(Continued from page 110)
Then, turning to another class of considerations— “certain passages in the Gospels themselves which are incompatible with the miraculous birth narrative” —we select one (Mark 3:2121And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. (Mark 3:21)), “And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him, for they said, He is beside himself.” Concerning this the remark is made, “Could Mary have thought for one moment that her eldest Son was mentally unhinged had she known what she must have known had the birth stories reposed on fact? The supposition is impossible, and the other Synoptists accordingly suppressed this highly disconcerting episode.” No doubt, after this last pronouncement our confidence in the author as a textual, no less than as a historical critic will be greatly strengthened. That at any rate is what he next proceeds to, the textual examination of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. It would perhaps be out of place to follow there in detail; but the conclusion he comes to must be heard.
First, then, as to Matthew— “(1) Matthew’s Gospel in its opening chapters originally affirmed Jesus to be the Messiah, proving this by descent from David through Joseph, who was stated to have been his real father; (2) at a somewhat later stage the verses (1:18-25) were inserted between ver. 17 and chap. ii. 1, which certainly link on naturally to each other; (3) and that then, this insertion having been made, i. 16 was altered to correspond.”
Then as to Luke: “The upshot is that in Luke, as to Matthew, (1) the original intention was to present Jesus as the descendant, through Joseph, of David; (2) that Luke 1:3131And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. (Luke 1:31) represents a later interpolation whose tenor runs altogether counter to the Evangelist’s original conception of Joseph and Mary as the parents of Jesus (Luke 2:27, 4127And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, (Luke 2:27)
41Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. (Luke 2:41)); (3) and that the words “as was supposed” in the description of Jesus as the son of Joseph (iii. 23), were inserted with an obvious harmonizing purpose.” That is to say, the two birth narratives are frankly legendary, the concoctions of a later age which found a necessity of making Christ’s humanity differ in origin and character from that of men in general, and minute inspection of the text reveals where they have interpolated a story to that effect!
Having now disposed of that matter to his own satisfaction, the author turns next to meet some whom he mentions as sufficiently removed from stupid orthodoxy to be worthy of his attention. He acquits them of holding what to him is the very extreme view that “there must have been something physically and materially miraculous in the fundamental structure of our Lord’s manhood”; but quarrels with them for allowing that “in His inmost essence there was that which amounts to a difference between Him and the race not in degree, but in kind.” He will not have even that. That would mean an “unrepeated irruption” of another sort than he is prepared to admit, and, if not pressing for the doctrine of the miraculous birth of Christ, it still makes for something, as he sees, best explained by that fact. Entirely opposite is the case he affirms. It is simply in degree, not at all in kind, that the difference lies. “It is not that there is in His case an endowment to which all other beings are, and must be, strangers.” It is not this that makes Him unique. Wherein then does it consist? “The truth of the incarnation” (we might wonder wherever within the four walls of the idea such a things as “incarnation” can find room), it is said, “while quite independent of a supernatural birth, does involve a special relation between Jesus and God, and the consciousness of it on Jesus’ part. This relation, not relationship at all in the usual sense, does not consist in a union of being, and personality, and essence; but in a perfect filial disposition, a closeness and intimacy of communion with God. His was a sonship or divinity, not of nature and substance, but simply of character.”
As contributing to this uniqueness of Jesus, which is to serve as a substitute for His miraculous birth, the doctrine of divine immanence is then brought in, “of which the incarnate Son is to be regarded as the supreme and crowning instance. God is no ‘absentee God,’ but immanent in creation. ‘All are parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is and God the soul.’ We think it strictly legitimate to say that just as there is only one kind of light, whether candle or sun, and one kind of goodness, so there is only one kind of divinity—one divine Spirit pervading and transcending the universe, the same above all, and through all, and in all. Jesus was the highest illustration the world has seen of this divinity, this indwelling presence of God. God therefore did not come into the world when Jesus was born. He is immanent in humanity from the beginning. This is not to deny that Jesus is the Son of God; but to affirm it in a deeper and truer way, for this wider incarnation in humanity requires as its complement the special incarnation in Christ.” And this pre-eminence “of degree not of kind” is to be the nature of our valuation of His supremacy, not any longer that “doctrine of an absolute supernatural person” which is “a legacy of mediaeval orthodoxy!”
This is a fair sample of the use made of “speculative and evolutionary theories, doctrines of divine immanence, pantheistic identification of God and man,” etc., in new interpretations of the incarnation. It gives an instance too of the critical and other objections to the virgin birth which lead our lecturer to maintain silence upon it.
If there is reserve on the question of the birth of Christ, of how He entered the ranks of humanity, there is no lack of freedom in treating of what is thought to be involved in His assumption of human nature. The one led the lecturer practically to delete from this part of the Creed all but the indefinite, the mere verbs being retained. The other leads him to expatiate on matters concerning which the creed, wisely (may we not say) is silent. The question is asked, how far did Christ, in becoming man, become subject to human limitations? in what respects were the limited and circumscribed conditions incident to humanity imposed upon Him in becoming partaker of it? A hard question, a difficult question, this is confessed to be; but still claimed as legitimately arising from consideration of the fact itself.
Now it must be confessed this is a question that readily prompts itself. It is no new one, but a problem we have all met before. Has it not suggested itself to all of us many a time—what did it mean for the Son of God to become man?—for instance, as to such of His divine attributes as omniscience? How does His possession of this consist with the growing wisdom natural to, and distinctly predicated of, His developing manhood? He was from all eternity God, all wise, all seeing. He is seen as a man growing in wisdom as in stature. How are we to understand these things? How reconcile them? On what principle are they to be explained? Are we to look for light in the consideration of what He may have surrendered in becoming man, or of what He may have assumed in the way of limitation in the sphere of His mental or intellectual equipment? Is the New Testament presentation of Christ, can even the figure of the historical Jesus manifested in the Gospels, be left intact, if we make any such admissions? And this is but an instance, one out of many of the questions raised when Christ’s coming in flesh is the subject—that the child born at Bethlehem, growing up at Nazareth, found in fashion as a man throughout, should at the same time be very God, omniscient, omnipotent, eternally God the Son! What mysteries are here!
In the attempt to adjust these things, is it at all to be wondered at that questions arise, that in fact we find ourselves face to face with the apparently inexplicable? Are they insoluble then? May it not be that in large measure they will ever remain so? After all, does our belief in the wonderful truth of “God manifest in the flesh” depend upon our ability to solve all the metaphysical problems it involves? Is it not rather a case where the words of another apply with particular cogency and force, “God allows many things to remain mysteries, partly, I believe, that He may in this way test the obedience of our minds; for He requires obedience of mind from us as much as He does obedience in action.” Would that we could ever carry this thought with us in all our study. There is mystery surrounding the whole question of the relation of Christ’s humanity to His deity. We cannot but be impressed with it.
Well, in what we cannot understand, can we not simply acquiesce in its mysteriousness, and see in that tact a God-given test of our obedience of faith? Is it not more wise than the futile endeavors so commonly made to solve it? “wiser,” in Bellett’s words, “than to pretend to test by the prism of human reasoning the light where God dwells”? Questions no doubt seem inevitably to arise as soon as we begin to consider or reflect on the great fact of Christ’s incarnation. We need not be philosophers to feel their force, and it is remarkable how little philosophy has effected in the way of solution of the questions perplexing us all. But when quite at the end of ourselves as far as reasoning can take us, when baffled in our best endeavors to reach anything like rational conclusions on the subject, we can still, in that subjection of the mind to God which faith teaches, acknowledge the truth of the word, “No man knoweth the Son.” That is a wise attitude which gives “a holy sensitive refusal to meddle, beyond one’s measure and the standard of scripture, with what must ever be beyond us.”
By all means, nevertheless, if difficulties can be relieved, subject to this consideration, let them be so. Wherein our dullness results from lack of attention to Scripture, more detailed exegesis, or a fuller emphasizing of what their import is, can only be welcomed. But is it not a remarkable fact that all that has generally resulted from attempts to define, and theories to account for the wonderful truth has been but a deeper sinking into the morass upon which the unauthorized venture has been made? For the true nature of the venture has too often been no humble effort, in submission to the word, of meeting difficulties; but a vainglorious and pretentious essay, in the strength of merely human wisdom, of nullifying them, of reducing to commonplace intelligibility that which inherently is a great mystery.
Can we take as free from this charge the school of thought represented in what is being reviewed on this occasion? Among the many theories professing to explain as to Christ on earth the coexistence of different modes of being in the one personality, there is one of modern appearance which secures a large amount of favor with theologians to-day, known as Kenoticism. To many of us perchance the name may be all but unintelligible. We may share also in the objection of a critic from the other side who “finds no great assistance when homely English is exchanged for ambitious Greek, and scholars speak of Kenosis, and a Kenotic theory.” But the school of thought so denominated, the set of ideas set out under that title, has so dominated the theological definitions as to Christ’s person of recent years that it cannot be quite passed over. We owe it to the lectures under review also that, having taken up in each case what seem the original sources of their leading ideas, we give this very significant one also a passing consideration.
Kenoticism, as has been said, is a popular theory. This by reason probably of the way in which it seems to perplexed minds to relieve difficulties by bridging over the apparent disparity between the divinity and humanity of the incarnate Son. The great thing seems to be that, whatever else, we must endeavor to escape anything like the idea of dual personality. To this idea, it is said, many find that the mere, exclusive perusal of Scripture tends; and we need to be fortified against this false impression by some such definite constructive theory as Kenoticism supplies. Now it is remarkable, as F. W. Grant has said, how near to dual personality we must come to comply with all that Scripture presents as to Him. Yet, needless to add, it is something quite distinct and different from such a conception as the complete delineation of Him which Scripture presents. But this Kenotic theory, it is thought, more amply affords escape from trace of the idea of dual personality in Jesus Christ come in flesh.
At this point, however, some definition of the theory had better be given. The late F. W. Grant has given some attention to it, and shown that this modern phase of Christology is actually more of a survival than a discovery, being closely allied to the ancient Apollinarian heresy, in large measure, indeed, a mere “rounding out of the elder doctrine to any consistency.” From his pages a definition of it might well be taken; but as a Presbyterian presentation of it is at hand (from a distinctly less sympathetic standpoint than the lecturer’s, however), let us take it. Prof. Orr, in his “Sidelights on Christian Doctrine,” thus introduces it— “There is another way which in modern times has been attempted of removing the difficulty of the two states of Christ’s Being while on earth, viz., by affirming a complete surrender of all divine functions, and even of divine consciousness by the Son, during the period of His earthly humiliation. This is the so-called Kenotic’ theory of the incarnation. It is based on the statement in Phil. 2:6, 76Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:6‑7), that the Son, existing in the form of God ‘voluntarily emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.’ This is taken to mean that, during His earthly life, the Son ceased to exist in the form of God, even as respects His heavenly existence. The place of the Son in the life of the Godhead was for the time suspended. The Son gave up His glory, even His self-consciousness, and consented to be born as an unconscious babe in Bethlehem. He grew into the consciousness of His Godhead, as He grew into the knowledge of His Messianic dignity. Only after His resurrection and exaltation did He resume now in our humanity—the glory He before had with the Father.”
A “kenosis” on the part of Christ in becoming man is, so far as the mere term goes, certainly a scriptural expression (Phil. 2:6, 76Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:6‑7)). The word is derived from the Greek equivalent of what appears in the Authorized Version as “He made himself of no reputation,” rendered in the Revised Version “emptied himself.” It is very questionable if any extraordinary or subtle meaning was in the writer’s mind when he used it. However, by diligent distillation a significance was extracted from it on which has been built up a complete theory of the human nature of Christ. As mere theology this may best be left to stand or fall on its merits. But when it comes to be a question of claiming the ἐχένωσε of Phil. 2:77But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:7), as scriptural basis of the theory, and when, reflexively, the passage is sought to be interpreted in the light of all that now attaches to the technical theological term “Kenosis,” it is surely open to us to protest that this is not only an overstraining of the passage, but an illegitimate use of it.
The particular design of the opening verses of Phil. 2 is to impress not only by precept but by example the great lesson of self-abnegating love, the moral sweetness and beauty of that spirit which can assume, for the sake of serving others, the place of lowliness and self-sacrifice. “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” To lowliness of mind and esteem for others, the opposite of that factious strife of self-seeking and vainglorious self-esteem which are so natural to us all, the apostle exhorts the Philippian saints. Ethically there could be nothing more beautiful, the proverbial counsel of perfection to such as we are, it might seem, yet is it nothing more than the characteristic Christian spirit in practical display. “Lowliness of mind,” it has been said, is so characteristically a Christian virtue that even as to its etymology the term is practically unknown until it appears in New Testament phraseology. At least, if not exactly not to be met with before, it is never in its full content and meaning that classical writers use it. Its real force and significance could in fact only come out after Christ had come, only after He had exhibited that which it expressed. For where or when has appeared among men a spectacle to be compared with that which the apostle goes on to describe? Wherever was lowliness like this, where such self-renunciation, where such condescension, where such a filling of the servant’s place in obedience to love? Without question an example absolutely unique.
[J. T.]
(To be continued)