Throughout the history of the Christian Church the subject of Christology, which deals with "Christ, His person and work",[l] has been at the heart of many theological disputes. The most dangerous heresies and most dramatic schisms have had their origin in the diversity of theories regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Because of the Hellenization of the faith and the emergence of heretical doctrines, the apostles and their successors were forced to wrestle with the issue of the divine-human nature of Christ. This resulted in the eventual creation of "a Christology in the strict sense of the ward, that is to say, an express doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ."[2]
Today Christ's human nature remains a serious problem for Christianity, and various denominations attempt to resolve it in a variety of ways. It is a most important topic. Upon this point depends not only our understanding of the work of Christ but also our understanding of the way of life expected from each of us as we seek "the truth that is in Jesus" (Eph. 4:21).
The Apostles Confronted With Early Heresies
It is interesting to notice that at the outset of Christianity the question raised about the subject of the person of Jesus was not "What was His nature?" but rather '(who is He?" When Jesus asked His disciples, "who do people say the Son of Man is?" they replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But what about ?" He asked, "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:13-16).
As the evangelization of the Graeco-Latin world progressed, the question was no longer a simple matter of knowing who Jesus was.
Now the question changed: How did Jesus relate to God? Was He truly divine, or was He just a man? If both, how can we explain the relationship between His divine and His human nature? In time the church, confronted with heresy, was forced to consider these questions and to attempt to answer them.
Paul and John were the first to refute false teachings about the nature of Christ in response to doubts that arose about His divinity and His humanity. In his Epistle to the Philippians, after emphasizing Christ's equality with God, Paul says that Jesus came into this world "in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man." (Phil. 2:7, 8) Likewise, having written to the Romans that God sent "his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3, KJV), he states emphatically to the Colossians that Christ ,"is the image of the invisible God," and that "in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Col. 1:15; 2:9).
Moreover, John was compelled to assert in his gospel both that "the Word was God" and that "the Word became flesh" (John 1:1, 14). Then, confronted with Gnostic claims, he decided that it was necessary to warm the church against those who denied Christ's humanity: "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus ["come in the flesh" is understood] is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist" (1 John 4:2, 3).
Christology Throughout the Centuries
As early as the second century the successors of the apostles were drawn into relentless arguments dealing with the person of Christ, and in particular with His nature. Faced with the development of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ, the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) settled the problem by affirming the divine nature of Jesus. There remained the problem of the two natures, human and divine, that was settled at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451), and this dogma became the declaration of faith of the catholic Church.
The Reformers were not really Christological innovators; they were more concerned with problems concerning the nature of faith and justification than with those of Christology. Generally speaking, they all accepted "the fundamental dogma of the essential divinity of Jesus Christ with the unity of person and duality of natures."[3] Only a few Protestant theologians in French-speaking Switzerland ultimately abandoned "the doctrine of the two natures."[4]
However, several theologians of the twentieth century have followed in their footsteps. Oscar Cullmann, for example, considers that "the discussion concerning the 'two natures' is, ultimately, a Greek problem, not a Jewish or biblical one."[5]
Emil Brunner asserts that "the whole complex of the problems raised by the doctrine of the Two Natures is the result of a question that is wrongly posed, of a question which wants to know something which we simply cannot know, namely, how divinity and humanity are united in the Person of Jesus Christ."[6]
This notable departure from the dogma of Chalcedon by these theologians lies at the root of a new trend in Christology. The vast majority of theologians today, Catholic and Protestant alike, recognize that the study of the mystery of Christ can no longer be separated from its significance for humanity. In other words, one characteristic of contemporary Christologies is that they are more closely connected with anthropology.
Quite naturally, this new relationship leads some theologians to a much deeper consideration of Christ's human nature. The concept that the Son of man took on human nature is acknowledged by all Christians. But the question is What kind of human nature did He take on: the one affected by the Fall, or the one originally created by God? In other words, Adam's nature before, or after, the Fall?
