την σχετικήν καθ' ην τα αλλήλων φυσικώς στέργομεν τε καΐ οικειούμεθα, μηδέν τούτων αυτοί πάσχοντες η ενεργούντες. St. Maximus was concerned here with the problem of Our Lord's "ignorance." The same distinction in St. John Damascene, De fide orth. Ill, 25, M.G. XCIV, c. 1903: "It should be known, that the act of appropriation (οικείωσις) involves two things: one the natural and essential (φυσική και ουσιώδης), and the other the personal and relative (προσωπική καΐ σχετική). The natural and essential is that in which the Lord by his love to man has assumed our nature and all that belongs to it (τήν φύσιν καΐ τα φυσικά πάντα), really and truly became man and experienced the things which are of nature. The personal and relative appropriation is that in which someone for some reason (e.g. through love or compassion) takes upon himself another's person (του έτερου υποδύεται πρόσωπον) and says something having no relation at all to himself, in the other's stead and to his advantage. In this sense the Lord appropriated to Himself both the curse and our desertion, things having no relation to nature (ουκ δντα φυσικά), but it was thus that He took our person and placed Himself in line with us (μεθ’ ημών τασσόμενος)."

12. Cf. Bp. Westcott, ad locum, 11.125: "Christ came that He might suffer, that He might enter into the last conflict with sin and death, and being saved out of it win a triumph over death by dying"; Archbp. Bernard, 11.437, translates: "and yet for this very purpose," scil., that His ministry should be consummated in the Passion. . . The Glorification of the Father (5:28) is achieved not only by the obedience of the Son, but rather by the accomplishment of the ultimate purpose, the victory over death and evil."

13. Cf. P. M. J. Lagrange, Evangile selon St. Luc (1921), p. 267, ad loc. "marque le decret divin"; A. Plummer, Commentary on St. Luke, 1905, p. 247: "it expresses logical necessity rather than moral obligation (ώφειτεν, Hebr. 2:17) or natural fitness (επρεπεν, Hebr. 11.10). "It is a Divine decree, a law of the Divine nature, that the Son of Man must suffer"; Β. Ε. Easton, The Gospel according to St. Luke, Edinb. (1926), ad loc.y p. 139; δει, "by divine decree," especially as set forth in the Old Testament.

14. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, Sermon on Good Friday (1816), Sermons and Speeches, I (1973), p. 94 [Russian].

15. The Scriptural evidence in favor of the Ransom conception is very scarce. Λύτρον does indeed mean "ransom," but the word is used in the New Testament only once, in the parallel passages Mark 10:45 and Matt. 20:28, and the main emphasis seems to be here rather on the "loosing" effect of Christ's Messianic ministry, than on ransoming in the strict sense. The primary meaning of the verb λύω is just to "loose" or to "set free." The word άντίλυτρον occurs in the New Testament also only once: 1 Tim. 2:6. The middle λυτρουσθαι, both in Luke 24:21 and in Titus 2:14, or in I Peter l:18f\, does not necessarily imply any "ransom"-motive. "Jedenfalls ware es vollig verkehrt fur Titus 11.14 und I Petri 1.18 zu hehaupten: we'll in dem Sprachgebrauch der LXX λυτρουσθαι als Gottestat nicht die Losegeld-Vorstellung enthdlt, enthdlt es sie auch an diesen Stellen nicht" [Buchsel in Kittel's Worterbuch, IV.6, s. 353]. Λύτρωσις in Luke 1.68 is no more than simply "salvation" (cf. 5:69, 71, 77). Hebr. 9:12: αίωνίαν λύτρωσιν does not imply any ransom either. "An ein Losegeld ist wohl hier kaum gedacht, wenn auch vom Blute Jesu die Rede ist. Die Vorstellung in Hebr. ist mehr kultisch als rechtlich" (Buchsel, s. 354). Άπολύτρωσις in Luke 21:28 is the same as λύτρωσις in 1:68 or 2:38, a redeeming Messianic consummation. This word is used by St. Paul with the same general meaning. See Buchsel, s. 357f. "Endlich muss gefragt iverden: wie weit ist in άπολύτρωσις die Vorstellung von einem λύτρον, einem Losegeld oder dergleichen noch lebendig? Soil man voraussetzen, dass ueberall, wo von άπολύτρωσις die Rede ist, auch an ein λύτρον gedacht ist? Ausdrucklich Bezug genommen wird auf ein Losegeld an keiner der Άπολύτρωσις—Stellen. . . Wie die Erlosung zustande kommt, sagt Paulus mit der έλαστήριον— Vorstellung, was uberflussig ware, wenn in άπολύτρωσις die Lose-geldvorstellung lebendig ware. . .Die richtige deutsche Ubersetzung von άπολύτρωσις ist deshalb nur Erlosung oder Befreiung, nicht Loskauf, ausnahmweise auch Freilassung Heb. 11:35 und Erledigung Hebr. 9:15."

16. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. XLV, in S. Pascha, 22, M.G. XXXVI, 653.

[jmdrake]

Merry Christmas TER and to all my fellow Christians on RPF! I wish Merry Christmas to my non-believing friends as well.