Contemporary Christology
Through past centuries, daring to suggest that Christ's human nature was that of Adam after the fall would have been considered serious heresy. Today many consider that this question is still arguable.[7] Nevertheless, we must certainly recognize that the most eminent Protestant theologians of the second half of the twentieth century, such as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Rudolf Bultmann, Oscar Cullmann, J.A.T. Robinson, and others, have openly declared themselves in support of a human nature affected by the Fall.
Karl Barth was the first to state his support for this explanation, in an article published as early as 1934.[8] But his most comprehensive account is found in his Dogmatics, under the title "Truly God and Truly Man."[9] Having affirmed his belief that Jesus Christ was "truly God," he considers at length how "the Word was made flesh." For him there was no possible doubt as to the sinful human nature of Jesus. Most certainly he said, "He [Jesus] was not a sinful man. But inwardly and outwardly His situation was that of a sinful man. He did nothing that Adam did. But He lived life in the form it must take on the basis and assumption of Adam's act. He bore innocently what Adam and all of us in Adam have been guilty of. Freely He entered into solidarity and necessary association with our lost existence. Only in this way 'could' God's revelation to us, our reconciliation with Him, manifestly become an event in Him and by Him."[10]
Having justified his conclusions with verses from Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, Barth adds: "But there must be no weakening or obscuring of the saving truth that the nature which God assumed in Christ is identical with our nature as we see it in the light of the Fall. If it were otherwise, how could Christ be really like us? What concern would we have with Him? We stand before God characterized by the Fall. God's Son not only assumed our nature but He entered the concrete form of our nature, under which we stand before God as men damned and lost. He did not produce and establish this form differently from all of us; though innocent, He became guilty; though without sin, He was made to be sin. But these things must not cause us to detract from His complete solidarity with us and in that way to remove Him to a distance from us."[11]
Emil Brunner, in his Dogmatics, came to the same conclusion. He did not hesitate to state that "the fact that He was born of a woman, just as we are, shows that He was true Man."[12] He probes: "But was Jesus really a man like ourselves--and thus a sinful man?" The answers come from Scripture: "The aposde Paul, speaking of the real humanity of Jesus, goes as far as possible when he says that God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3, KJV). The epistle to the Hebrews adds: 'One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin' (Heb. 4:15).[13] While Brunner agrees that "He is a Man like ourselves," he also recognizes that "He is not a Man like ourselves."[14]
Relying on the same verses, Bultmann and Cullmann agree entirely. In his commentary on Philippians 2:5-8 Cullmann writes: "In order to take the 'form of a servant,' it was necessary first of all to take the form of a man, that is to say, a man affected by the human downfall. This is the meaning of the expression 'being made in human likeness' (verse 7). This sense of homoiomati is perfectly justified. The more so as the next phrase emphasizes that by becoming incarnate, Jesus, 'man,' completely accepted the condition of 'men.' He who, in essence, was the only God-man, ... became by obedience to His calling, a celestial Man, in order to accomplish His expiatory work, a Man incarnate in sinful flesh."[15]
It would be a shame not to mention here the position of the Anglican bishop J.A.T. Robinson, who, in his study on the idea of "body" In Pauline theology, expressed himself more clearly than anyone else as to the human nature of Jesus. "The first act in the drama of redemption," he writes, "is the self-identification of the Son of God to the limit, yet without sin, with the body of the flesh in its fallen state"[16]
"It is necessary to stress these words," he specifies, "because Christian theology has been extraordinarily reluctant to accept at their face value the bold, and almost barbarous phrases which Paul uses to bring home the offense of the Gospel at this point. Traditional orthodoxy, both Catholic and Protestant, has held that Christ assumed at the Incarnation an unfallen human nature."[17]
"But, if the question is restated in its Biblical terms, there is no reason to fear, and indeed the most pressing grounds for requiring, the ascription to Christ of a manhood standing under all the effects and consequences of the Fall. At any rate, it is clear that this is Paul's view of Christ's person, and that it is essential to his whole understanding of His redeeming work." [18]
Besides, the problem has been the object of a suggestion by Thomas F. Torrance, in the setting of the Commission "Faith and Constitution" of the World Ecumenical Council, held at Herrenalb, Germany, in July 1956. "We need to take more seriously that the Word of God assumed our sarx, i.e., our fallen humanity (not one immaculately conceived), and so doing hallowed it. The doctrine of the Church needs to be thought out in terms of the fact that Christ Jesus assumed our humanity and sanctified Himself. The Church is Sancta in Christ's sanctification." [19]
Thomas Torrance is still more explicit: "Perhaps the most fundamental truth which we have to learn in the Christian Church, or rather relearn since we have suppressed it, is that the Incarnation was the coming of God to save us in the heart of our fallen and depraved humanity, where humanity is at its wickedest in its enmity and violence against the reconciling love of God. That is to say, the Incarnation is to be understood as the coming of God to take upon Himself our fallen human nature, our actual human existence laden with sin and guilt, our humanity diseased in mind and soul in its estrangement or alienation from the Creator. This is a doctrine found everywhere in the early church in the first five centuries, expressed again and again in terms that the whole man had to be assumed by Christ if the whole man was to be saved, that the unassumed is unhealed, or that what God has not taken up in Christ is not saved. ... Thus the Incarnation had to be understood as the sending of the Son of God in the concrete form of our own sinful nature and as a sacrifice for sin in which He judged sin within that very nature in order to redeem man from his carnal, hostile mind."[20]
The list of theologians who today are writing along these lines of thought could be extended. But these men have had forerunners, among which are the pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The Forerunners of Contemporary Christology
It would be wrong to think that these twentieth-century theologians were pioneers in their position regarding the human nature of Christ. Karl Barth quotes many nineteenth-century authors in his Dogmatics who held to the belief of the fallen nature.[21]
In a still more detailed manner, Harry Johnson, a strong supporter of the fallen nature of Jesus, refers back to Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389), who spoke convincingly of Christ: "For that which He has not assumed, He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.[22] Then Johnson devotes a full chapter to the teaching of a dozen forerunners from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, from Antoinette Bourignon to Edward Irving, who all affirmed that Christ took on the human nature as it was in Adam after the Fall.
With Johnson, we conclude this historical summary of testimonies by contemporary theologians. Since around 1850 the Christology of the Adventist pioneers has run along the same lines of interpretation. At the time, this position was still uncommon and was considered heretical by traditional, mainline Christianity. How interesting it is that the Christology of these pioneers is now confirmed by some of the best of contemporary theologians!
It follows that the Christology developed by the pioneers of the Advent movement between 1852 and 1952 could well be considered to be the vanguard of contemporary Christology. Such an advanced position, then, deserves to be examined in detail for the benefit of those who are searching for Christological foundations.
A History of Adventist Christology
Several English authors have in recent years expressed themselves on the subject, most of whom take a pre-Fall or modified pre-Fall position. However, until now there has been no work which examines the history of belief on this subject in the Adventist Church.
Some authors have generously provided typescript works that have been particularly helpful in this project. These include (1) that of Herbert E. Douglass, A Condensed Summary of the Historic SDA Positions on the Humanity of Jesus; (2) William H. Grotheer, An Interpretative History of the Doctrine of the Incarnation as Taught by the SDA Church; (3) Bruno W. Steinweg, The Doctrine of the Human Nature of Christ Among Adventists Since 1950. These authors are to be especially thanked.
The history of Christology presented in these pages is divided into five sections. Part 1 begins with a chapter devoted to Christ's divinity, a doctrine that was not accepted without argument by many Adventist leaders. In the second charter the biblical foundations are presented on which was based the interpretation of the fallen nature of Christ unanimously accepted between 1852 to 1952.
Part 2 is devoted to a detailed study of Christology as understood by Adventist pioneers, while Part 3 contains a collection of testimonies scattered throughout the official literature of the church. In Part 4 we profile the historical outline of the controversy that arose about 1950 following a new interpretation. This section is based essentially on Ellen White's writings.
I hope the reader will understand the significance and magnitude of the current controversy. Perhaps the discussion of current views in Part 5 will help in some small way to reunite the church's thinking on the subject of Christ's human nature.
Notes: