The Communicated Omnipresence.

The Communicated Omnipresence.

Already in the preliminary remarks on the genus maiestaticum it was pointed out that the participation of the human nature of the Son of God in his divine omnipresence had caused a very special contradiction. At this point the Reformed theologians are not content with an emphatically repeated adbvatov (it is impossible),* but here they believe they have a right to speak of an "monstrous fiction" (monstrosum figmentum), "godless monstrosity" (impium monstrum) and to deny the Lutherans the last remnant of reason. *?!) A number of expressions that Reformed theologians use to characterize the communicated divine presence are reluctantly reproduced in print. They declare themselves only from

356.

Danaeus, Examen libri Chemnitii, p. 441; with Quenstedt II, 268; with Frank III, 394. the fanaticism of a party spirit. °°?) Also Loofs of Halle is so upset in this point that in the third edition of the Herzog Realenzyklopddie he presents the Reformer of the Church before the whole world as a man who had spoken "complete nonsense" and "absurdities". *°*) The deficit of spiritual and natural understanding of the matter in Loofs’ criticism of Luther will become apparent in the following exposition. First we turn to the Reformed denial of the communicated divine omnipresence. The Reformed denial of the communication * of the divine omnipresence to the human nature of Christ, which has been so vigorously pursued, must again be placed first under the heading of suicide. The situation is somewhat different with Loofs. Loofs accuses Luther of having "forced Christology into the scheme of the two-nature doctrine". Loofs thus denies the "two-sided doctrine", that is, the connection of God and man to one T or to one person. Thus, there can be no talk of a communication of divine attributes, especially the divine omnipresence, to human nature. Loofs is Luther's doctrine of a divine omnipresence communicated to the human nature of Christ because the whole thing, the unio personalis of God and man, is "utter nonsense" to him. Loofs, like all deniers of the "doctrine of two natures", has taken his place extra ecclesiam. But the situation is different with the Reformed theologians. They want to hold seriously to the Unitarians in the doctrine of the two natures, that is, in the incarnation of the Son of God. They not only want to accept but also defend the fact that the human nature of the Son of God has a real and not merely nominal share in his divine person. But they deny in the strongest possible terms that the human nature of the Son of God can share in his divine omnipresence because the finiteness of the Infinite is not capable.

states in the passage just c. 8, p. 265: Sicut simia [monkey] semper est simia, etiam induta purpuram, ita ubiquitas corporis semper est monstrosum figmentum, quocunque nomine eam appellent, seu maiestatem, seu modum dextrae Dei, seu esse personale, seu omnipraesentiam, seu real communicationem idiomatum etc. [Google]

With this, as I said before, they swept the weapon against their own chest. The divine Person of the Son of God is admittedly no less infinite than his divine omnipresence. Therefore, they speak every word they say against the participation of human nature in the divine omnipresence, also against the participation in the divine Person of the Son of God and thus against themselves. The Reformed theologians do not get over the aut — aut (either-or’’) that they have held out to them from the very beginning, that they either admit the communicated divine omnipresence or also have to deny the communicated divine Person, because the divine omnipresence of the Son of God is not greater than the divine person of the Son of God. Also the individual counter-arguments, for example, that especially as a result of the communicated divine omnipresence Christ ceases to be a true man and a true high priest, and is transformed into a ghostly apparition,** meet, if they meet, with equal weight the communicated divine personality. When Hodge says: "Omnipresence and omniscience are not attributes of which a creature can be made the organ", he forgets to add: "So the human nature of Christ cannot be the organ of the divine Person of the Son of God either, and therefore the Unitarians are obviously right against us, and we Reformed theologians deny to the Lutherans what we are trying to assert of the Unitarians with all seriousness". This is the suicide which the Reformed theologians commit by denying the communicated divine omnipresence. Denial of participation in the divine omnipresence is factual denial of participation in the divine Person. But the Reformed protest against the communication of the divine omnipresence to the human nature of Christ is also a protest against the statements of Scripture which explicitly teach this omnipresence. Scripture teaches us in Eph. 4:10 that Christ ascended over all the heavens to fill the universe, dvoPds DrEpavo TAVTIOV TOV ODpAaVev iva TANPHoH TH Téavta. One has [a marginal reading in the Authorized Version] iva mAnpa@on ta nmavta refer to the fulfillment of the prophecies and the completion of the work of redemption. But this interpretation of ta mévta

does not correspond to the wording and the context. The words: to descend from heaven and then again: to ascend over all heavens, that is, over all created things, for the purpose of fulfilling ta mévta indicates prima facie a relationship to the universe and not a relationship to prophecy or to the work of redemption. Meyer, therefore, quite rightly, just like the old Lutheran theologians, rejects the relationship out of the fulfillment of prophecy and the accomplishment of the work of redemption and adds: "No, Christ, raised to the fellowship of the world regiment, fulfills the whole world, té& mévta.". But the statement of the text was then again violated by the declaration that a fulfillment with mere effectiveness is to be thought of here. So also Meyer, when he adds to the words: "Christ, raised to the fellowship of the world regiment,.fulfills the whole world": "by his preserving and ruling effectiveness". Meyer believes he may be allowed to say that "here, as little as Eph. 1:23 or elsewhere" there is talk of the "ubiquity of the body of Christ" advocated by Faber Stapulensis [Jacques Lefévre d'Etaples] and the Lutheran theologians. But Meyer's opinion contradicts the context. The contrast in the text between "going down" and "going up", 6 kataBdc avtdc ion ion Kat d GvaBdc, expresses not only an exerted effect but also a personal presence. Just as not merely an efficacy but a person has descended, so not merely an efficacy but a person has ascended above all the heavens. And it, this Person, 6 dvaBdac, fills the universe. We can only ask whether we are talking here about the person of Christ according to divine or human nature. The relationship to Christ according to the divine nature would give rise to the thought that the eternal Son of God does not fill the universe from the beginning, but only after his incarnation and the subsequent exaltation. This thought, however, is rejected on all sides. So, if we do not want to do violence without the words of the Scriptures, we truly have no other choice than to find here—in reference to Meyer's words—the teaching expressed: "Christ, raised to the fellowship of the government of the world", that is, according to human nature, "fills the whole world, ta mavta [everything]."°°>

Christus vagpavo navtwv ovpavoev, longe super omnes coelos. Ergo nui- What prompts Meyer and also most of the modern exegetes of the Scriptures to avoid the clear literal sense here and in parallel passages is obviously the fright of the "ubiquity" of Christ's human nature. And this fright comes from the fact that one cannot get rid of the mistaken idea of a local expansion of the Body of Christ. But this already refers to the manner of the omnipresence of Christ according to his human nature, which will soon be discussed in more detail. Here it is first of all only a question of whether the fact of the omnipresence according to human nature is attested in Scripture. And this testimony is present in the words: 6 kataBdcs adtdc éotw Kai 0 vac OTEPAVO TAVTOV TOV OdPaVvev iva TANpdoyn ta T&vta [Eph. 4:10]. 7° Also Eph. lum prorsus coelum ex creatis illis potest esse locus Christi, ad quem ista sua adscensione pervenit. Ideo mox additur, Christum ita longe supra omnes coelos adscendisse, ut impleret omnia, ce'rte non ecclesiam suam, sed omnia; non donis suis, ut Beza in Glossa marginali interpretatur, sed corpore suo, quo in coelos adscendit, ut jam potentissime et praesentissime dominetur omnibus creaturis. Et sic Theophylactus hunc locum exponit: whether hanc causam, inquit, haec omnia efficit, ut omnia impleat dominatu operationeque sua, idque in carne, quandoquidem divinitate jam ante cuncta compleret. Fructus hujus exaltationis in exemplo evidentissimo ostenditur, nimirum in largissima donorum suorum communicatione in ecclesia, de qua ita loquitur: "Et ipse dedit quosdam quidem apostolos" etc. [Google]

teaching of Scripture: Koi yap kot yvpvp TH 14 Ta GOTT TAG TA MEVTO ET ANPOV Kol Kol GapK@OEic tva TH AAVTA GapKOc LETH TANPOY KaTEBNH Kai avéBn [He indeed long ago filled all things with His bare deity, and having be- come incarnate, that He might fill all things with His flesh, He descended and ascended (Trigl. 1145, Cat. Test., IX)]. That Meyer does not find in these words either the omnipresence of Christ according to human nature is proof of the power of the dogmatic prejudice by which he allows himself to be dominated. As far as the context of Eph. 4:10 is concerned, the situation is as follows: the apostle deduces from the fact that Christ, exalted above all the heavens, fills or penetrates the universe, v. 10, the gift of gifts to the Church, v. 11: Kot avtdc edaxe tous LEV atootdAoUs KTA [And he gave the apostles, etc.], thus returning to the starting point of his exposition v. 7: "To each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. — Like Meyer, Salmond is also in The Expositor’s Bible in Eph. 4:10 Salmond is anxious to see the words, as they stand, come to their right. But frightened by the spectre of the spatial expansion that he imagines and attributes to the Lutherans, he then avoids the truth of Scripture. He says at first quite correctly: "As in 1:23 the verb" (zAnpovv) "has the sense of filling, and t4 mévtoa is to be taken again in its widest application", namely as designating the whole world or the universe. "The thought is the larger one that the object of Christ's ascension was that He might enter into regal 1:20-23 states that Christ, according to his human nature, is present both in the universe and in the Christian church. That Christ is spoken of here according to human nature is clear from the words: God "raised him from the dead and placed him at his right hand in heaven". That Christ, according to human nature. That Christ is present in the universe according to human nature is expressed in the words: God "has placed him at his right hand in heaven above (vaepévo@) all authority and power and might and dominion and every name that is mentioned, not only in this world but also in the world to come, and has put everything (7avta) under his feet". And that Christ is present according to his human nature as in the universe, and also in the Church, is stated in the words: "and has given him as head over all to the church (tn sxkAnoia), which is his body (ic), the fullness of him who fills all in all". Excellently relation with the whole world, and in that position and prerogative bestow His gifts as He willed and as they were needed. He was exalted in order that He might take kingly sway, fill the universe with His activity as its Sovereign and Governor, and His Church with His presence as its Head, and provide His people with all needful grace and gifts. In Old Testament prophecy to ‘fill heaven and earth’ is the note of Deity (Jer. 23:24)." [See also Expositor’s Greek Testament, v. 3, p. 328] But through all that Salmond says about Christ's elevated relationship to the whole world and to the Church, about Christ's presence in the world as its ruler and about Christ's presence in the Church as its head—through everything he makes a dash by denying the relationship of the great things mentioned in the text to human nature. And he does this because he creates in himself the idea of a spatial extension of Christ's human nature, and then puts it under the Lutherans. In his statement he includes the following remark: "Nor is there anything to suggest that the ubiquity of Christ's body is in view, as some Lutherans have argued (Hunnius, Calov, etc.). The idea that is in the paragraph is not that of a 'diffused and ubiquitous corporelity,' as Ellicot well expresses it, but that of a ‘pervading and energizing omnipresence. But what Ellicot "well expresses", the "diffused and ubiquitous corporelity", is not in the text. But it is also not found with the Lutherans, but only in the fantasy of the Reformed theologians. That's why, contrary to the wording of the Scriptures, they deny the effective omnipresence communicated to Christ according to His human nature, and their thoughts on Eph. 4:10 take place in the following "abortus", as Dannhauer puts it: Christus humana sua natura ascendit in coelos hoc fine, ut Deitate omnia impleat, tanquam ascensione ideo opus habuisset, ut ea natura, qua jam ante aspensionem omnia implesset, omnia impleret. [Google] (Hodos. VIII, 396.) Chemnitz emphasizes what is said at this point about Christ's rule in the universe by comparing Christ's rule with the rule of worldly kings. Secular rulers rule over their territory in absentia; Christ, according to his elevated human nature, is present everywhere. "Christ's humanity (humanitas)," he says, "reigns in the Logos and with it over all things, not from afar, or separated by an immense space,... as is the nature of kings, when their dominion extends far and wide over many and distant provinces, but as it" (humanitas) "has its existence in the Logos, so, inasmuch as it is personally attached to the Logos, it has all things before it in the Logos. Here, Chemnitz adds, one must think not of the essential and natural attributes of human nature, but of those attributes which are due to it through personal union and through exaltation above all names and above all things. °°) And that Christ was given the head of the Church by exaltation is not to be thought, in our place, as if the exalted head were separated from the Church on earth, but the opposite is expressed. The Church stands in relation to her exalted head in that she is His Body, to oa avtov, and as Body she is the fullness, that is, the fulfilled, of Him who fulfills all things in all, 76 zAjpwpa tov Ta TavtO EV TA0L TAnpovpévov. With the genus that Christ, according to his elevated humanity, fills the universe (ta mGvta), the apostle establishes the species that he also fills the Church, which is his body. Eph. 1:20-23, however, clearly expresses that Christ, according to his humanity, fills the world and the church with his effective omnipresence. *°*) Also

booms diverge in all wind directions. HarleB, for example, thinks that special investigations have shown "that zAjpauc is only used in the New Testament in the active sense, so that the genitive associated with it designates the fulfilled object". This version, applied to our position, would not make the sense that Christ fulfils the Church, but the opposite, that the Church fulfils Christ. Others (e.g., Fritzsche on Rom 11:12), on the other hand, believe that the passive meaning of "Christ" is the most common in the New Testament. Philippi even considers "that we are perfectly sufficient for the New Testament with the passive meaning. It has been rightly recalled that much unnecessary artifice all scriptural passages which describe the man Christ as exalted and seated at the right hand of God, teach eo ipso that to the man Christ belongs, as to omnipotence, so also to omnipresence. has been done with mAnpoue (fill). TAjpopue can, like the German "Fille", be used actively and passively. The context must decide each time. If we here have to take mAnpovoia as a depository == "fulfill", as is almost generally admitted, then we must passively grasp it as the fulfillment of Christ. This results in the thought that fits perfectly into the context: "Christ, who fulfills the universe, especially also fulfills the church, which is his body, and which is called his zAjpapa because of the pAnpovadar that emanates from him, the fulfilled by him. Also the frames: zAjpopo == the "full measure of Christ and the other == "complement", supplementum, of Christ (as the head of the Church) are excluded here, because and not only stand side by side, but also refer to each other: this is the result of 7Ajpova (to fill). Therefore, we have to keep the same concept in both. Fritzsche rightly points to this "paronomasia" and adds: eadem substantivo, quae verbo notio insit neces se est [the same substantive which is necessarily contained in the word notion. If zAnpopa == "Vollma8" (full measure), mAnpovasat would have to be taken to mean: "the full measure of making", and we would have the thought: The Church is "the full measure of him who brings the All in everything to the full measure". And if zAjnpopa == "complement" or supplement of Christ, then we would have the meaning: The Church is "the supplement of him who makes the All in everything a supplement". In short, tAnpovo$ai who grasps—"fulfill" must refrain from grasping anything other than "the fulfilled". Christ fills, and the church is filled. So rightly, Meyer, before he begins with an interpretation of the "ubiquity": "The church is the fulfilled Christ, that is, that which is fulfilled by him. Of course, the meanings can also be "Vollmaf", "Ergénzung" or implementum, "Volizahl" etc. But these meanings must be indexed by the context, which is not the case here. The ev zao1, placed next to T& mévta, completes and reinforces the latter—"all in all". This thought has also been in the minds of those who want to translate ev maou: "in all pieces" or "in all appearances" or even "everywhere". Well, Philippi says to our passage: "If the church is mentioned as the body of Christ to zAnp@pe tov T4 TANPOVHEVOV EV TEVTO EV TAG AANpovpEvov, it is presented as the fullness or as filled by him who fills the All in all the pieces. However, here we find Calov, Bibi, illustr., p. 669 sq., a dictum probans for the ubiquity of the Body of Christ. For to grasp instrumentally with Meyer ev mao (== with everything) and to think only of the effectiveness penetrating the universe is not possible, if only because of the parallel passage Eph. 4:10. Admittedly, Meyer also declares iva zAnpwon Té tévta etc. to be merely effective. " But the context and opposition of 0 kataBdc and avtdéc requires éoT1 Ka 6 avapdc vasepdvo mavtToV Tov ovpavev and then of 6 & vaBic vaepava TAVTOV TOV Ovpavev and iva TANPwoit] Té mévta the relation of the latter to the non-operative but personal presence of the Exalted in the universe. He is The "right hand of God", to which Christ is raised after suffering and death, is not a disputable greatness. Scripture itself gives us an interpretation of the expression. When the Apostle adds to the words "and has set him at his right hand in heaven": "above all authority... and has put all things under his feet", we have in this addition of the Apostle's own explanation of the term "right of God", to which Christ is set after being raised from the dead. In this way, however, the right of God is not to be thought of as a limited place in which Christ, according to his human nature, is closed off from the universe and the church, but on the contrary, God's omnipresent power and effect, and Luther and the old Lutheran theologians do not present their own thoughts but scripture, if they show Christ from his seat at the right hand of God, as omnipotence does. 79) Finally also the word of promise Matt. 28:20 éy@ p80’ Dud sip Tdo0c TOS NLEPAs EWS Tis OvVTEAEiAs TOD Aivos is not exclusive to Christ, but inclusive of his human nature. It would be arbitrary, after all, if we wanted to give the statement: "I am with you always, until the end of the world" a different relationship than the one immediately preceding it: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [Matt. 28:18] Now all power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ in time not according to divine but according to human nature. Thus also the promise of omnipresence is to be related to Christ according to human nature. therefore taken from the barriers of space, dvaBdc vtEpava TAVTOV TOV OLPAVOV, in order to freely set himself personally present within the universe.... And it is precisely as the omnipresent, that is to say as being present also in his congregation, that he has given gifts to the same. (Glaubensl. IV, 1, 462.)

Dunnhauer, Hodos. VIII, 397.

controversiam ad assumtam Christi naturam pertinere manifestum est. He adds: Ac sane causam nullam habemus, cur in dulcissima illa promissione praesentiae Christi in ecclesia assumtam eius naturam, qua cognatus et Frater noster est, nos membra corporis eius, de carne eius et de ossibus eius, separemus, disjungamus et excludamus, cum ipse in tradenda illa promissione multis circumstantiis assumtam suam naturam notet ac describat, sicut ex textu ostendimus.[Google] — Baier III, 60: Omnipraesentiam humanae Christi naturae communicatam credimus iuxta illud, The manner of the omnipresence of Christ according to human nature (modus omnipraesentiae). If one wants to eliminate the contradiction against the participation of the human nature of Christ in the divine omnipresence, it is necessary to uncover the reason for the contradiction. It is this: As soon as the opponents of Lutheran Christology see before them the scriptural passages which read Christ's omnipresence according to human nature, they imagine a specter before their eyes, from which they flee in horror. The ghost is the idea of a spatial expansion of the Body of Christ. They mean: If Eph. 4:10; 1:20-23 (iva TANPOoN TA TAVTA — TO TANPOLA TOV TA01 TA MAVTA EV TAOL TANpovpevov) were to be taken as they are, and if according to Col. 2:9 (ev AVTO KATOLKEL AAV TO TANPOLA THs B'edTH TOS C@paTiKaS), Joh. 1:14 (0 Oyos ops Béveto) etc. the Son of God were not to be thought of as an extra carnem, and therefore Christ filled the church and the universe also according to his human nature, we would have to imagine the body of Christ as spatially extended, towering above heaven and earth and thus as a monster. This is the reason for the contradiction. And this their own conception, which Luther rightly calls "childish", Reformed, Roman and modern theologians persistently blame the Lutheran Church when they call the Lutheran doctrine of the omnipresence of Christ according to human nature "ubiquitous doctrine" and its representatives "ubiquitists. In a letter to the Elector of the Palatinate of 19 October 1560, Brenz complained: "They want us to bear the blame, as if we were to spread and expand the body of Christ spatially to every place and hold ubiquity. But that we are wronged in this, Your Electoral Grace has taken it from our own, and especially from Dr. Luther's blessed writings that have gone out in print. So there are two different ubiquities. One is called Jocalis, spatial; n this way, none of us says, to my knowledge, quod humanitas Christi sit ubique, nor is it rightly addressed, quod Christus ipse Matt. 28:20 dicit: Ecce, ego (cui data est omnis potestas in coelo et in terra, v. 18:quique nunc misi ministros ad docendum et baptizandum, v. 19) sum (secundum eandem naturam, secundum quam mihi data est omnis potestas) vobiscum (ubicunque in hoc mundo futuri estis) omnibus diebus. [Google whoever may speak such things. The other is personalis et supernaturalis, quam veteres ex illo loco: 'Coelum et terram ego repleo, dicit Dominus' vocarunt repletivam [Google]." ©? And elsewhere Brenz says: Finxerunt novum et prodigiosum ubiquitatis vocabulum, ut eo facilius rudibus et rerum nesciis imponant et persuadeant, nos etiam novum et prodigiosum dogma excogitasse, corpus Christi tanquam alutam in omnia loca geometrice se extendere et diffundere.[Google] * Less scientifically, but still somewhat more understandably, Luther describes the Reformed delusion of a spatial expansion of human nature by the divine nature associated with it in this way: "as a peasant puts on doublet and trousers, as doublet and trousers are stretched out to surround the body and thighs". Christ's body presents itself to the Reformed Roman imagination "as a great straw bag, since God would be within with heaven and earth". 4°) Lutheran Christology has been fought with this delusion from time immemorial until our own time. This idea is also the basis of the objection to Lutheran doctrine, which is considered irrefutable: if Christ's body is omnipresent, why do we not see it as soon as we open our eyes; why do we not feel it as soon as we stretch out our hands; why do we not eat and drink it as often as we eat and drink over tables? 4 In recent times, Loofs' spirit is depressed by the same idea when he pronounces the following scathing judgment on Luther: "Can it be taken seriously that 'the flesh and blood of Mary is the Creator of heaven and earth' (E. A. 25, 378)? Is this really more than just a way of speaking? And when Luther, in contrast to the 'transient' idiomatis of human nature, which Christ now has no more than food, drink, sleep, etc., counts among the ‘natural ones who remain’ 'that he has body and soul, skin and hair, flesh and blood, marrow and bone and all the members of human nature’ (E.A. 257, 378), is it not utter nonsense to speak of a ubiquity of the human nature of Christ thus understood? Is the body of Christ really 'skin and hair' in every loaf of bread (E.A. 30, 69 f.)?

Is he the one — why isn't he being "caught" (op. cit.)? And what kind of mankind is that which is everywhere and can be compared to the sun's brightness (op. cit., 69)! — Luther's thoughts have led to absurdities, already in his own mind, because they were forced, again in his own mind, into the scheme of the theory of nature. The new wine is spoiled by the old wineskins." 4°) So Loofs. Luther's answer to this truly unpolite criticism of Luther will hardly seem too crude. Luther writes: "Lift yourself, you coarse enthusiasm, with such lazy thoughts! If you cannot think higher or differently here" (namely, that Christ's humanity is stretched out by the Godhead like a peasant in doublet and trousers), "stay behind the oven and roast pears and apples while you do so, leave this matter in peace! For Christ went through a closed door with His body, and yet the door was not expanded, nor His body drawn in; how then," (considering the being of Christ's humanity in the Person of the Son of God), "should humanity be extended or the Godhead fenced in, since much is a different’ and higher way? 4° There is no doubt: the contradiction against the participation of the human nature of the Son of God in his divine omnipresence would hardly take such a fanatical form if the erroneous idea of a spatial extension of the Body of Christ could be removed from our minds. And this should not be too difficult, because this idea must be denied any justification from the standpoint of natural reason alone. How should human nature, through its connection with divine nature, come to a local expansion, since God himself cannot be ascribed any local expansion! Everyone agrees with Luther when he writes: "God is not such a stretched out, long, broad, thick, high, deep being.... Nothing is so small, God is even smaller; nothing is so great, God is even greater; nothing is so short, God is even shorter; nothing is so long, God is even longer; nothing is so wide, God is even wider; nothing is so narrow, God is even narrower. *° But if God is not spatially extended, as is admitted, how should the human nature of Christ come to be spatially extended by its personal binding with the divine nature!

176] It is therefore rightly stated in the Formula of Concord: We unanimously reject and condemn... that the humanity of Christ is locally extended (localiter extensa) in all places of heaven and earth; which is to be ascribed not even to the divinity. 48 So, in the whole matter it can only be about the one question: whether Scripture attributes to Christ's human nature not only a spatial but also a non-spatial mode of being (illocalem subsistendi modum). The Reformed theologians deny this. In one form or another they, from Zwingli on *° up to modern times, establish the canon with Heidegger: "The human body has no other presence than the visible, local, circumscribed presence; the opposite invisible, definitive and non-local presence belongs to the spirit."! This also explains the strange polemic of the Reformed theologians that they think they have already sufficiently refuted Lutheran teaching when they cite scriptural passages in which Christ's local and visible presence is mentioned, for example in the manger, in Jerusalem, in Galilee, etc."4!) But this only local, visible way of being of Christ according to human nature is a human fiction against the clear witness of the Scriptures. According to Scripture, Christ has at least three different ways of being according to human nature. For the sake of clarity, in the following coherent presentation we repeat many things that have already been said in other contexts. According to scripture the body of Christ was first in the manger in Bethlehem (Luke 2:7), in the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:46), in His garment, whose hem the woman touched (Matt. 9:20), in the ship that crossed the lake (Matt. 8:23), in the house of judgment, on the cross and in the tomb (Joh. 18 and 19). This is the way of being (modus subsistendi), according to which the body of Christ gave and took room, could be seen with eyes, touched with hands and grasped. Christ used this mode of being—

quam visibilis, localis, circumscriptiva praesentia est, et opposita illi invisibilis, definitiva et illocalis spirituum est.

apart from a few exceptions*!) —in His life on earth, because the purpose of His life on earth was to be seen, heard, persecuted, seized, mocked, ridiculed, crucified and taken to the grave by men ev pope SovAov. This is the praesentia localis or circumscriptiva. *!?) No one doubts that Scripture teaches this way of being of the Body of Christ. But in passing we must remember that this way of being is also incomprehensible to the human mind. For if we consider that in the human nature of Christ, even in the state of humiliation, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt as in the Body of Christ, it is not understood that the Body of Christ could be seen, touched, or even remain in existence, and that it was not consumed by the fullness of the Godhead even more quickly than straw from the fire. But the fact of this way of being ev 6no1mpatt dvSparov is testified in Scripture. But if we do not want to avoid further instruction from Scripture, we cannot avoid attributing another way of being to the Body of Christ. As the Scripture John 20 does not report any opening, but on the contrary says that Christ came to the disciples with closed doors, tov Svpav KEKAELOLEVOV, SO his body was however "in the closed door" or where another body (solida materia) was already there. Calvin admittedly asserts that Christ removed the "solida materia" through the effect of his omnipotence, in order to make his entry possible through the opening that thus arose?"*! But there is nothing about this in the text. Rather, as Meyer correctly remarks, the text points to "a wonderful appearance that did not require the doors to be opened and that happened while they were closed. The text and context are so clear that Marcus Dods has recently renounced Calvin's interpretation. He writes: "Calvin supposes Jesus opened the doors miraculously; but that is not suggested in the words. Rather it is

of all, a thing in a place is circumscriptive or localiter, that is, when the place and the body inside rhyme, meet and measure with each other, just as in a barrel is wine or water, since the wine does not take more space, nor does the barrel give more space, for so much of the wine is. (St. L. XX, 947 f.)

indicated that His glorified body was not subject to the conditions of the earthly body, but passed where it would."*! So we cannot avoid to learn from Joh. 20 that Christ's body has a way of being according to which He neither gave nor took room. The same way of being is indicated when it says Luke 24:31 of Christ that He disappeared from the disciples of Emmaus, Agavtos éyéveto ar' avtov. This is the unspatial way of being, which has been called praesentia illocalis and definitiva. *! Here now the Reformed contradiction sets in with all its might. And this can be explained by the factual situation. Reformed Christology, in so far as it stands in opposition to Lutheran Christology, is fighting for its life here. According to thesis and antithesis it is based on the canon that the body of Christ is only given a spatial and visible mode of being. The non-spatial and invisible mode of being—she assures us—belongs to the spirit world and cannot be stated by the human nature of Christ

pressed, because Christ could use and actually did use this way of being already before the resurrection, Joh. 8:59; Luke 4:30. Among recent theologians Philippi again pointed out that Christ's body was already taken from the barriers of space in the state of humiliation. Philippi remarks: "As he [the Son of Man] entered through closed doors after his resurrection, so he disappeared before his resurrection before his enemies, Jn 8:59; cf. Luk 4:30; and we see therefore that even then his body was not subject to the conditions and limits of space and matter in the same way as ours. (Glaubenslehre IV, 444. Cf. Luther, St. L. XX, 912.)

thing is in a place definitive, incomprehensible, when the thing or body is not tangible at a place and does not measure itself according to the space of the place where it is, but can occupy about much space, about little space. So, they say, find the angels and spirits in places or places; for so an angel or a devil can be in a whole house or town; again he can be in a chamber, drawer or box, even in a nutshell. The place is physical and comprehensible, and is measured according to length, breadth, and thickness, but that which is in it is not equal in length, breadth, or thickness to the place in which it is; indeed, it has no length or breadth at all.... That means that it is incomprehensible to be in a place, for we cannot comprehend it nor measure how we measure the bodies, and yet it is in that place all the same. In such a way was the body of Christ as he went out of the closed tomb and came to the disciples through the closed door, as the Gospels testify. (St. L. XX, 948.) without destroying it. If the Reformed theology had to give up this canon, the whole vocabulary would not fit, with which it fought Lutheran doctrine. If, for instance, Calvin calls Lutheran doctrine a "stultum commentum" [stupid comment], whereby "Marcion was raised from the dead", and Christ's body was transformed into a "phantasm" or into a "spirit". 4! this vivid polemic is based only on the Reformed canon, that the human nature of Christ has only a spatial and visible mode of being. But this canon cannot be held to Scripture. This is shown especially by Calvin through the obvious violations he has to allow himself with the relevant scriptural passages. In John 20, as we have already seen, he removes the closed doors by inserting an opening that contradicts the text and context. Then he even increases the correspondence by citing an alleged analog that is not an analog according to explicit scriptural statements. For in the commentary on Joh. 20:19 he says: "We know that Peter left the closed prison: must it therefore be said that he penetrated through iron and stones? Let us therefore leave those childish sophistries (pueriles argutiae), behind which there is nothing, and which contain much nonsense (deliria). Calvin refers to Peter's miraculous salvation from the prison, Acts 12:3 ff., but he forgets the difference between Joh. 20 and Acts 12. As explicit as it is reported in Joh. 20 that Christ came to the disciples with closed doors, so explicit is Acts 12:10 mentions that Peter came through the open door into the street, Ht1c (THAN) abtToLATH Hvotyyn adtdic. Also the words Luke 24:31: Christ "disappeared before them" is violated by Calvin. He takes the liberty of interpreting these words to mean that Christ did not become invisible (non factus est invisibilis), but had such an effect on the eyes of the disciples that they could not see him (tenuit eorum oculos). *!® Through these

evanuisse ex discipulorum oculis, quibuseum Emaunta profectus erat, nihil illis prodest et nos adjuvat. Nam ut sui conspectum illis ererret, non factus est invisibilis, sed tantum disparuit. Sicuti, eodem Luca teste, cum simul iter faceret, non induit novam faciem, ne agnosceretur, sed tenuit eorum oculos. 179-180] obvious mishandlings of the text of Scripture, it becomes even clearer to us that the illocal nature of the body of Christ cannot be interpreted away from the scriptural statements of John 20:18 and Luke 24:31. Even Calvin's assertion that Christ's body is transformed into a spirit through the illocal way of being,*! is still expressly opposed by Christ himself in Luke 24:37, when he describes the spiritual thoughts that had come to the disciples at the time as erroneous and disproves them in a very tangible way (Luke 24:38-

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.... he took it, and did eat before them. This point has already been dealt with in more detail in the communio naturarum (pp. 143 ff.). Thus the Reformed Christology experiences its Waterloo in the clear scriptural testimony of the also illocal way of being of the Body of Christ. Reformed Christology puts everything on one card, that the Body of Christ can only be present spatially and visibly, and with the loss of this card it loses everything. It is as Luther characterizes the situation: "Because we prove from the Scriptures that Christ's body can be in more ways than in such a bodily way" (namely locali et visibili modo) " we have thereby sufficiently contended that the words should be believed as they read: ‘This is my body’ because it is not contrary to any article of faith and is also according to the Scriptures, as it passed Christ's body through a sealed stone and a locked door. For since we can indicate a way above the bodily, comprehensible way, who would be so bold as to measure and encompass God's power as not to know other, more ways? And yet the enthusiast cannot stand up to this, for they prove that God's power is to be measured and encompassed, because all their reasoning is based on the fact that Christ's body must be in one place alone, bodily and comprehensibly."4 But the Scriptures teach yet another mode of being of the human nature of Christ. The Scripture does not only report that Christ,

quidem' verbo, sed periphrasi ex carae Christi spiritum faciunt

according to his human nature was localiter in the manger in Bethlehem, in his garment, in the temple in Jerusalem etc. and furthermore illocaliter in the locked door, but Scripture teaches above all also this, that the human nature is entitled to be in the Person of the Son of God at the same time and in addition to the aforementioned ways of being. This way of being, which belongs only to the human nature of Christ and not to any other human nature, is reported in Scripture wherever it calls the human being Christ "God", "Son of God", "Lord of Glory" etc. Everyone must admit that this is a completely different and much higher way of being than being in the manger, etc. With the manger in Bethlehem and with the door closed, the man Christ is not a person, but with God he is a person. Here we are with the human nature of Christ, as Luther puts it, "in another land", in a land that is beyond the manger in Bethlehem, beyond Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee and Samaria, beyond all geography, in short, beyond all creatures. 47!) This is what we call the supernatural, divine way of being of the human nature of Christ (praesentia supernatnralis et divina), called by Luther *) and the Lutheran Confessions 4?) the "third" way. According to this way of being— and only according to this way of being—the human nature of Christ participates in the divine omnipresence. And just as the body of Christ neither expands nor evaporates nor contracts in the non-spatial being in the closed

according to both His humanity and His divinity; here we are in another country with the humanity than when He walked on earth, namely, outside and above all creatures, for here His humanity is solely in the deity.

thing in places is repletive, supernatural, that is, when something is at the same time completely in all places and fills all places and yet is not measured and understood from any place according to the space of the place where it is. This is the way only God is assigned to God, as he says in the prophet Jeremiah. 23:23: "I am a God from near and not from far away, for I fill the heavens and the earth... But if such a person is supernaturally a person with God, and is not a God apart from this person, then it must follow that he also celebrates in the third, supernatural way, and may he be everywhere where God is, and may all things be thoroughly full of Christ also according to the humanity; not in the first, physical, comprehensible way, but in the supernatural, divine way. (XX, 949. 951.)

181-182] door and at the time of becoming invisible neither expands nor evaporates nor contracts, much less, in the case of the unspatial being in the person of the Son of God, is there any thought of an expansion, evaporation or contraction of the body of Christ, since God is not "such a stretched out, long, broad, thick, high, deep being, but a supernatural, unsearchable being, which at the same time is in every grain of its being whole and yet in all and above all and except all creatures; therefore there must be no fencing here, as the spirit dreams". 7) If one objects to this How can human nature become and be a part of this way of being without destruction? the answer is: If we could grasp this—in modern terms: grasp it "cognitively"—we should be able to grasp how God becomes man, or, which is the same thing, how God and man can form one ego without all transformation. But Scripture reveals the fact. And he who believes the fact that human nature is assumed into the Person of the Son of God, as the Reformed theologians confess to believe with us, has lost every right to speak against the omnipresence of Christ according to human nature; for he eo ipso—namely, by the incorporation of human nature into the Person of the Son of God—places the human nature of Christ wherever the Person of the Son of God is. Hase's mockery of the inconsistency of Reformed Christology is not undeserved: "It is inconsistent to assert the highest unity of the person, while one does not dare to do so out of the lesser commonality of attributes. Also, according to the Reformed view, the whole traditional scriptural evidence of the meeting of two natures in Christ" (that is, that Christ is true God and true man in one Person) "wavers. *°) Luther, who on the basis of the Scriptures establishes the "two natures doctrine", therefore does not go beyond the Scriptures when he says: "Wherever you place God, you must also put mankind; they cannot be separated from each other, they have become one Person; and does not separate humanity from itself like Master Hans rips off his coat and puts it aside when he goes to sleep.. For that I give the simple-minded a crude parable: Humanity is more closely

united with God than our skin with our flesh, indeed more closely than body and soul.... Neither can you, therefore, peel the divinity from humanity and make it sit where humanity is not, for in doing so you would separate the person and make humanity a shell, a coat, which the divinity would put on and take off, which would then be the place or space, and should therefore the physical space be able to do so much to separate the divine Person, which neither angels nor all creatures may separate. © And another word of Luther may be heeded here: "You must put this being of Christ, if he is one person with God, even far, far beyond creatures, as far as God is outside; again, you must put it as deep and near into all creatures as God is inside; for he is an inseparable Person with God. Where God is, there he must be, or our faith is wrong. But who wants to say or think how such things happen? We well know that it is so, that he is in God apart from all creatures and one Person with God; but how it is done, we do not know, it is above nature and reason, also of all angels in heaven, only God is aware and known."*) Thus, not only according to Lutheran dogma, but also according to the Scriptures, Christ has at least three different ways of being according to human nature. We say "at least". That it is advisable to distinguish a fourth way of the presence of the Body of Christ, namely the praesentia sacramentalis in the Lord's Supper, will be explained later, where the relationship of the omnipresence of the Body of Christ to the presence in the Lord's Supper is mentioned. If we seek an understanding with Reformed Christology, it must begin at this point. The Reformed Church must let go of the claim, contrary to Scripture, that the human nature of Christ is only given the spatial and visible mode of being. This claim, based on rationalism, has rightly been called the radical untruth of Reformed Christology. It is on this radical untruth that the blatant maltreatment of the scriptural passages that we have just noted in Calvin's writings is based. This radical untruth is the fruitful mother of the many mocking remarks about the communicated omnipresence ("monster", "delirium" etc.) with which the Reformed theologians from Zwingli and Calvin up to the latest

183-184] time have corrupted their writings. On this radical untruth are based all the objections which the Reformed theologians have been making for almost four hundred years now, from the second article of the Apostolic Symbol, against the communicated omnipresence, by seriously claiming—together with the Papists—that the communicated omnipresence contradicts conception and birth, visible so-journ on earth, suffering, death and burial, the descent into hell, resurrection, ascension to heaven and return to Judgment. *?®) All these "contradictions" disappear immediately as soon as they—as Scripture demands—tecognize not only the local but also an illocal mode of being of Christ according to human nature. *°) To take only the reditus ad iudicium as an example:

Roman theologians. Cundisius: Solent Calvinistae et Iesuitae non sine insigni oppositionis elencho... nos insimulare tanti facinoris, quasi per nostram doctrinam de omnipraesentia carnis Christi dogmata quaedam fidei everteremus. Calviniani pridem urserunt verba ultima Articuli Secundi: Inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos.... Ex Jesuitis jam instar omnium sit Robertus Bellarminus, qui libr. 3. de incarn., c. 12., scribere haud veretur, quod pugnet ubiquitas cum articulis symboli de Christi conceptione, nativitate, morte, sepultura, descensu ad inferos, resurrectione, ascensione et descensu ad iudicium. [Google] (Notae ad Hutteri Comp., p. 343.)

1. Ascensionem in coelum. Sed respondemus, Christum per ascensionem suam non omnem praesentiam, sed visibilem duntaxat conversationem nobis subtraxisse, prout in coelum iamiam ascensurus promittit, se nobiscum futurum usque ad consummationem saeculi.... 2. Sessionem, ad dextram Patris opponunt. Verum cum Luthero statim hoc argumentum invertimus: Imo quia Christus secundum humanam naturam consedit ad dextram Patris, ideo praesens est nobis in terris. Per sessionem enim ad dextram Dei non situatio vel collocatio Christi ad certum locum, sed totius huius universi omnipotens et omnipraesens gubernatio intelligitur.... 3. Reditum ad iudicium obvertunt. Sed respondemus, Christum rediturum ad iudicium, quoad praesentiam visibilem.,, Videbit eum omnis oculus et qui pupugerunt eum, Apoc. 1, 7 [Google]. Unde reditus iste per exipaveiay vel apparitionem exponitur Tit. 2, 13. 4. Humanam Christi naturam finitam suisque dimensionibus circumscriptam obiiciunt. Sed respondemus, hoc argumentum cum larvis pugnare, quia humanam Christi naturam nullatenus infinitam, sed finitam, interim tamen propter unionem personalem cum ioyo et sessionem ad dextram Dei omnipraesentem statuimus. Crassam istam, diffusam, et expansam praesentiam, quam nobis affingunt Calviniani, toto pectore execramur; interim humanam Christi naturam praesentia divina praesentem esse creaturis omnibus, ductum Scripturae secuti, credimus. Praesentia ista Even though Christ, according to his human nature, is already with the Church on earth during the whole period between the Ascension and the Last Day, by virtue of his promise: "I am with you always, until the end of the world", he can come again on the Last Day without contradicting himself, since his present being with the Church takes place according to the invisible way of being and the "coming again" according to the visible way. All that is needed is to let the decree go: "Corporis humani non alia quam visibilis, localis, circumscriptiva praesentia est. [The human nature of Christ has no other mode of subsistence than that which is visible, local, and circumscribed. ] In particular, they would also be beyond the need to interpret the "right hand of God" to which Christ is elevated according to human nature as a closed place in heaven, although Scripture itself explicitly describes the right hand of God as the omnipresent dominion over the universe, Eph. 1:20 ff. etc. The zp@tov wevddc of the only local mode of being of Christ's human nature has at last produced two Reformed arguments against the omnipresence that has been communicated, which also lack any natural reasonableness, but which are nevertheless continued in the catalogue of Reformed objections right up to our own time. This is first of all the objection that human nature is made infinite by the omnipresence communicated. Luther, on the other hand, is quite correct: Since the world is not infinite but only finite, human nature does not need infinity to be omnipresent. °° That nevertheless the argument has also been used by recent Reformed theologians, including Hodge, divina Es, 40, 15. sqq. describitur, quod omnes creaturae instar puncti eidem sunt obiectae et expositae,... 6. Locum Matt. 26, 11.:,, Me non semper habetis, obtendunt. Sed respondemus distinguendo inter rem et modum rei. Licet Christus neget, eo modo, quo sc. beneficiis affici possit, ut tum temporis factum fuerat, se in posterum praesentem futurum apostolis; praesentiam tamen ipsam non negat, sed potius promittit Matt. 28, v. ult. [Google

Where my teaching should be that Christ's body is everywhere, where God is, so would Christ's body be alterum infinitum, an infinite thing, just as God himself, etc.: he could well see that himself, where anger did not blind him, that such a consequence is nothing. For the world in itself is not infinitum or infinite; how then can it follow that Christ's body is infinite, where he is everywhere?

body. 185-186] is a proof of the fact that arguments are inherited from one generation to the next without any testing. — Of the same nature is also the assertion that every real body must be necessarily in space. Zwingli already used this argument against Luther in Marburg to prove that Luther must assume a spatial and visible presence of the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper if he teaches a presence of the true Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Luther silenced Zwingli by proving that Zwingli's assertion was not true even in the natural world. The universe, or body of the world, is a real body and yet not in space. If we wanted to put another space around the outermost part of the world body (corpus extimum), we would have to think of a second space around the first, a third around the second, and so on. This would result in a progressus in infinitum, and infinity would be attributed to the world.: "Assuming that the world is in space, we would have to teach the infinity of the world. To stay with the truth, it is important to note: Where all creation ends, there is not yet another space and behind the first space another space etc., but the universe is in the unspatial God. As Scripture expressly teaches: Ta mévta ev avto avvéatnkev, Kol. 1:17, and: Ev avto Couev Ka Kivobpeda Kai éopév, Acts 17:28. 8 We close the section on the modus omnipraesentiae Christi secundum humanam naturam [mode of Christ’s omnipresence according to the human nature’] with some remarks by Luther and Lutheran theologians. We believe that this is not too much to do with the matter. The most deplorable division of the Protestant Church at the time of the Reformation, like all divisions in the Church, had its original cause not in doctrinal differences but in envy and ambition, as already was explained in the section on the genus idiomaticum. But when this actual motive of separation sought cover behind doctrinal differences, and Zwingli and companions described the doctrine of the Lord's Supper as the point at which they could not go with Luther, they justified their difference in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper and their separation from Luther with the canon that Christ's human nature could only be attributed the spatial and visible mode of being. And so it stands until this day. Therefore, the erroneous proposition of the only spatial mode of being and the correct proposition of the multiple mode of being of Christ's human nature is of far-reaching significance. In accordance with this situation, we shall follow up here with some more of Luther's and Lutheran theologians' discussions of the multiple modes of being of Christ's human nature. A statement by Luther on the threefold nature of Christ's human nature, which is also included in the Confession, reads as follows 43): The one body of Christ (Christi unicum corpus) has a threefold mode or all three modes of being anywhere. 99] First, the comprehensible, bodily mode, as He went about bodily upon earth, when, according to His size, He vacated and occupied space [was circumscribed by a fixed place]. This mode He can still use whenever He will, as He did after the resurrection, and will use at the last day, as Paul says, 1 Tim. 6:15: "Which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed God [and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords]." And to the Colossians, 3:4: "When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear." In this manner He is not in God or with the Father, neither in heaven, as the mad spirits dream; for God is not a bodily space or place. And this is what the passages how Christ leaves the world and goes to the Father refer to which the false spirits cite. 100] Secondly, the incomprehensible, spiritual mode, according to which He neither occupies nor vacates space, but penetrates all creatures wherever He pleases [according to His most free will]; as, to make an imperfect comparison, my sight penetrates and is in air, light, or water, and does not occupy or vacate space; as a sound or tone penetrates and is in air or water or board and wall, and also does not occupy or vacate space; likewise, as light and heat penetrate and are in air, water, glass, crystal, and the like, and also do not vacate or occupy space; and much more of the like [many comparisons of this matter could be adduced]. This mode He used when He rose from the closed [and sealed] sepulcher, and passed through the closed door [to His disciples], and in the bread and wine in the Holy Supper, and, as it is believed, when He was born of His mother [the most holy Virgin Mary].

VI, 98 ff.] 187-188] 101] Thirdly, the divine, heavenly mode, since He is one person with God, according to which, of course, all creatures must be far more penetrable and present to Him than they are according to the second mode. For if, according to that second mode, He can be in and with creatures in such a manner that they do not feel, touch, circumscribe, or comprehend Him, how much more wonderfully will He be in all creatures according to this sublime third mode, so that they do not circumscribe nor comprehend Him, but rather that He has them present before Himself, circumscribes and comprehends them! For you must place this being of Christ, who is one person with God [for you must place this mode of presence of Christ which He has by His personal union with God], very far, far outside of the creatures, as far as God is outside of them; and again as deep and near within all creatures as God is within them. For He is one inseparable person with God; where God is, there must He also be, 102] or our faith is false. But who will say or think how this occurs? We know indeed that it is so, that He is in God outside of all creatures, and one person with God, but how it occurs we do not know; it [this mystery] is above nature and reason, even above the reason of all the angels in heaven; it is understood and known only by God. Now, since it is unknown to us, and yet true, we should not deny His words before we know how to prove to a certainty that the body of Christ can by no means be where God is, and that this mode of being [presence] is false. This the fanatics must prove; but they will forego it. — 103] Now, whether God has and knows still more modes in which Christ's body is anywhere, I did not intend to deny herewith, but to indicate what awkward dolts our fanatics are, that they concede to the body of Christ no more than the first, comprehensible mode; although they cannot even prove that to be conflicting with our meaning. For in no way will I deny that the power of God may accomplish this much that a body might be in many places at the same time, even in a bodily, comprehensible way. For who will prove that this is impossible with God? Who has seen an end to His power? The fanatics indeed think thus: God cannot do it. But who will believe their thinking? With what do they make such thinking sure? [Trigl. 1005, 1007, 1009: 98-103] Like Luther, Lutheran theologians teach the multiple nature of Christ's human nature. Brenz sets the matter out splendidly, rejecting at the same time the multiplication and expansion of the human nature. Brenz writes: Itaque non habuit vel duo vel tria vel qua tuor corpora, aliud quidem in Hierusalem, cum in templo concionaretur aut in cruce penderet, aliud in urbe Roma, aliud Athenis, aliud in coelo: sed unum idemque corpus, quod erat in Hierusalem visibiliter et localiter, erat cum Deitate, ubicunque ea esset, extra omnia loca invisibiliter et illocaliter. Neque enim ea loca, quae sunt in nostris humanis oculis diversa et a se invicem distantia, sunt tot, tanta et talia in oculo divinae maiestatis, sed sicut omnia tempora sunt ei momentum (only a moment), ita et omnia loca sunt ei unus locus, imo ne punctus quidem loci, aut si quid minutius dici potest... Quare cum coniungimus Deitati Christi humanitatem eius, non extendimus nec diffundimus corpus eius corporali et locali modo, sed tribuimus ei illam maiestatem, quam quidem humana ratio comprehendere non potest, sed quae ipsi propter hypostaticam unionem debetur. [Google] Chemnitz answers the objection that a multiple mode of being of Christ's human nature implies a contradiction: Nec fit implicatio contradictionis, si idem corpus dicatur esse in uno loco iuxta proprietates essentiales naturali modo, et si supra physica idiomata per Dei voluntatem ac potentiam supernaturali, coelesti et divino modo ponatur non in uno, sed in pluribus locis. Non enim contradicentia sunt, si alio atque alio respectu et modo contraria eidem tribuuntur. This supernatural, divine mode of being, however, is part of the human nature of Christ, insofar as it has personaliter subsistit in hypostasi Filii Dei, quae et in omnibus locis et supra et extra omnia loca existens assumptam naturam arctissima, intima et individua praesentia unitam sibi. [Google] >) Quenstedt writes: Pessime (Calviniani) confundunt diversos praesentiae modos et sibi opposunt atque a praesentia camis naturali concludunt ad exclusionem praesentiae tov Adyov et camis personalis.... To the objection that the humanity of Christ is non ubique, cum esset in utero, in sepulcro etc., Quenstedt answers: Confunditur praesentia naturalis cum personali... Locorum d1aotnpata in describenda unione (personali) non attendenda. Non enim personalis unio est inter matris uterum, sepulcrum, crucem et divinam naturam. Aliud est, extra carnem propriam esse, et aliud, extra uterum esse, in quo caro assumption; Aodyog non cum utero Mariae aut sepulcro, sed cum carne sua unam constituit personam. [Google] (Syst. IT, 202 sq.)

189-190] Chemnitz treats the controversial point with great seriousness and at the same time points out that the Reformed contradiction has its reason in carnal thoughts. He says: Quomodo possumus illaesa conscientia dicere, locorum intervalla obstare aut impedire, quominus Filius Dei, sicut verba testamenti ipsius sonant, corpore suo in coena sua adesse possit, cum et loca et tempora et omnia potenter in manibus et sub pedibus suis habeat, etiam secundum humanam naturam. Adest autem non quidem localiter, sed ratione potentiae divinae, hypostaticae unionis et dexterae Dei. Assumpta enim Christi natura, sicut antea diximus, intima prdesentia personaliter subsistit in hypostasi Filti Dei, quae et in omnibus locis et supra atque extra omnia loca existens assumptam naturam arctissima, intima et individua praesentia unitam sibi habet... Aliter in terra conversatus fuit, aliter in coelo apparet in gloria, aliter adest in coena cum pane et vino, aliter in tota ecclesia, aliter omnes creaturas ev Ady sibi praesentes habet.... Nihil obstat, nisi quod ratio nostra turbatur cogitationibus de localitatibus ac de ratione (manner) praesentiae corporum iuxta conditiones huius seculi per positum et contactum physicum. Kemoveantur itaque omnes cogitationes carnales et terrenae de localitatibus! [Google] °° While Heidegger claims that the spatial and visible presence of Christ's human nature is a thing of necessity and does not depend on the will of Christ (localitas ex naturae necessitate, non ex voluntatis libertate pendet

of Christ on earth is non necessitate aliqua inevitabili, but depends on the divina Verbi voluntas. And Chemnitz relates this precisely to the local way of being: Voluit, ut tempore exinanitionis seu in diebus carnis ita se gereret sicut alius quispiam homo, sicut in reliquis visibilis et externae conversationis partibus, ita etiam in physica locatione et circumscripto seu locali praesentiae modo iuxta conditionem huius seculi. *°® Chemnitz is right: Christ has used and abolished the local and visible way of being at will, as has been amply demonstrated above. It must be remembered here again that

underlying the mpatov yevddc of the only local mode of being of the human nature of Christ is the further general harm of rationalism. Reformed theology seeks to determine a priori what the human nature of Christ can endure without being destroyed or shattered, when in fact we can learn only from "historical reality", namely from the revelation of Sacred Scripture, what is or is not possible in the proclaimed great mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God without harming natures. *° Following the doctrine of the communicated omnipresence, several individual questions still need to be addressed. This is due to the much disputed character of this doctrine. The communicated omnipresence and Holy Communion. It is a legend, incited by Reformed theologians, that Luther constructed the doctrine of the participation of Christ's human nature in the divine omnipresence in order to establish his doctrine of the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. The recent Reformed teachers also repeat this legend. Thus Hodge says: "second objection" (against the Lutheran doctrine of the communication of attributes) "is that the character of the explanation was determined by the peculiar views of Luther as to the Lord's Supper. He believed that the body and blood of Christ are really and locally ° present. And when asked, How can the body of Christ, which is in heaven, be in many different places at the same time? he answered that the body of Christ is everywhere. And when asked, How can that be? his only answer was that in virtue of the incarnation the attributes of the divine nature were communicated to the human, so that, wherever the Logos is, there the soul and body of Christ must be." + Bohl also justifies his condemnation of genus maiestaticum: "The same is about the real communication of the attributes of divine nature to the human and was trained in contrast to Zwingli, who denied the presence of the body of Christ on earth, especially in Holy Communion. Unfortunately, this

incorrectly Hodge presents Lutheran doctrine.

~ 191-192] unhistorical way of presentation is also found many times in the more recent histories of dogma. The fact is the following:. The fact is the following: Luther's proof of the presence of the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper is the words of institution themselves. As for the proof of his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, Luther says: "So this is the sum total of having the clear, bare Scripture for us, which thus reads: "Take, eat; this is my Body’, and we are not in need of, nor should be urged to "write about such a text" (that is, beyond). Luther therefore "asks" the enthusiasts, "that they did not want to desire from him to prove this text: "This is my body." It's enough: "Because Christ says here: %) Yes, Luther explains that the doctrine of Christ's person, especially the communication of the attributes, does not actually belong to the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, if it is a matter of the scriptural proof of the real presence of the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper. * But does not Luther, especially in the controversy over the Lord's Supper, energetically present the teaching of Christ's omnipresence according to human nature? Indeed! But not in order to prove his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but to bring into light the emptiness of the opposing objections against the possibility of the presence of the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Zwingli and allies attacked the Lord's Supper words "Take, eat; this is my body" with the assertion that the real presence of the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper was an impossibility, because Christ had ascended to heaven, was seated at the right hand of God, and the Body of Christ could only have a local, visible and tangible way of existence. The impossibility of real presence is the recurring objection to the actual version of the words of institution. In the face of this attempted proof of impossibility, Luther reveals that his opponents have unbiblical, "childish" thoughts about heaven and the right hand of God, and he explains in particular that according to Scripture the body of Christ has at least a threefold mode of existence, namely, in addition to the spatial mode of being in the manger in Bethlehem (praesentia circumscriptiva) and the unspatial mode of being in the closed door (praesentia definitiva), the unspatial, divine mode of being in the Person of the Son of God (praesentia divina et reple-

tiva), according to which latter way the omnipresence of the body of Christ cannot be denied. Luther expressly says: "That I proved how Christ's body is everywhere, because God's right hand is everywhere, I did that because I even publicly expressed there #°) that I indicated a certain way, so that God might be able that Christ was in heaven and his body in the Lord's Supper at the same time, and reserved more ways for his divine wisdom and power, by which he might be able to do the same, because we do not yet know the measure of his power at the end of his power."® Luther sees the matter in such a way that he does the more than was necessary when he, in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, gets involved in the doctrine of Christ's Person and especially in the doctrine of the communication of attributes. "For the sake of our people," says Luther, "to strengthen them, I will continue to act as the dreamer's reason and causes are nothing, and prove abundantly that there are neither articles of faith contrary to Scripture nor articles of faith, that the body of Christ is in heaven and the Lord's Supper at the same time, although I do not owe it to the ‘enthusiasts’ to do so."**) This is the historical course of events which led Luther to treat the doctrine of omnipresence in connection with the Lord's Supper. Because the misrepresentations about this point, which is important in principle and in practice, did not cease, fifty years later, in the preface to the Book of Concord, one felt compelled to point out once again emphatically the true historical facts. It says there: Although some theologians, and among them Luther himself, when they treated of the Lord’s Supper, were drawn, against their will, by their adversaries to disputations concerning the personal union of the two natures in Christ, nevertheless our theologians in the Book of Concord, and by the norm of sound doctrine which is in it, testify (diserte) that both our constant and perpetual opinion and that of this book is that with regard to the Lord’s Supper godly men should be led to no other foundations than to those of the words of institution of the testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. For since He is both almighty and true, it is easy for Him to do those things which He has both instituted and promised in His Word. And indeed, when this foundation will not be assailed by their adversaries,

established St. L. XX, 752 ff.

~ 193-194] they will not contend in this kind of argument concerning other methods of proof, but, in true simplicity of faith, will firmly insist upon the very plain words of Christ, which method is the safest, and is best suited to the instruction of uneducated men; for those things which have been discussed with greater exactness they do not understand. But indeed, since this our assertion and the simple meaning of the words of Christ’s testament are assailed by the adversaries, and rejected as godless and conflicting with the nature of true faith, and finally are claimed to be contrary to the Apostles’ Creed (especially to the statements concerning the incarnation of the Son of God, His ascension into heaven, and His sitting at the right hand of the almighty power and majesty of God) and therefore to be false, it must be shown by a true and thorough interpretation of these articles that our opinion differs neither from the words of Christ nor from these articles.."8) Thus the Lutheran Church certainly rejects the claim that it bases the presence of the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper on the divine omnipresence communicated to the human nature of Christ. While in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper she also cites the real participation of the human nature of Christ in the divine presence under the heading "reasons", under "reasons" she also deals with everything that demonstrates the emptiness of the Reformed objections and thus beats the opponent with his own weapons. The omnipresence of Christ according to human nature cannot serve as a decisive reason for the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, if only because according to Lutheran doctrine the presence in the universe is different from the presence in the Lord's Supper. In the Lord's Supper Christ's body, although not localised, is so present that it is "grasped", that is, received with the bread. But the presence in all things is such that it cannot be "grasped" or "seized" by any human being. In other words, the Lutheran Church distinguishes between the omnipresence of Christ in the universe, established by the unio personalis and expressly witnessed to by Scripture, and the presence of the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper, established by the words of institution. For the latter mode of presence, therefore, she also has the special name of the unio sacramentalis. The Formula of Concord says: " Propter sacramentalem unionem panis et vinum vere sunt corpus et sanguis

540. [Trigl. 811, 10, F. C., Epit., VI, 10.] Christi." It is therefore based on a distortion of Lutheran doctrine when, against the omnipresence of Christ according to human nature, it is claimed by the Reformed that the body of Christ is then received at every meal, or when the Catholic Klee thinks that the whole world would then be "Eucharist",4>) or when the more recent historian of dogma Loofs, in astonishment, asks: "Is it him" (namely also present in every bread)—"why is he not ‘caught’ there?"*> or when Hunzinger has the idea that Luther overshoots the mark with his omnipresence teaching and endangers his Communion teaching. **) Luther's teaching is this: For all the omnipresence of Christ's human nature, Christ's body and blood would not be in the Lord's Supper if Christ had not "bound" himself to the Lord's Supper for us human beings through the words "This is my body", "This is my blood". "Another is," says Luther, "when God is there, and when he is there for you. But then he is there for you when he adds his word and binds himself to it and says: Here you shall find me.... So also, because Christ's humanity is at the right hand of God and now is also in all things and above all things in the manner of the hand of God, you will not"—as the people fanaticalized by the enthusiasts in Luther's time spoke *4’—"eat or drink him as the cabbage and soup on your table, for he wants to. He is now also become incomprehensible, and will not catch him, whether he is in your bread, unless he binds himself to you, and make up a special table for you by his word, and interpret for yourself the bread by his word, that you may eat it, which he does and speaks in the Lord's Supper: "This is my body. As if he were to say, 'You may eat bread at home, because I am near enough to it: but this is the right Tuto, this, this is my body. If you eat this, you eat my body, but not otherwise." +) It is precisely on this point that the Lutheran Church proves that it adheres to the principle of Scripture. It declares that the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper is based on Christ's words of institution and cannot be inferred from other doctrines, especially not from the doctrine of Christ's Person.

Agreement among Lutherans on the communicated Agreement among Lutherans on the communicated omnipresence. The Reformed theologians of old and new times have fought the communicated omnipresence with the reference to the disagreement that can be found with regard to this point among the Lutherans themselves. In particular, Chemnitz has been contrasted with Luther, Brenz and the South German theologians. In old times, for example, the Swiss Hospinian. So in old times for example the Swiss Hospinian. © In our time Hodge writes: "It was a principle with the Wittenberg school of the Lutheran theologians that human nature is not capable of divinity. * This is true also of Chemnitz, the greatest of the divines of the age after the Reformation. According to Hodge, Chemnitz is therefore also supposed to have specifically rejected the omnipresence of Christ according to human nature as a "monstrosity" and "portentum". *®) Hodge is to be excused insofar as he draws his historical knowledge about this point from Dorner, whose historical fictions Frank has already pointed out. 4?) A judgement closer to historical truth can be found in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Schaff-Herzog. Here it is denied, "that an essential difference existed between the Saxon and Swabian doctrine with reference to the suppositions and foundations themselves. For Chemnitz himself expressly denied that the hypostatic union, or the personal indwelling of the entire fulness of the Deity in the assumed human nature, had become "in the course of years progressively greater, closer, fuller, and more perfect,’ and rather asserted this indwelling ‘from the first moment of the hypostatic union’ (De duabus nat., p. 216), and most decidedly declared against the assumption that God can be placed somewhere without placing there also the humanity assumed by Him. *©° This judgment corresponds to the historical facts. We

"the Wittenberg school of the Lutheran theologians" who claimed "that human nature is not capable of divinity". It would fit the Wittenberg Crypto-Calvinists.

can summarise the Christological situation in this way: Both the Reformed and the Lutherans lack the necessary basis for a substantial disagreement. As long as the Reformed theologians hold fast to their Christological axiom that the finite is not capable of the infinite, and consequently do not let the Son of God, after his incarnation, be less extra carnem than in carne, and allow the human nature of Christ only to be local, so long can no substantial disagreement arise among them, neither in thesis nor in antithesis. For the Reformed, because of their "Extra Calvinisticum", the unio personalis is always only a heightened unio mystica and sustentative [mere sustaining union]. Antithetically, because of their axiom "corporis humani non alia quam visibilis, localis, circumscriptiva praesentia est" [of the human body is nothing other than a visible, local, circumscribed presence’] they declare every participation of the human nature of Christ in the illocal divine presence to be an annihilation of human nature. The Lutherans are considered to be Eutychians by them. The old Reformed theologians well knew what they were fighting for when they looked for an opening in the closed doors of John 20. They need this opening in order to be able to hold on to their non alia quam localis praesentia [no other than a local presence] and thus the basis of the Reformed Christology. When individual Reformers and recently Marcus Dods, on the basis of John 20, grant the Body of Christ an unspatial way of being, they are thereby giving the Reformed Christological unity bond a prize. As long as they adhere to the Reformed fundamental principle that for the human nature of Christ only the local mode of being is possible, there can be no talk of substantial Christological differences among the Reformed. But the same situation confronts us with the Lutheran theologians. As long as they hold: in Christo finitum capax est infiniti [in Christ the finite is capable of the infinite] and: since the Incarnation the Son of God is everywhere where he is, evoapKoc, neque Adyoc extra carnem, neque caro extra Aoyov, so long they lack the necessary basis for an essential difference. This now also applies especially to Chemnitz. It is a complete reversal of the historical fact when Hodge ascribes to this "greatest of the divines of the age after the Reformation" the teaching that the human nature of Christ is incapable of divinity. It is precisely against this Reformed zp@tov wevdoc, which, as we know, was represented by the Crypto-Calvinists Eber, Major and Crell, that Chemnitz wrote its famous Christological writing De duabus naturis in Christo. Whoever has read this writing Agreement among Lutherans on the communicated is under the impression that Chemnitz is almost to the point of weariness with the neque Adyoc extra carnem, neque caro extra XOyov [neither AOyosG outside flesh, nor flesh outside A0yov]. Chemnitz says that the unio personalis is not to be thought as if the assumed human nature of the whole fullness of the Godhead was only merely somewhere (alicubi agglutinata), as if a finger is connected with the body, a city lies by the sea, or a line touches the circle only at one point, but the unio personalis understands in itself "the most present presence of the united natures (praesentissimam praesentiam unitarum naturarum)". He judges the opposite view: it would be incompatible with piety and truth to think or believe, after the incarnatio, that the person of the Logos is outside the assumed human nature and the latter outside the Logos. *°!) And as for the capacity of Christ's human nature for participation in the divine attributes, Chemnitz teaches: "In the human nature of Christ, through personal union, there are not merely natural attributes that become part of the nature of the human. In the human nature of Christ, through personal union there are not only natural attributes that belong naturally to the nature of human nature, nor only extraordinary but finite spiritual gifts that far surpass the gifts in the saints, "but from this [personal] union human nature in Christ has at the same time, according to Scripture, received divine majesty, power, life, etc., given and communicated, because it has all the fullness dwelling in itself personally.

non tantum particulae alicui Deitatis Adyov alicubi agglutinata est, sicut clavus adhaeret rotae, planeta circulo, digitus corpori, civitas mari, vel sicut linea circulum tangit in uno tantum puncto. Sed facta est unio personalis et ad unum vpiotauevov. Hypostatica vero unio non admittitit separationem vel absentiam alterius naturae ab altera quasi alicubi seorsim positae, sed complectitur praesentissimam presentiam unitarum naturarum inter se.... Ad hypostaticae unionis rationem [being] pertinet, quod jam post incarnationem persona tov Adyov extra assumptam naturam et sine ea seorsim et separatim nec pie nec recte vel cogitari vel credi potest aut debet, nec vicissim caro assumpta extra Aoyov aut sine verbo. [Google

plenitudinem Deitatis habet in se personaliter inhabitantem, ita simul iuxta Scripturam accepit donatam et communicatam sibi divinam maiestatem, potestatem, sapientiam, vitam etc.... [Google of divine majesty to the human nature, Chemnitz immediately adds with the words: "For the Spirit is not given to Christ according by measure, Joh. 3; all things are given into His hands, Joh. 13; all power is given to Him, Matt. 28; the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, Col. 2; with glory and honor He crowned Him and set Him above all the works of His hands. Hebr. 2; He has put Him above all names, Eph. 1; Christ's flesh is giving life, Joh. 5 and 6; His blood cleanses the conscience, Hebr. 7; Even more: Chemnitz also explicitly rejects the Reformed reinterpretation of these passages, according to which those divine attributes are to be given to Christ according to the divine person of the Logos, but not according to the assumed human nature. He says: "Certain people claim that those attributes proper to the Godhead which, according to the Scriptures, are given, bestowed or bestowed on Christ in time, do not concern the assumed human nature at all, but are only attached to the person.... But Scripture, when it speaks of the things given to Christ in time, does not only refer to the person in general, but explicitly to Christ according to the assumed human nature, namely, the flesh and blood of the same, in order to indicate in this way the nature of Christ as the recipient of those things, as Jn. 5: He gave him life and the power to execute judgment, because or inasmuch as (as Cyril interprets it) he is the Son of Man; so also his flesh is life-giving, and his blood makes consciences clean from all sins". Thus, Chemnitz adds, the whole of orthodox antiquity unanimously teaches, and it has "rejected as heretics those people who claimed that what was given in time according to the teaching of the Scriptures to Christ is not to be understood by the assumed human nature, but by his other nature, which was before the Incarnation. © Thus Chemnitz teaches of the capacity of Christ's human nature for the divine attributes. But it has now been claimed that Chemnitz, in the difference between Luther and Brenz, rejects the so-called omnipraesentia generalis Christ according to his human nature, that is, the presence in all creatures. This has been followed by the further assertion that the Formula of Concord in its

Agreement among Lutherans on communicated omnipresence. eighth article, De persona Christi, represents a compromise between Chemnitz on the one hand and Luther and Brenz on the other. In the quotations from Luther in the Formula of Concord,* it is indeed taught that since the Incarnation of the Son of God " all things are through and through full of Christ, also according to His humanity", and yet the presence is presented in and with all creatures. But the actual doctrinal presentation of the Formula of Concord is limited to Chemnitz' "Ubivolipresence" or "Multivolipresence", that is, to the teaching that Christ is present according to his humanity everywhere where he wants to be present according to his promise, i.e. especially in the Lord's Supper and in the Church. So essentially recently also Hunzinger in the last edition of the Protestant New Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia, which is widely spread in the United States. © Hunzinger therefore also thinks that the doctrine of the Formula of Concord proves to be "a combination of the Lutheran-Brenz and Chemnitz concepts which is difficult to fix precisely and unambiguously". This judgment is based on the erroneous assumption that Chemnitz rejected the doctrine of the praesentia generalis. The historical incorrectness of this assumption has already been proven by Hospinian opposit Hutter in his Concordia Concors. Insonderheit appeals. In particular, Hutter refers to a letter from Chemnitz "written to Hesse". °° But Chemnitz also teaches the omnipraesentia generalis already in his letter De duabus naturis in Christo. We put the passage in extenso here, because Frank too left out the decisive words in his ",Theologie der Konkordienformel ". ** Chemnitz writes: "So far we have spoken of the presence of the whole person of Christ in both the Lord's Supper and in the Church from the Scriptures and from the testimonies of the early Church, and have shown how comforting that teaching is. But if, moreover, it is asked of other creatures which are outside the church and subject to God's general government, the Scripture clearly teaches that Christ, according to his humanity as the Lord, or, as the ancients speak, Christ's mankind, is subject to all things, not only in the church, but generally (in genere) to all things, so that nothing is exempt except He who has subjected all things to Him.

And explicitly mentioned in that submission are the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, the fishes in the sea and all works of the hands of God in general, whether they are in heaven or on earth or under the earth, also the enemies of Christ and so also the devil and death itself, Ps. 8; Phil. 2; Rev. 4 and Cor. 15, where as correlate of the submission the dominion is set, which Ps. 8 is explained by the word "maschal", which word means to have power, dominion, authority over someone and to exercise it powerfully. Human nature in Christ must not therefore be kept entirely apart and excluded from the general dominion which it has and exercises over all things, and so from the administration of the world, because Scripture expressly states that all things outside the Church are also subject to the feet of Christ. These statements are not to be understood solely in terms of the divine nature in Christ, but actually (proprietiously) in terms of the subjection of all things, which human nature in Christ has received in time through exaltation, as we have shown in many words in the preceding passage. Not that humanity reigned separately, but that in both, with both, and through both natures, the person reigns mightily over everything, which dominion the Deity of the Logos has from eternity, but which humanity has received in time through personal union. Whoever reads Chemnitz's words only up to this point could at best still think that Chemnitz only teaches an effective, but not a substantial presence of Christ according to human nature in all creatures. Hunzinger also believes himself justified in saying: "Praesens ubique dominari is not ubique esse." *®) But Chemnitz himself immediately rejects this interpretation of his words when he adds that Christ does not reign in absentia like worldly kings, but in such a way that he is present everywhere in the dominated territory precisely according to his human nature. Chemnitz, in fact, immediately continues: "But that one"— Christ's humanity (humanitas)—"reigns in the Logos and with it over all things, not from afar or separated by an immense space, or by a vicarious service or business, as is the way of kings when their rule extends over many and varied lands,

Agreement among Lutherans on communicated omnipresence. but as it" (the humanitas) "has its existence in the Logos, so also, insofar as it is personally attached to the Logos, it has all things present before it in the Logos, and it rules over all things present in the Logos. Although we do not understand the way in which this happens, we simply believe it, because we see the human nature of Christ not only in its natural limitation and not only according to its essential and natural characteristics, but primarily in its personal union with the Godhead and in the possession of that exaltation over all names, after having received all power and dominion over everything". © Therefore, the assumption that the Formula of Concord contains a conscious or unconscious doctrinal compromise between Luther and Chemnitz must be rejected as factually unfounded. Chemnitz was able to sign the Lutheran-Brenz "everything is through and through full of Christ, even according to the humanity" without compromise, because he himself teaches it, as we have seen., if he had not died in 1546, because he too wow teaches, in addition to "omnipresence", "voli-presence" that is, the volitional presence, in the Lord's Supper, etc. Quite unnecessarily Hunzinger charges Luther as an inconsistency that he, apart from the substantial presence, also teaches the "volitional presence", and just as unnecessarily he speaks with Chemnitz of a "contradictory wavering", because with Chemnitz, apart from the volitional presence, also the omnipresence appears in the words: "that the hypostatic union in and of itself establishes utriusque naturae inter se praesentissimam unionem et unitissimam praesentiam [the most immediate union and united presence of both natures with each other], and therefore humanity is always present in the Logos and has all creatures present in him". 4 The fact is that both Martins teach both without any self- contradiction, because both hold fast to the neque caro extra Aoyov neque Aoyoc extra carnem [neither is the flesh outside the word, nor is the word outside the flesh] as the essence of the unio personalis and reject the fundamental Reformed error of the only local and circumscribed way of being of the human nature of Christ. Therefore, even between Luther and Chemnitz or between the "Swabians" and the "Saxons" the

necessary basis for a disagreement is missing. Here we also touch on some points, the treatment of which must be detailed more again later, especially in the doctrine of the estates of Christ. Not only Chemnitz thinks of the human nature of Christ as an instrument—admittedly as a personal and participatory instrument—of the Godhead for the orientation of the work of redemption, but also with Luther the human nature of Christ is the "instrumentum" of the Godhead,*) and the communication of the divine attributes to the human nature is also with Luther not "rigidly physical" but rather thought of as an effect. In particular, Luther allows the omnipraesentia generalis to be set by the divine will when he says: "Because he" (the body of Christ through his being received into the I of the Son of God) "is beyond all created things, he is certainly where he will to be, so that_all creatures are so permeated by it and present to it as the physical place or abode is for another body."* On the other hand, Chemnitz cannot avoid thinking with Luther that the state of humiliation is only a concealment of the divine majesty through partial non-use in the human nature and that the state of exaltation is only a revelation through complete use of the divine glory. For Chemnitz warns not only against the false conception of the humiliation of Christ, as if during this state the human nature of Christ had not possessed the whole divine glory, but also against the false conception of exaltation, as if through it the human nature had received something "as it were from outside and from elsewhere" (quasi ab extra et aliunde) that it had not already had since the conception by the unio personalis. So also at this point the necessary basis for a difference is missing. +

MEPLYOPNOLG, or interpenetration. Dorner rightly says of Luther: "He also thought of the omnipresence of the Body of Christ not as an infinite spread in the universe or as diffusion, but as the power to make everything present to itself and itself to everything in a dynamic way. (Glaubenslehre 2 II, 1, 333.)

imaginantur assumptam naturam liumanam ratione unionis tunc non habuisse divinam maiestatem personaliter inhabitantem, quasi scilicet exinanitio sit absentia vel carentia. Deinde fingunt post depositam servilem formam, quidquid assumpta natura excellentiae et praeeminentiae in glorificatione et exaltatione scribitur accepisse, illud eam Agreement among Lutherans on communicated omnipresence. Admittedly, there has been no lack of occasional Christological feuds among Lutheran theologians. But these were based partly and primarily on personal also political—disagreements,* partly on imprecise formulations and on mistakes in the presentation of details. 47) What Chemnitz non ex hypostatica cum divinitate unione accepisse et habere, sed quasi ab extra et aliunde in eam allatum. Quae imaginationes cum vera ratione hypostatic unionis pugnant et eam evertunt. In primo enim momento conceptionis tota plenitudo divinae essentiae et maiestatis personaliter se assumptae naturae univit et in ea personaliter habitavit. Licet autem ratione exinanitionis se non semper in carne plena et manifesta usurpatione exeruerit, non tamen ideo defuit, ut postea in glorificatione et exaltatione aliunde et quasi ab extra.fuerit in carnem inferenda et deducenda. Aliud enim est aliquid habere, et aliud est illud usurpare. [Google

who later on quite incomprehensibly fought against the Formula of Concord because of its "tiresome ubiquity". HeShusius admits that he himself may have taught this "tiresome ubiquity" in the past. But now he wants to " expunge" it. HeShusius also admits that the "Lutheri testimonium", in which the "ubiquity" is taught, was already in the Formula of Concord at the time he signed it. But in signing it, he had seen "that the praesentia corporis Christi in Coena is asserted and demonstrated in the right way from the Word of God, and that many other controversiae religionis were decided in Formula Concordiae graviter et nervose seint". (Rejection of the quite inexplicable displays etc. This writing of the Helmstadters from the year 1585 is before me in "Acta and writings, belonging to the Concordi book and necessary" etc. Anonymously and without indication of the place of printing obviously published by a Calvinist in 1589 B. 25-27). HeShusius and Daniel Hoffmann felt that they were being left behind in the proceedings on the Formula of Concord, and Duke Julius was seriously offended by a reproach from Chemnitz. Duke Julius, out of political interest, had burdened his sons with Papist ordinations, and Chemnitz reproached him that he had burdened his sons with imprinting the sign of the Antichrist. (H. Schmid in RE.’ III, 190 f. Gieseler II, 2, 307 ff. Miiller, Symb. Buecher, Einl., p. 118 f.)

divine attributes are directly communicated to the human nature, which do not absolutely conflict with the reality of the human nature. So Baier III, 68, refers to the so-called quiescent divine attributes: simplicity, eternity, immensity. The matter is correct, but the reasoning is incorrect and can be misused in a rationalistic way. For if, on the other hand, the Reformed theologians say that even the so-called operative divine attributes omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, contradict the truth of human nature, these same Lutheran theologians are forced to fall back on their own reason and say: The scripture only states it has recently been claimed that he fell away from Luther's doctrine. We believe that we have not only proven the opposite in the previous article, but also made it clear that the necessary basis for a doctrinal difference between Chemnitz and Luther is lacking. But we have to admit that at one point Chemnitz is unnecessarily retreating from a Reformed argument. As is well known, from the very beginning the Reformed have tried to frighten the public by the allegedly terrible fact that in the doctrine of an omnipresence of Christ according to both natures, human nature is to be thought of as present not only in wood and stone but also in unclean places, cesspools etc. Chemnitz does not treat this objection as denying this presence. Rather, in De duabus naturis as well as in the letter written to Hesse, he insists that no creature, place or space separating the two natures should be allowed to enter into Christ. But in both places he advises to turn away thoughts from this presence, because they are not edifying, but annoying to the simple-minded. Nor can the presence of the divine nature in such places be thought of without annoyance. On the other hand, with Luther it can be said that the thought of this presence is not annoying and disturbing, but edifying and comforting. Luther reminds us that Christians were also thrown into sewers at the time of persecution. And in this situation, it was certainly very comforting that they did not have to wait until they came to a "decorated church" before invoking God. *’® The participation of human nature in the divine presence in all creatures is annoying only when, contrary to Scripture, "childish thoughts" are harbored by the divine presence, namely thoughts of a spatially extended presence of the divine nature and thus also of the human nature connected with it. As soon as one lets these thoughts contrary to Scripture go, as it is proper, the "annoyance" ceases, and is also resisted the fear that through the presence in all places either the divine or the working divine attributes directly from the human nature, while it brings the quiescent attributes indirectly—to the working ones—to the statement. The Formula of Concord is based solely on the principle of Scripture. (M. 685, § 52. 53.) This subject will be discussed in a later section.

Agreement among Lutherans on communicated omnipresence. the human nature or both could be mixed with the creatures and thus be defiled. +7 Chemnitz at this one point evades a Reformed argument is not justified by the added reminder that we must keep within the limits of Scripture in the high mystery of the Person of Christ and expect further disclosures in eternal life. He himself has just proved from Scripture,*® that Christ, according to his human nature, does not rule the universe in absentia, but has omnia coram se praesentia. He has also added the exhortation to believe the fact of the presence in all creatures in response to the Word of Scripture, even though the how eludes our understanding. Moreover, he also immediately added again that it is necessary in all circumstances to hold fast to the principle that the divine nature of Christ cannot be thought of anywhere outside his human nature. Thus Chemnitz indeed puts himself again in line with Luther and the "Swabians", because—this is to be repeated—he lacked the basis for a difference. *®) Admittedly, a reminder against

Christum esse in omnibus cloacis, cantharis, patibulis etc. Sed respondemus kat' evotaotv: ita nec Deus ipse creaturis omnibus erit praesens, quia verendum, ne sit in omnibus cloacis, patibulis, cantharis. [Google] (Theol. pos.-pol. I, 247.)

particularius disputatur et quaeritur, cum in ecclesia Christus utraque sua natura adsit et in singulis membris inhabitet ac corpus eius sit in coena, an ita etiam corpus Christi in lignis et lapidibus, in pomis, in avibus coeli, pecoribus campi, piscibus maris, an ibi quaeri et inveniri velit, et quae praeterea auditu foeda, cogitatu abominanda de stercoribus et cloacis, quae etiam de divina natura, quam ubique esse constat, sine blasphemia cogitari aut dici non possunt, attexi solent, cum de huiusmodi quaestionibus non habeamus certum verbum et expressam promissionem, quod ibi velit quaeri et inveniri, nec aliquid vel aedificationis vel consolationis in ecclesia afferant, sed simpliciores offendant, infirmiores perturbent et adversariis praebeant materiam litis nunquam finiendae, simplicissimum et tutissimum est, tales disputationes a nostris argumentationibus et consequentiis retrahere et intra cancellos divinae patefactionis revocare ac intra illas metas nos sollicite continere, ut Christum ibi more recent dogma historians is in place here. There is a noticeable tendency to move Chemnitz to the fore in Christology at the expense of Luther and Brenz. Luther and Brenz are credited quaeramus et apprehendamus, ubi se adesse velle certo verbo promisit. [Google] Atque ita reliqua, quae vel quaeri solent vel disputari possunt, suspendamus, differamus et reiiciamus ad futuram coelestem illam academiam, ubi coram facie ad faciem Christi, Fratris nostri, gloriam, quae, qualis et quanta sit, videbimus. Omnia enim arcana mysterii huius penetralia pervestigare et perlustrare in hac vita nec possibile nec mandatum nobis est., Interea tamen non simus tam impii, ut dicamus, Filium Dei universa sua potentia, etiam si vellet, hoc praestare non posse, sed retineamus illud, quod verissimum est, Christum suo corpore esse posse ubicunque, quandocunque et quomodocunque vult, de voluntate vero eius ex patefacto certo verbo iudicemus. [Google]. From the letter written to Hesse, Hutter (Concordia Concors 1690, p. 1213 sq.) states the following: "Fifthly, we have also agreed that the simplest, surest way is not to introduce ex speculatione absolutae ubiquitatis all kinds of disputationes and conclude, sed ut ordiamur a verbo patefacto et a promissionibus divinis de praesentia Christi. Licet enim per ascensionem Christus localem, circumscriptam et visibilem suam praesentiam nobis sustulerit, we have nevertheless comforting, explicit promise that the whole, complete Lord Jesus Christ (to which whole, complete person not only the divine, but both natures, divine and human, personally united, belonging together) and be present in his Lord's Supper and in the ministry of the word and the sacraments, also in his whole Church, in each and every one of her members, where they are scattered throughout the world. And though such things do not happen locali circumscriptione aut visibili praesentia [local limitation or visible presence], we have and believe, by the inspired promise, because the assumed human nature is inseparably inserted into the Person of the Son of God through personal union, that the whole person of Christ is not alone with the divine, but also with his assumed human nature in his Lord's Supper, in the ministerio verbi et sacramentorum, in his whole Church, in each and every one of her members, where those who are scattered throughout the world on earth want to and can be present, by virtue of his promise. For from the presence of the Person of Christ we must in no way separate, separate or divorce the assumed human nature, because this is our greatest consolation, that the Lord Jesus Christ also wants to be with us according to nature and with the nature according to which he is our brother, and we want to be flesh from his flesh. For no man hath prepared his own flesh; for that is comforting. But if someone wanted to ask further questions from creatures other than the Church of God, we know in general that Christ, even according to his assumed human nature, has put everything under his feet, has subjected everything to his power, that everything is present to him, and he reigns over everything in his presence. But if one wanted to dispute about wood, stone, or other unclean places, and dealings, so 205-206] with greater boldness and uniformity, Chemnitz with the greater scripturality. 48) This judgment is not factually well-founded. The communicated omnipresence in the states of Humiliation and Exaltation. To the question when Christ, according to human nature, became a partaker of the divine presence, there is, according to Scripture, only one correct answer: at the moment of conception or, which is the same, at the moment when the Son of God became man. This is witnessed in all passages of Scripture in which the Incarnation of the Son of God is mentioned. If we start from Col. 2:9, we have to say that with the nav to TAnpa@pa tis Gedtnto0¢c the divine omnipresence also entered into humanity. Those who are again frightened by the tremendous extension of human nature that is involved here, should remember that the divine omnipresence has no extension at all. The divine omnipresence is admittedly not greater than "the entire fullness of the Godhead". If the entire fullness of the Godhead has more place in the human nature of Christ than in its place, then the divine omnipresence also finds sufficient space in the same. Only the modern kenoticists have the surest way that such questions may be put and such disputationes abolished, because they do not build, but give rise to vastness and vexatious thoughts, and we do not sufficiently or fully understand the mystery of personal union in Christ in this life; only that we may keep in common the reason that no creature, locality, place or time should separate or leave behind the two natures in the Person of Christ, but that wherever he is, he should have them in Person or in the manner and by the power of personal union in and with him. If one remains in and with such simplicity, I respect, be it safest and simplest and also edifying to the Church".

the Jena edition (VIII, 375), according to which Luther also wanted to have the disputation about the generalis omnipraesentia stopped. Hutter proves in Concordia Concors, p. 31 sqq., that these are not Luther's words but probably Melanchthon's. Hutter also explains how Chemnitz bona fide could ascribe the words to Luther. from their point of view a right to deny the human nature of Christ in the state of humiliation the omnipresence communicated, because they do not let the Son of God become man in the fullness of his divinity, but minus omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. What the Son of God, in the state of humiliation, did not have according to his divine nature, he naturally could not communicate to his human nature either. But all anti-kenoticists, that is to say, all those who allowed the Son of God to become human in the fullness of his divinity, and yet, just as the divine power and wisdom that was communicated to him denies the divine presence that was communicated to them, so too they contradict not only Scripture, but also themselves. For example Meyer remarks on Col. 2:9: Accordingly, there dwells in Christ, in His state of exaltation, the essence of God, undividedly and in all fullness. There is no hint in the text for this addition. The old Lutheran teachers from Col. 2:9 rightly prove the communicated divine omnipresence also for the state of humiliation. * We stand before the same result on the basis of Joh. 1:14: "O Adyos otips eyéveto [The Word was made flesh and the parallel statements. Since the Logos became oip& [flesh], that is to say evoapkoc, incarnatus, no human being, and still less a theologian who confesses to believe the Scriptures, has a right to think the Son of God outside his human nature (extra carnem). Wherever he therefore—even in the state of humiliation—places the Son of God, whether in heaven or on earth, he must also place his human nature there, unless he would be willing to give up the evoapkos, incarnatus, for the state of humiliation. Not only for the state of exaltation but also for the state of humiliation the axiom applies: Neque Adyoc extra carnem, neque caro extra Aoyov [Neither Adyoc outside flesh, nor flesh outside Adyov]. If, in this Sacred Axiom, the thought of the extension of human nature is again to worry us, our heart will again be comforted by the reminder that extension is not a characteristic of the divine omnipresence, and that this non-ens has therefore not been communicated to human nature. The doctrine that Christ’s human nature possessed the divine, illocal omnipresence also in the state of humiliation

207] is commonly rejected on two grounds: 1. that the difference in status, that is, the difference between the status exinanitionis (humiliation) and exaltationis, would appear to be endangered; 2. that an intolerable "dualism" would be introduced, inasmuch as the omnipresence of Christ's communicated human nature is already in a state of humiliation both on earth and in heaven. But by it Christ and his whole sojourn on earth was reduced to a "phantasm", to a "ghostly appearance". As far as the first objection is concerned, however, the following applies to both states: "Where you put God, you must put with Him humanity", because in both states the Logos is evoapkoc (incarnate). But the present is not of the same nature in both states. In the state of humiliation, the Son of God is present only in his human nature to the universe and to the Church. In the state of exaltation, however, he is also present to the universe and to the Church through his human nature, that is, in such a way that all divine effects on the world and the Church take place through the human nature. No one should be surprised at this state of affairs. Divine omnipotence certainly was in the human nature throughout the state of humiliation, but it was not exercised through the human nature on all occasions and toward all objects. Divine omnipotence, for example, was surely in the human nature when Christ was taken prisoner, condemned, scourged, spit upon, crucified, and put to death. *8°) But divine omnipotence did not act through the human nature towards these humiliating experiences. Otherwise there could have been neither capture and condemnation nor suffering and death. Also the divine omniscience was in a state of humiliation at all times in the human nature of Christ. But also this divine attribute was not always active at all times and in relation to all objects through the human nature, as we see in Luke 2:62 and Mark. 13:32: Christ gained in wisdom and did not know the Day of Judgment. The same is now also the case

with the divine omnipresence. With all the fullness of the Godhead, from the moment of the Incarnation, of course, the divine omnipresence also dwelt in Christ's human nature as in his o@pav (body), and the Son of God was also in the state of humiliation wherever he was, in his human nature. But it was only with the exaltation according to his human nature that the Son of God became present to the universe and the Church through his human nature. The presence according to human nature became the almighty or omnipotent presence through human nature. This distinction is not a human invention. Rather, this progress from the omnipresence in human nature to the omnipresence through human nature is taught in Scripture wherever it is stated of Christ that after death and resurrection, by his elevation to the right hand of God, everything that exists was put under his feet, he was given to the Church as its head, and that he effectively fills both the universe and the Church. *8° Omnipresence in the state of exaltation is praesentissimum ac potentissimum in omnes creaturas dominium (present and powerful rule over all creatures) according to human nature. 487) At this point the Reformed theology from the Admonitio Neostadiensis up to the most recent time begins with an objection that it considers irrefutable. For it says: If the divine omnipresence, in the sense of a presence that rules all things, became fully active through the human nature only after Christ’s exaltation, then it must have remained separated from the human nature in the state of humiliation, before it became exalted,

between omnipraesentia partialis (without dominion by human nature) and fotalis sive modificata (with dominion by human nature). But we must not forget Scherzer's reminder that the presentia intima or partialis is also to be thought of as presentia substantialis (without physical extension, of course). [Johann Adam] Scherzer, Systema VIL, 224: Cum praesentia divina partialiter dd1aotaoiay, totaliter praeter indistantiam simul operationem denotet: Christus dominio quidem se evacuavit, ddiaotaoiay vero retinuit.. [Google] Scherzer treats the different nature of the present in the two states in great detail, both in terms of the matter and in terms of dogmatic history, 1. c., p. 221-238. 208-209] and so a great breach is made in the doctrine of the real (i.e., inseparable) communion of natures (realis communio naturarum) by the Lutherans themselves, who maintain this doctrine at all costs. In view of the omnipresence, this objection alone does not reach its goal any more than in the case of divine omnipotence. Just as the divine omnipotence was not separated from human nature by the fact that it did not act through human nature, for example in the case of imprisonment, crucifixion, etc., so the divine omnipresence was not separated from human nature by the fact that it did not act through human nature in the state of humiliation as an omnipotent presence. On the other hand, it has been asserted by one side that one can at best imagine the divine omnipotence as "resting" in human nature, but with regard to the divine omniscience and especially with regard to the divine omnipresence the thought of a "resting" within human nature, i.e. a distinction between ktyoic and ypyoic is simply "nonsense". The "nonsense" alone is merely subjective. It has its seat in the "dogmatizing subject, insofar as the latter stubbornly clings to the mistaken idea of a spatial extension of the divine omnipresence. Only in so far as one allows oneself to be dominated by this idea, which is contrary to Scripture, does one get the idea that in the state of exaltation a territory was occupied that was not covered in the state of humiliation. The second objection to the communicated divine omnipresence was that through the communicated omnipresence of Christ, human nature is ascribed to human nature in the state of humiliation, a simultaneous being on earth and in heaven. But this was a "dualism" that threatened to reduce Christ's person and walk on earth to a phantasm. Let us leave this conclusion aside for the time being, and consider only the thesis. Lutherans and Reformed Christians should easily be able to agree on the thesis that Christ, in the state of humiliation according to human nature, would have a simultaneous presence on earth and in heaven. Calvin says quite correctly that the Son of God came down from heaven, but without leaving heaven.

remained in heaven even when he was on earth, that is, when he was in the manger, in Galilee, in Jerusalem, etc. Calvin confesses, on the other hand,

non relinqueret that the human nature of Christ was from the very beginning and throughout the whole state of humiliation assumed into the Person of the Son of God Calvin must therefore admit, as long as he sticks to his two correct sentences, that Christ was also in heaven according to his human nature from the moment of the Incarnation and during the whole state of humiliation. In other words, anyone who teaches the Incarnation of the Son of God, that is, the reception of human nature into the Person of the Son of God, and in doing so, with Calvin, correctly allows the Son of God to remain in heaven, teaches eo ipso that Christ, according to his human nature, was simultaneously on earth and in heaven. Sitting at the right hand of God in the sense of the omnipresent dominion through human nature is something that Christ is only able to do in the state of exaltation. But the being in heaven by virtue of the unio personalis is attributed to him in the state of humiliation. That the Reformed theologians protest against this is because at this point they again, as often, abandon the unio personalis they admitted and reduce it to a unio mystica. They have raised an objection here which has also misled some Lutherans. In order to make it quite palpable that Christ's human nature could not be in heaven at the same time as he was on earth, Zwingli pointed to the fact that on earth Christ ate and drank, slept and rested, even crucified, died and was buried. These things, however, were obviously not suitable for heaven. Therefore, in the state of humiliation according to his human nature, Christ could not have been in heaven at the same time. Through this objection the otherwise excellent Althofer was also so confused that he not only translated the words of Joh. 3:13: 6 @v év 7 obpava (which is in heaven) with "who was in heaven" and referred to Christ's eternal being in heaven according to his divine nature, but also added that it was absurd to attribute to Christ in the state of humiliation a being in heaven, because it would follow from this that Christ had also eaten and slept in heaven etc. Quenstedt only remarks to Althofer: "I am surprised that an otherwise so learned theologian thinks and speaks so crassly of this highest mystery. 4 Luther takes a more energetic approach to the Reformed objection.

210-211] He proves that the argument taken from eating, sleeping, etc., if it proves anything, speaks even more strongly against the unio personalis of God and man in Christ. If eating and drinking is not appropriate for being in heaven, it is certainly not appropriate for human nature to be in the Godhead, since even by human standards one does not eat, drink, sleep, suffer, die and be buried in the Godhead. But if Zwingli, in all these events, left the human nature of Christ in the divinity, that is, in the unio personalis, he could also leave it in heaven without any doubts. Luther writes: "The coarse spirit does not yet know what it means to be in heaven, and wants to follow it. For since I said how Christ's body was in heaven while He was still walking on earth, as John 3:13 says: "The Son of Man, who is in heaven, dear God, how can he (Zwingli) follow and deceive us? How could, he says, Christ be in heaven at that time? Do people eat and drink in heaven too? Does one die and suffer in heaven too? Do we also sleep and rest in heaven? Look where you are coming, you great Luther; piss on yourself! What do you think about this victory of the spirit? He won Constantinople with this and ate the Turk.... A devout Christian tells me, is it not higher and greater that the humanity [Christ] is one Person in God, even with God, than that it is in heaven?... And so I would also like to conclude from the Zwingli art and to play a trick: Does one also drink and drink in the Godhead? Does one also die and suffer in the Godhead? Behold where thou art going, O great John the Evangelist, who would teach that Christ is God and in the Godhead! For if with God there is no dying or suffering or eating or drinking, Christ's humanity cannot be with God; much less can it be one Person with God.... Now if Christ can suffer and die on earth at the same time, whether he is in the Godhead and one Person with God, why should he not rather be able to suffer on earth, whether he is in heaven at the same time? If heaven should hinder it, much more would the Godhead hinder it.?!) Thus, however, also at this point we are again clearly confronted with the fact that the arguments with which the Reformed theologians fight the communication of the divine attributes to human nature—here the being in heaven—meet

the unio personalis itself, which they nevertheless want to hold against the Unitarians. Whoever sits down the unio personalis cannot exclude Christ's human nature from being in heaven, even in the state of humiliation. In the previous passage Joh. 3:13 has been mentioned repeatedly. That Christ's human nature on earth was at the same time in heaven, Luther rightly sees already taught in all scriptural passages which testify that Christ is God. In the man Christ, God was on earth and man in heaven. Luther now also finds this fact attested to by John 3:13, where Christ says of himself in conversation with Nicodemus: "No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who came down from heaven, who is in heaven" (0 @v Ev T@ ovpava). Luther refers the words "who is in heaven" to Christ according to human nature. And Luther is right. It is well known that not only Zwingli and Calvin, but also many theologians outside the Reformed camp understand these words of Christ according to divine nature and reject the relationship from Christ according to human nature. But the text is not to blame for this exegesis, which would break through the whole proof of Christ. Luther reports that Oecolampadius sneered at Pirkheimer when he referred to the words "who is in heaven" from Christ according to human nature. Luther remarks: "If I were Pirkheimer, I would send Oecolampadius a pair of glasses and ask him to count the letters, if it would help, so that he would not lead so carelessly over the passages of the Scriptures and not put their own their dreams into the books. *) Luther's outspoken language is justified. Christ speaks here in the conversation with Nicodemus of himself just according to his humanity. Of course, Christ is in heaven according to his divinity. But that is out of the question here. According to the context, the question arises as to whether Christ, insofar as he communicates in human form and in human speech, i.e. as a human being, with Nicodemus, gives the latter a reliable report on the heavenly things to which no man has access (ovéstc avaBéBrKEv Elc Tov ovpavov) [No man hath ascended up to heaven.]. Christ affirms this by saying that the Son of Man who came down from heaven and is now speaking from earth to Nicodemus

212-213] is in heaven. The thought is briefly this: The Son of Man speaks heavenly things on earth because he is in heaven as the one who speaks on earth. If one wanted to limit the being in heaven to the divine nature and exclude the human nature, according to which Christ speaks to Nicodemus, from being in heaven, one would, as has already been noted, render invalid the proof of Christ. For one would cut through the clear connection between being in heaven and the reliable witnessing of heavenly things. °° Even Calvin could not escape the impression of the clear wording. * It seems "absurd" to him that Christ said of himself that he esse in coelo [to be in heaven] at the time when he lived on earth. But he confesses that if one wanted to answer that this was true with regard to the Godhead, the expression would be different, namely that man himself was in heaven at that time. Calvin then helps himself with the Zwingli’s alloeosis: what is proper to divine nature is transferred to human nature, of course without a factual background, merely rhetorical. But Christ wants to give here precisely the factual background why the Son of Man can reveal heavenly things, and the reason is that the Son of Man is in heaven. Luther remarks on Joh. 3:13: "Christ is speaking here... of the heavenly fellowship with the Father, which is not bound to bodily existence, place and locality, which he had from eternity and also in human existence, as soon as he has been and remains such an assumed heavenly being at all times," °° In another place he writes on the words "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven For through his transfiguration he did not become another person, but as before, so also afterwards he is present

earth, was still in heaven (3:13), yet not de facto, but de iure. This puts the argument to the Savior: "I reveal the heavenly things to which no man has access, because although I am not in heaven either, I have a right to heaven.

everywhere." °° In order not to have to admit Christ to be in heaven according to human nature on the basis of Joh. 3:13, Reformed theologians have referred to Joh. 8:59: "Before

lot from the exegetes. There is no mention here of the Ascension of Christ after the Resurrection, just as old Lutheran theologians did not understand this passage, nor of the raptus in coelum (raptured into heaven) that the Socinians put here (Cat. Racov., ed. Oder, p. 347 sqq.), nor of the fact that Christ went to heaven every day for the purpose of learning mvevpati (in spirit), as Bohl even interprets strangely (Dogmatik, p. 340), but the words say that the Son of Man is in heaven at the time when he speaks with Nicodentus and can therefore provide credible information about heavenly things. The context is this: Christ demands faith from Nicodemus in relation to the heavenly things he is to testify to, and he justifies this demand by pointing out that no man but the Son of Man knows about the heavenly things and can make them known. That no man consecrates himself to the heavenly things, he says in the words: "No one has ascended into heaven," namely, to explore the heavenly things there. Parallel is John 1:18: "No one has ever seen God." But that the Son of Man knows about heavenly things and can make them known is expressed by saying that the Son of Man has come down from heaven and is in heaven. Just as the Father at the Transfiguration, Matthew 17:5, binds all the world to the mouth of the Son with the words: "This is my beloved Son... hear ye him", so here in the conversation with Nicodemus the Son himself binds all people to His mouth with the words: "No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven". Correctly Meyer notes that the words 6 wv &v €v TOIs Ovpavoic are "argumentative", that is, they indicate the reason why the Son of Man is able to bear witness to the heavenly things to which no man has access. But Meyer then again avoids the specific content of this passage by adding arbitrarily: The words "presuppose a necessary presence in heaven". The words here do not merely refer to a being, but also to a being in heaven, as Meyer has recognized immediately before when he adds to 0 ov ev tots ovpavoic: "whereby 6 @v is not dc Hy, but d¢ éot1, whose being is in heaven". That the words 0 ov sv Toic ovpavoic are missing from 8 [HEBREW] B, and L cannot move us to delete them, since Origen read the words in Romans 10:6. (Cf. Alford.) Well and clearly Michael Walther, in the Harmonia Biblica, on the passage, at the same time rejecting the relationship to the ascension of Christ after the Resurrection: Augustinus, Beda et Rupertus exponunt de ascensione post resurrectionem. Sed in Graeco habetur praeteritum avapéBnxev. Simplicius per communicationem idiomatum phrasis explicatur, hisce enim verbis Christus mysterium istud aperit, quod, licet humana ipsius natura naturaliter et localiter eo tempore tantummodo in terria cum Nicodemo fuerit, imo loco verissime circumscripta, Adyoc tamen nusquam fuerit, sive in coelo, sive in terra, ubi non eandem illam Abraham was, I am" and to Joh. 6:62: "the Son of man ascend up where he was before". Just as in these passages Christ speaks of himself only according to his divine nature, so also John 3:13 in the words: "who is in heaven". But this is a deception. In the first-mentioned passages Christ expressly says that he is speaking of himself before his incarnation, namely of his being before Abraham and of his being in heaven before he came down from heaven through the incarnation (Sov fv 10 mpdtepov). Joh. 3:13 but Christ definitely does not speak of himself before his incarnation, but of where he is after his descent from heaven (6 &« tod odpavod Katabdc) and at the time and hour when he is in contact with Nicodemus in human speech and gives him a reliable report about heavenly things, namely in heaven. And as for the "ghost" into which the man Christ is supposedly transformed, if he is in heaven at the same time as he is on earth, it must be said: if the man Christ on earth is at the same time "in the Godhead ", that is, is a Person with God without being transformed into a ghost, then the becoming of a ghost is not to be feared even if the man Christ on earth is at the same time in heaven. The Divine Honor that has been communicated. The separation of the human nature of Christ from the divine glory of the Son of God is such a clear violation of the unio personalis that some of the Reformed teachers at this point set aside the principle of finitum non est capax infiniti and concede divine glory to Christ's human nature because of its union with the divine nature. This is, of course, an inconsistency, because the predicate of divine honor is not only on the same line with the predicates of divine power and the other divine attributes, but the communicated divine honor is also the result of the communicated fullness of the divine nature and its attributes, and divine humanitatem sibi in personae suae unitate extra et supra omnem locum ineffabiliter unitam et personaliter present habuerit, quandoquidem totus Christus incarnatus et Filius hominis factus est. Non ergo Aoyoc¢ nudus et ab humana natura separatus, sed Aoyos incarnatus Filiusque hominis factus in coelo est personaliter cum in terris stat naturaliter, ubi neutra praesentia impedit aut tollit alteram. [Google] honor without communicated divine power and glory would be regarded as idolatry. Scripture explicitly justifies the communication of divine honor with the communication of divine attributes and works. *°’ But some of the Reformed theologians actually find the inconsistency that they reject the communicated divine nature, power, omniscience etc., but stand up for the communicated divine honor. Thus even Hospinian, the fierce opponent of the Formula of Concord, writes: "Among the orthodox there is no dispute that the whole Christ, God and man, is to be worshipped in one invocation, and that in worship humanity cannot and must not be separated from the Godhead, because it is God's humanity and united with the Word. Hospinian does not want to succeed in the attempted turn into the land of the alloeosis of Zwingli when he adds: "Actually the Godhead is worshipped in humanity as in its temple, which is why Cyril calls the humanity an adorable nature (adorabilem naturam). For because of the union the whole Christ is worshipped, and therefore with the word also the flesh"**® The attempt, repeated a few pages later *°?: also fails. When Hospinian writes: "The cause of this honor or adoration is only the adorable union of the flesh with the Word, which [union] is actually adored", Gerhard rightly adds: "It is not the union itself that is adored, but the united natures. Even Roman scribes concede divine honor to Christ according to human nature. So recently the Jesuit Drum writes in the Catholic Encyclopedia: "Since the human nature is the real and true nature of Christ, that human nature and all its parts are the object of the cult called Jatria, i.e., adoration...". © In contrast, other Reformed and Roman theologians are consistent. They want to see Christ excluded from divine glory according to his human nature. Zanchi thinks that it cannot be shown from Scripture that Christ is to be worshipped divinely according to human nature. *°) Beza expresses himself

writings in Gerhard, De pers. § 241 sqq.

more forcefully according to his habit. He calls the divine worship of Christ according to human nature "terrible idolatry" (horrendae idolatriae crimen). 5°) Other Reformed and Roman people offer us a compromise here. They want to pay homage to Christ according to human nature, which is neither purely divine nor purely human, but a kind of middle ground between the two. The Reformed speak of a cultus mediatorius. According to human nature, the Romans want to give Christ the same honor as the Virgin Mary, namely brepdovAsia (hyperdulia [most exalted of mere creatures]), assigning to God alone the Aatpsia (/atria) [supreme worship] and to the angels and men the dovAsia. (dulia). It seems almost unseemly to want to present only a more or less long series of scriptural statements for the fact that according to his human nature Christ was also given divine honor. Not the A0yoc doupkos, that is, the pre- existent Logos, but the Son of God, inasmuch as he was supposed to appear in the flesh and has appeared in the flesh in the fullness of time, that is to say the Son of God precisely also according to his human nature, the Son of God as the seed of woman, as Abraham's seed, as the seed of David and Mary, is the scopus of Scripture from the first book to the last, and is presented to all people on earth as the Savior in whom all believe and whom all are supposed to worship as their God and Savior. The Son of God, inasmuch as he is raised to the cross in the desert according to the type of the serpent, that is, according to human nature, is the object of the faithful contemplation of those who attain salvation. *°?) Whoever does not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and does not drink his blood, that is, according to the context, does not believe in the Son of God, inasmuch as, according to human nature, he has given his life to death and shed his blood, has no life in himself. °°) Also in heaven, the object of worship is the Lamb that was slain. °° Thus the quality of the worship of Christ according to human nature is already sufficiently marked as cultus vere divinus. The principle is in accordance with Scripture: " To whom we believe as our Savior, we show divine honor." >°® But even more: The lesser honor that Reformed

Christum hominem credimus, Ioh. 3:16. Ergo. (Systema, p. 81.) and Papists want to show Christ according to human nature is expressly forbidden in Scripture when it says that all should honor the Son, xaitac as they honor the Father. The fact that the Son is being considered here precisely according to his human nature is further emphasized by the preceding reasoning: "The Father judges no one, but all judgment he has given to the Son".°° Phil. 2:9-11 also determines both the quality of the worship of Christ as cultus vere divinus, and indicates the respect in which the cultus vere divinus is due to him, namely according to his human nature. The cultus vere divinus is determined by the words: God "hath given him a name which is above all names, that in the name of Jesus all the knees of them which are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and all tongues, shall bow down, and confess that Jesus Christ is the LORD. But that Christ is the object of this worship according to human nature is evident from the fact that he has been given this "name above all names", inasmuch as he previously humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death on the cross. When the Reformed and Papists, against the divine honor of the Church, have rejected scriptural statements such as Isaiah 42:3: "I will give my glory to no one else, nor my fame to idols" and Jer. 17:5: "Cursed is the man who relies on men" have objected, it becomes clear once again that they make the man Christ another alongside the Son of God (GAAoc Kat GAAOc), that is, despite all assurances to the contrary, they take the human nature of Christ out of personal union with the Son of God, that is, they dissolve the unio personalis. >°®) Dissolution of the unio personalis is also present in the case of granting divine glory to the human nature of Christ only ex accidenti, that is, in the manner in which the purple robe of the King participates in the royal glory. The

alter aliquis, sed cum Adyo unam constituit personam, ac proinde citra Nestorianismi reatum humanae in Christo naturae testimonium hoc adaptari nequit. Ad hanc, si extendere quispiam conetur, ab ipsa quoque tum nominis, tum regni et dominii divini xowovia illam consequenter excludet et neque Dominum neque Filium Dei fas erit appellare Christum secundum humanam naturam, quod contra manifesta Scripturae testimonia. Second type of communication as distinct from the first. [English ed. ~ 218-219] human nature of Christ does not relate to the person of the Son of God as a purple robe does to a king, but forms a personal unity with the Son of God. 59°) Tf one finally raises the same objection to the communicated divine glory as was raised against the communion of natures and against the communicated divine glory, power, knowledge, etc., namely that the human nature of Christ as a finite creature is not capable of divine glory, then va banque (a worthless card) is again played with it. If the human nature of Christ, because it is and remains a creature, is not capable of participation in divine honor, it is also not capable of participation in the divine Person of the Son of God, and the incarnation of the Son of God must be declared impossible with the Socinians and all Unitarians. As far as the Unitarians' veneration of Christ is concerned, since all of them deny Christ the essential divinity, only those among them who deny Christ any divine veneration are consistent. Inconsistently, Laelius Socinus and the Racovian Catechism,>' demand that the exalted Christ be invoked. The same inconsistency is committed by all modern theologians who attribute divine veneration to Christ, even though they reject the "two natures doctrine". The second Genus of communication of divine Attributes is different from the first. What has been said about the second way of communicating the attributes from page 169 onwards is summarized in this way for the sake of those who can do without the longer explanations: Since the natures in Christ remain unchanged, the human nature also has and retains its natural human attributes within the personal union. But because human nature is assumed into the Person of the Son of God, and the Son of God does not perform the work of redemption extra carnem but in carne and per carnem, the human nature of Christ participates not merely nominally (per modum loquendi) but actually (realiter) in the Son of God's

dissimilitudo. Neque enim vel purpura vel corona cum rege una est persona, sicut humanitas Christi cum Ady.

divine power, divine knowledge, divine presence, divine honor, in short, in the divine attributes. The Reformed and Roman theologians, who deny this participation, contradict a. the scriptural passages which report that the Son of God entered into human nature with all the fullness of the divine being and divine attributes,>! b. to the scriptural passages in which the individual divine characteristics of Christ are stated according to human nature, namely, omnipotence given in time,>!) omniscience given in time,>!*) omnipresence given in time,°! divine glory given in time. °°) The Reformed denial of this communication consequently includes both the denial of the Incarnation in general and the denial of the eternal divinity of Christ. For if the finiteness of human nature does not permit the communication of the divine attributes, the same is to be said of the communication of the divine Person of the Son of God, and thus the possibility of the Incarnation is denied. And if the communication of divine attributes that happened in time cannot be related to the human nature of Christ, only the relationship to the divine nature remains, and thus Christ would not be God from eternity, but a God made in time, an Arian creature. All these points have been set out in a longer version from page 169 onwards. If, however, on the basis of Scripture we have to teach a communication of divine attributes to the human nature of Christ, we are faced with the fact that divine attributes are due to Christ according to both divine and human nature. But in very different ways: according to the divine nature from eternity and as essential attributes (essentialiter), according to human nature as attributes given or communicated in time (communicative, per communicationem). Therefore, the difference between the first

Matt. 11:27; Joh. 13:3; 3:35; Isaiah 9:6; Joh. 5:27; 6:55; 1 Joh. 1:7.

Second type of communication as distinct from the first. [English ed. ~ 220] and second genus of the communication of the attributes is to be determined thus: In the first genus, divine and human things, for example eternity and an age of eight days, are equally real (realiter), but the divine is stated according to divine nature, the human according to human nature, as the sometimes expressly added particulae diacriticae (katé& oGpKa etc.) indicate. In the second genus, on the other hand—and this is the scriptural definition of the same—divine attributes are attributed to the Person of Christ also according to the human nature, not as essential attributes, but as attributes given or communicated in time, because the divine nature with its attributes dwells in human nature as its own body and comes to an effectiveness. Hence the designation of this second genus as genus maiestaticum, in order to express that according to human nature, Christ is not given merely glorious finite gifts, but divine majesty or infinite divine attributes through personal union. The same is said by the Greek expressions ddEaotc, PEAtiMotc, WETHSOOIc and LETATOINOIG, LETOYN BEiacg SvVGLEMCUSW. Because people at that time were less afraid of slander than we are at our time, they did not shy away from using expressions such as $éwotc, arovéwotic and $eornoinotc, not in the sense of transformation, but to designate the personal union of God and man and the penetration of human nature by the divine, which was thus set in motion. *!® That the Lutheran doctrine of the communication of divine attributes to human nature is not a new doctrine but has already been presented by the ancient Greek and Latin teachers, is convincingly demonstrated in the Catalogus Testimoniorum, which was published with the Book of Concord as a private treatise by Andreae and Chemnitz. *!7)

Quenstedt II, 143. A more detailed explanation of the names is given by Hollaz, De pers. Christi, qu. 47; from Chemnitz, De duabus naturis, chapters 25 and 26 belong here by name.

Testimonies of Sacred Scripture and of the old pure Church Teachers, as they have instituted, taught and spoken of the person and divine majesty of human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the right hand of the almighty power of God. [Trig/. 1107 ff.] This Catalogus should be noted all the more The Formula of Concord describes the genus maiestaticum in a detailed explanation as follows: But as regards the assumed human nature in the person of Christ, some have indeed wished to contend that even in the personal union with divinity it has nothing else and nothing more than only its natural, essential properties according to which it is in all things like its brethren; and that, on this account, nothing should or could be ascribed to the human nature in Christ which is beyond, or contrary to, its natural properties, even though the testimony of Scripture is to that effect. 51] But that this opinion is false and incorrect is so clear from God's Word that even their own associates rebuke and reject this error. For the Holy Scriptures, and the ancient Fathers from the Scriptures [in which they were fully trained], testify forcefully that, for the reason and because of the fact that it has been personally united with the divine nature in Christ, the human nature in Christ, when it was glorified and exalted to the right hand of the majesty and power of God, after the form of a servant and humiliation had been laid aside, did receive, apart from, and over and above its natural, essential, permanent properties, also special, high, great, supernatural, inscrutable, ineffable, heavenly prerogativas (prerogatives) and excellences in majesty, glory, power, and might above everything that can be named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come [Eph. 1:21]; and that, accordingly, in the operations of the office of Christ: the human nature in Christ, in its measure and mode, is equally employed [at the same time], and has also its efficaciam, that is, power and, efficacy, not only from, and according to, its natural, essential attributes, or only so far as their ability extends, but chiefly from, and according to, the majesty, glory, power, and might which it has received through the personal union, glorification, and exaltation. 52] And nowadays even the adversaries can or dare scarcely deny this, except that they dispute and contend that those are only created gifts or finitae qualitates (finite qualities), as in the saints, with which the because Chemnitz must be acknowledged as a thorough scholar of patristic literature even in our time. The testimonies for the genus maiestaticum are grouped under ten theses, which can be considered a brief summary of the doctrines of the Formula of Concord. The testimonies are each preceded by the proof of Scripture to express that "true, saving faith is not to be founded on any old or new church doctrine, but solely on the Word of God." The preceding proof of Scripture makes such a powerful impression because it is given without any commentary. Second type of communication as distinct from the first. [English ed. ~ 222] human nature in Christ is endowed and adorned; and that, according to their [crafty] thoughts or from their own [silly] argumentationes (argumentations) or [fictitious] proofs, they wish to measure and calculate of what the human nature in Christ could or should be capable or incapable without becoming annihilated. >!® In a shorter version, the Formula of Concord says: We believe, teach, and confess also that the assumed human nature in Christ not only has and retains its natural, essential properties, but that over and above these, through the personal union with the Deity, and afterwards through glorification, it has been exalted to the right hand of majesty, power, and might, over everything that can be named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come (Eph. 1:21) >! It cannot be pointed out emphatically enough that the scriptural statements in which divine attributes are attributed to Christ according to the divine nature (like: The Son of Man was in heaven, Joh. 6:62) have to be distinguished from the scriptural statements in which divine attributes are attributed to Christ according to the human nature (like: The Son of Man is in heaven, Joh. 3:13; has received all authority in heaven and on earth, Matt. 28:18). By failing to distinguish between these scriptural statements, the Reformed obstruct their understanding of the doctrine of Christ's Person, and the failure to take this difference into account in the scriptural statements is the reason why modern theologians criticize the tripartite division of the propositiones idiomaticae as unnecessary and cumbersome. Hase too,

. 676, § 12 [Trigl. 1019, F. C., Sol. Decl., VIII, 12.] Also Dietrich's definition in his exposition of the Small Catechism suffices: "What is the second kind of communication of the attributes? Answer: when divine majesty, honor, and power are conferred upon Christ according to human nature by and because of personal union." (St. Louis ed., p. 76.) Hollaz: Secundum genus communicationis idiomatum est, quo Filius Dei maiestatem suam divinam assumptae carni communicavit. (Examen, De pers., qu. 45.) who otherwise distinguished himself in his Hutterus Redivivus by his correct presentation of Lutheran Christology, has a misunderstanding on this point and he confuses the statements of Scripture in a disorderly manner. For he thinks that if in the first genus of the concrete of human nature divine things are said (like Joh. 8:58: He who was born in the time of Abraham is before Abraham), the statement coincides with the rightly understood genus maiestatieum, for example with Joh. 5:27: The Son of Man has received the power of the Last Judgment. ° This is not what the old Lutheran theologians meant, and there is a misunderstanding of the relevant scriptural statements. When Scriptures Joh. 6 and Joh. 8 say of the Son of Man that he was in heaven and is before Abraham, the divine predicate refers to Christ according to his divine nature. If, on the other hand, Scripture John 5, Matthew 28 and Dan 7 ascribe to the Son of Man the power of judgment given in time and all authority in heaven and on earth, the divine predicates refer to Christ according to his human nature. Hase himself explains how necessary this distinction is. He points to the devastation that is wrought in the teaching of Christ's Person, if scriptural statements such as Joh. 5, Matt. 28, Dan. 7 etc. were to refer to Christ according to his divine nature. Since these passages deal with divine attributes that were only given or communicated to Christ in time, the relationship of these predicates to Christianity according to the divine nature would "refute the_divinity of Christ himself, and. nothing would remain but an Arian creature or a Socinian world ruler". >?!’ A God who overcomes omnipotence only in time is not essentially God, but a so-called God, Deus creatus. This is how fatal it becomes when one wants to throw factually different scriptural statements about the communication of attributes without distinction into the same class. According to the procedure of the old Reformed teachers, Hodge also does this, when he says: "That our Lord said, 'All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth,’ no more proves that His human nature is almighty than His saying, 'Before Abraham was I am,’ proves that humanity is eternal. >? Thus, Hodge uses a scriptural statement that reads Christ according to the

No separation of the divine attributes from the divine being. divine nature to dismiss a scriptural statement that refers to Christ according to the human nature. Thus it remains true what the Formula of Concord reminds us: the propositiones or praedicationes, that is, how to speak of the person of Christ, and of its natures and properties, are not all of one kind and mode, and when they are employed without proper discrimination, the doctrine becomes confused and the simple reader is easily led astray. **9) In short, if one wishes to correctly present the doctrine of the person of Christ, especially the communication of the attributes, it must be noted: In Scripture, divine predicates are attributed to Christ according to both divine and human nature: according to divine nature as essential attributes, and these scriptural statements are assigned by Lutheran teachers to the first genus of the communication of attributes (genus idiomaticum); according to human nature as attributes given or communicated in time, and these scriptural statements constitute the genus maiestaticum, which is the second by the dogmaticians >) and the third in the Formula of Concord. >? No separation of the divine Attributes from the divine essence in the second genus. The Reformed and Roman theology, however, immediately raised the following objection to the doctrine of divine properties that have been communicated: If the divine properties as communicated also belong to human nature, then a separation (separatio) of the divine properties from the divine being is taught, and in this way we obtain two sets of divine properties, one set that belongs to the divine nature, and a second set that belongs to human nature. Therefore, with the assumption of a

hominis, vindicantur naturae divinae, cui formaliter (wesentlich) conveniunt, v. g.: Filius hominis est ante Abrahamum, scii, secundum naturam divinam; at in secundo genere idiomata divina spectantur, prout humanae naturae communicative aut inhabitative conveniunt. [Google] (Ex., De pers., qu. 60.)

genus maiestaticum there is an "equalization of natures" (exaequatio naturarum) or a manifest transformation of the human nature into the divine one. The older Reformed theologians never tire of raising this objection in one form or another to the communication of divine attributes to human nature. °°) Hodge, too, speaks of a "transfer of divine attributes" and of a "physical impossibility that attributes are separated from the substances of which they are the manifestations" and means by this to refute the genus maiestaticum. ** One cannot say that this objection is based on any reasonable sense, even from the Reformed point of view. After all, the Reformed theologians want to establish with the Lutheran Church the real communication of the Person of the Son of God to the human nature of Christ. If the real communication of the divine person does not produce two copies of the divine Person of the Son of God, which the Reformed reject with the Lutheran Church, why should the divine attributes, for example omnipotence, be doubled by its communication to human nature? Furthermore, the objection, which is based on the separation of the divine attributes from the divine being, completely misses the point, because according to Lutheran teaching—and, as is well known, also according to the teaching of Scripture, Col. 2:)—the whole divine essence, mav 16 TANpoLA ts Sedtwoc, dwells in the human nature as his c®@pa (body). How can there be talk of a separation of the divine characteristics from the divine being! The Lutheran Confessions and the Lutheran theologians rightly illustrate the facts of the matter with the example of the connection of soul and body in man, as used in Scripture itself. The human body in itself has no life, no sensation and no movement. But the soul communicates its life to the body as long as it is connected with the body. Through this communication life is not separated from the soul, and not two lives and two series of soul characteristics are created, but one and the same life (una numero

non possunt, alioquin desinerent esse propriae. (De Filii Dei incarnatione, p. 404; with Frank III, 368.) 527. Syst. Theol. I, 417. 408. No separation of the divine attributes from the divine being. vita), which belongs essentially to the soul (essentialiter), dwells in the body, comes into effect in the body and thus becomes given or communicative in the body. So there is also in Christ only one set of divine attributes, for example only one divine omnipotence, which is essentially due to the divine nature, but which also becomes communicatively proper to the human nature, so that the divine nature dwells in the human nature as well as in its owpa (body) and becomes effective. And as little as the body, by becoming a living body through the indwelling of the soul, is made equal to the soul or transformed into the soul, so little does an exaequatio naturarum [equalization of natures] in Christ take place through the human nature of Christ becoming omnipotent, omniscient, etc. through the indwelling of the divine nature. If the Reformed object to this, between soul and body, as two finite factors, a communication without transformation is possible, but in the Person of Christ we are dealing with totally incongruent quantities, with infinite power, etc., and with a finite human nature: so it must be said that the objection would have a meaning from the Socinian point of view, since the Socinians, in consistent application of the finitum non est capax infiniti, reject the communication of an infinite hypostasis to a human nature. But the Reformed, who admit the communication of infinite hypostasis, raise the objection in contradiction to their own point of view. Because the Reformed theologians asserted with extraordinary tenacity that the communication of the divine attributes implies their separation from the divine being and their duplication, the Formula of Concord speaks out in great detail about the mode of how human nature has the divine attributes, namely not by separation (separatio) from the divine nature or by transfusion (transfusio) into human nature, "as if water, wine or oil were poured from one vessel into the other", that is, not in such a way that the divine attributes are the essential attributes of human nature, and an exaequatio naturarum takes place, but only through personal union, that is, through the unique fact that human nature is the deity's own body, and the effects of the Godhead take place through this human nature, "as the soul does in the body and the fire does in a red-hot iron". Therefore, everything that the adversary says about doubling the divine attributes and equalizing natures belongs in the realm of misrepresentation. This is explained in detail in the Formula of Concord in its context **®) and closes this passage with the words: "Thus there is and remains in Christ only one divine omnipotence, power, majesty, and glory, which is peculiar to the divine nature alone; but it shines, manifests, and exercises itself fully, yet voluntarily, in, with, and through the assumed, exalted human nature in Christ. Just as in glowing iron there are not two kinds of power to shine and burn [as though the fire had a peculiar, and the iron also a peculiar and separate power of shining and burning], but the power to shine and to burn is a property of the fire; but since the fire is united with the iron, it manifests and exercises this its power to shine and to burn in, with, and through the glowing iron, so that thence and from this union also the glowing iron has the power to shine and to burn without conversion of the essence and of the natural properties of fire and iron."° Not without factual justification, the Formula of Concord makes the historical remark that this Reformed interjection (of a separation of the divine attributes from the divine being) is partly a deliberate lack of understanding. *°° Thomasius feels compelled to make the same remark ** and expresses his astonishment that Dorner recognizes that the Reformed throw-in is justified. After expounding Lutheran doctrine, with whose "conception" he himself "not entirely" agrees: "We see that the doctrine of our church defends itself thoroughly enough against that accusation, and it is certainly not too much to be expected of equity to urge her opponents to look more closely before they accuse her; otherwise it would appear that her attacks were based on unfamiliarity or malicious misunderstanding;....for he who wills can ‘hear right opinions clearly and well' (Apology of the Book of Concord, p. 86 [CPH 2018, p.

The abstract terms in the genus maiestaticum. The question has also been discussed within the Lutheran Church as to whether, in the second genus, one should not avoid the so-called abstract phrases, for example, "Christ's human nature is life-giving, omnipotent" etc., and instead always name the whole person in the subject and say, "Christ or the Son of God or the Son of Man is omnipotent according to human nature. The reason given was that the former way of speaking is easily understood by the inexperienced as if the human nature of Christ, separated from the Son of God (in abstracto reali), that is, by itself, by a second omnipotence besides the omnipotence of the divine nature, was omnipotent. It must be said: this misunderstanding must be eliminated where it is to be feared. But one must not allow this way of speaking to be forbidden as false, because it is the way of speaking of the Holy Scriptures, even if it is rarer. The Formula of Concord rightly refers to Jn 6:51 ff., where the flesh of Christ is called the living, that is, life-giving, bread, and to Jn 1:7, where justification is attributed to the blood of Christ, that is, the human nature of Christ has a direct almighty, divine effect. The words of the Formula of Concord read: Scriptures speak not merely in general of the Son of Man, but also indicate expressly His assumed human nature, 1 John 1:7: The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin, not only according to the merit [of the blood of Christ] which was once attained on the cross; but in this place John speaks of this, that in the work or act of justification not only the divine nature in Christ, but also His blood per modum efficaciae (by mode of efficacy), that is, actually, cleanses us from all sins. Thus in John 6:48-58 the flesh of Christ is a quickening food; as also the Council of Ephesus concluded from this [statement of the evangelist and apostle] that the flesh of Christ has power to quicken; and as many other glorious testimonies of the ancient orthodox Church concerning this article are cited elsewhere. >> Baier and other ancient theologians ***) have expressed misgivings about the use of abstract idioms because

Compendium 1757, p. 651 sqq. the "indocta plebs" (untrained people) easily understand them to mean that the human nature of Christ is omnipotent even apart from personal union with the Son of God. In reply to this, 1. Baier and the theologians, who have the same fear, hardly understand the situation correctly. The feared misunderstanding is not to be found in the indocta but the docta plebs (trained people). The simple-minded Christian hardly comes up with the thought that the flesh of Christ is to be thought of as separate from the Person of the Son of God in the words of the Scriptures Joh. 6:55: "My flesh is meat indeed". 2. The abstract ways of speaking are, as has already been reminded, the ways of speaking of the Scriptures, and as the Scriptures speak, one can and should speak everywhere, also coram indocta plebe (before untrained people). That's why the theologians gathered in Smalcald in October 1578 rightly refused to delete the abstract ways of speaking from the Formula of Concord, on a reminder of the theologians of the Electoral Palatinate. They justified their refusal in the first place with the fact "that such phrases per vocabula abstracta are not only invented by us, but the Holy Scripture itself also speaks, not only in concrato, but also per vocabula abstracta, Joh. 1: 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. Again: "My flesh is meat indeed. Again: "The seed of the woman shall trample the head of the serpent. Again: "The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. °°’ The Christian Church must therefore not allow itself to be deprived of the vocabula abstracta, whereby the human nature of Christ is of course always conceived in and never outside of personal union with the Son of God,>**) That the ancient Church also used these ways of speaking is proved in great detail in the Catalogus Testimoniorum under Thesis III *°, which reads: That, first of all, the Holy Scriptures, and then also the holy Fathers of the ancient pure Church, speak concerning this mystery also per vocabula abstracta, that is, in such words as expressly designate the human nature in Christ and refer to

instructive.

speak of the abstract of the human nature in the genus maiestaticum, they always think of human nature only in so far as it is actually united with the Son of God.

the same in the personal union, namely, that the human nature actually and truly has received and uses such majesty. That the Reformed theologians are particularly hostile to the vocabula abstracta, such as: "The flesh of Christ is life-giving" etc., is because these vocabula express with particular clarity the communication of divine attributes to human nature, which they combat. No reciprocity in the second genus. From the very beginning the Reformed theologians denied the right to exist to the genus maiestaticum also because this genus lacked the necessary reciprocity. The Admonitio Neostadiensis rebukes the Lutherans harshly "that they let be communicated to human nature the characteristics of the Godhead, but not on the other hand to the Godhead the characteristics of human nature", and it sees in this on the part of the Lutherans a troubled conscience. *° The Reformed argument goes like this: If, by virtue of the unio personalis, the divine attribute of, for example, omnipotence and the power to make alive is communicated to human nature, then by virtue of the same unio personalis, the human attribute of limited power and mortality must also be communicated to divine nature. Now, Lutherans do not admit the latter, so they are not allowed to teach the former either, and so the whole genus maiestaticum is nothing. Also Hodge did not omit to register this argument against the Lutherans: "They" (the Lutherans) "do not carry out the principle, and argue that, because Christ is denominated from His divine nature when the limitations of humanity are ascribed to Him", (e.g. The Lord of Glory is crucified), "that therefore His divine nature is limited" (e.g. the divine nature has died). And Hodge thinks that in doing so disproved the Lutherans, and proved that there is no communication of divine attributes to human nature at all. 8) Also the modern kenoticists reproach the genus maiestaticum for being one-sided. They resolutely demand that

anfunt humanitati quidem Deitatis, sed non vicissim Deitati humanitatis proprietates esse communicatas. [Google

a genus TATEWOTIKOV, that is, a genus of humiliation or emptying, be bound to the genus maiestaticum. If the human nature of Christ has a plus through its connection with the divine nature, then the divine nature must also have a minus through its connection with the human nature. As is well known, the original kenoticists, such as Thomasius, put the minus to the effect that the Logos, according to His divine nature, had discarded the so-called working divine attributes that express a relationship to the world, that is, above all, omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. The kenoticists demanded this reciprocity in the name of logic. This was Kahnis' opinion: "If the communicatio idiomatum consists in the reciprocal relationship according to which the two natures in Christ communicate their attributes to each other, then according to logic this reciprocal relationship falls apart into two sides: first, divine nature communicates its attributes to human nature (genus abynpatikov), second, human nature communicates its attributes to divine nature (genus tarewortikov [humiliation]). The old dogmaticians does not recognize this second genus. This is, as Thomasius in particular has recently asserted, an obvious one-sidedness of the old dogmatics. > Against this it is to be said above all that the reprimanded "one- sidedness" is not an invention of the Lutheran Church. Scripture makes the communication of natures to each other, as far as an increase or decrease is possible, not mutual, but one-sided. Thus it is said: Scripture teaches that human nature has been glorified, exalted, increased or enriched by divine nature; but Scripture does not teach that divine nature has been humiliated, weakened or diminished by human nature. In detail, as has already been proved: Scripture teaches well that the human nature has become life-giving or omnipotent through the indwelling of the divine nature, but it does not teach that the divine nature, through its union with human nature, has lost its life-giving

human nature of Christ was brought about by its union with the Godhead mpoo8jkn, Tpood'KN LEyGAN, BEAtinotc, S6GacIc, LETALOPOMotc EI d6EaV, VY@ots (With Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa etc. Cf. Catalogus; Miiller, p. 738 ff. [Trigl. 1114 ff.) power or any of its omnipotence through its binding with human nature. While Scripture well teaches that human nature has become partakers of infinite knowledge through the indwelling of the divine nature, it does not teach that the divine nature has lost all or part of its divine knowledge through its association with human nature. While Scripture teaches that human nature, through its association with the divine nature, has been lifted up to heaven and has become effectively present in the universe, it does not teach that the divine nature, through its incorporation into human nature, has abandoned its intrinsic relationship or its being and effectiveness in the universe. Scripture does teach that the human nature of Christ, because it is assumed into the I of the Son of God, has become partakers of divine glory, but it does not teach that the divine nature has thereby lost any of its divine worshipfulness. Thus the attempt to bind with the genus maiestaticum on the side of human nature a genus tazewortikodv [humiliation] on the side of divine nature is to be called a stroke of violence undertaken against Scripture. Scripture explicitly ascribes to the Incarnate Son of God, even in the state of humiliation, all the divine attributes that are noted as absent on the curriculum of the kenoticists in the name of logic and in order to establish the necessary reciprocity. Scripture attributes to the incarnate Son of God in the state of humiliation, like the undiminished "inner divine being",** also the possession and the activity of the divine attributes that have an effect on the world. **’ Thus, the demand that the genus maiestaticum on the part of the human nature be combined with the genus tamelv@tiKov on the part of divine nature is contrary to Scripture. Here again it is evident that neither the Reformed theologians nor the modern Kenotists even understand the position

matpoc - é&nyjoato. Regardless of whether ov is translated presently or imperfectly, it is always to be understood as é&nyjoato, which is able to be understood simultaneously, since 0 @v Etg TOV KOATMOV TOV TaTPOc is the source of knowledge for é=nyyjoato.

‘E8eaodpst'a (in the state of humiliation) thv 66gav avtov, 565av Ms LOvoyEvovcG mapa matpdc, and not only the 66éa of divine love, but also of divine omnipotence, Joh. 2:11. of the Lutheran Church. When they say to the Lutheran Church: "If it flows from the unio personalis that human nature has become omnipotent, it flows from the unio personalis that divine nature has become mortal", they presuppose that the Lutheran Church derives its statements on the communication of characteristics from the unio personalis by means of conclusions. But this is by no means the case. What follows in detail from the unio personalis for the two natures, the Lutheran Church lets Scripture itself say. The position of the Lutheran Church is this: The human nature of Christ or, which is the same, Christ according to his human nature is to be attributed the divine omnipotence etc., because Scripture expressly says that Christo was given the divine omnipotence in time, for example the power to raise the dead and the power of the Last Judgment, vioc év8pamov eotiv,™4?) that is, according to his human nature. But the divine nature of Christ or, which is the same thing, Christ according to his divine nature cannot be attributed to the birth out of Mary and the dying, because Scripture expressly says that Christ was given the human birth, the birth "out of the seed of David", and the suffering and dying katé odépKa and capKi,™ that is, according to human nature, not katé To TANpwpa THs YedtNTOc that is, not according to divine nature. Thus, only the Lutheran Church remains with Scripture when it ascribes omnipotence to Christ according to his human nature, but not limited power or suffering and dying according to the divine nature. >)

Scriptures in response to the Reformed reproach of "one-sidedness", and Frank should not object to them (Zheol. d. Konkordienf. Il, 262 ff.), but praise them. The apologists state (Apology of the Book of Concord against Admon. Neost., 5b ff.): But the demand to associate a genus maiestaticum with the genus Tamélve@tiKOV is also against reason, in more than one respect. With the exhibition of the genus taze1vwtixov the immutability of God is first of all revealed. Now it stands so that not only the Holy otherwise praises the way of the Formula of Concord, that it does not get involved in theological retreats, but simply presents the facts reported in Scripture. But at this point, where he speaks directly pro domo, that is, for his kenosis, he has not avoided an unobjective judgment. Hodge, too, represents the position of the Lutheran Church quite erroneously when he thinks that the Lutherans inferred (infer) the communication of divine attributes to human nature, that is, the genus maiestaticum, mostly from passages of Scripture in which a concretum of human nature stood in the subject and a divine idiom in the predicate, as in the sentences: The Son of Man was in heaven; the Son of Man is in heaven; the Son of Man has received omnipotence, etc. Hodge says: "Almost all the arguments" (for the genus maiestaticum) "derived from the Scriptures, urged by Lutherans, are founded on passages in which the person of Christ is denominated from His human nature, when divine attributes or prerogatives are ascribed to Him, whence it is inferred that those 1 attributes and prerogatives belong to His humanity. (Syst. Theol.., Il, 416.) But that's not how the Lutherans do it. Rather, they say: "In such sentences the divine predicate can come to the person according to both divine and human nature. Scripture must decide each time, and it does so clearly. When Scripture says that the Son of Man was in heaven, is before Abraham, etc., it is speaking of the Son of Man before his incarnation, that is, according to his divine nature. But when it says of the Son of Man that he only entered heaven in time through the Incarnation and through the subsequent exaltation, and only in time did he receive omnipotence, 511 viog év9parmov Eativ, then the relationship of the divine predicate to human nature is truly taught with sufficient clarity. The relationship from the divine nature would deny the eternal divinity of the Son of Man and reduce his eternal divinity to an "Arian creature". To remain with Scripture, therefore, Lutherans associate the Scriptural statements of the former kind with the first genus, the genus idiomaticum, in which the person of Christ is said to be divine and human, but the divine according to the divine nature and the human according to the human nature. The scriptural statements of the latter kind, however, they add to the second genus, the genus maiestaticum, in which divine attributes are pronounced of the person of Christ according to human nature, not as essential attributes, but as communicated attributes, because the divine attributes become effective in human nature. Scriptures teach the immutability of God,>*° but also that the natural man, as long as he makes use of his reason, does not even come to the thought that God changes his divine way of being or could lose his divine attributes completely or partially. The thoughts of a changeable God always arise only through the suppression of the natural knowledge of God. ** Everything that the modern kenoticists say about giving up divine attributes or even about the transformation of the divine ego into a human one is not "science" but a denial of the natural knowledge of God and falls under the judgment of the apostle: WAAaEav thv 6dEav tod aPOdptov Osod Ev OpotmpaTt sikdvoc Saptod avOpanov.>*) Then: Assuming that the Son of God became man in order to destroy the works of the devil by his divine activity in and through the assumed human nature, and to gather and maintain a church for himself: is it not much more probable—seen in the light of natural reason—that the human nature has been elevated to the power of the divine, but that the divine has lost none of its power? Finally, all those who want to add a genus maiestaticum to the genus tamewortkov have not considered that one really cannot have both genera. If the divine nature is reduced by its outwardly working divine attributes, i.e. by omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, then there is nothing at all left, whereby the human nature could be increased. By setting the genus tameivetixoy the whole genus maiestaticum would disappear. **?) That one nevertheless demanded a genus Tamswotikov beside the genus maiestaticum as a matter of course, is a further proof of the fact that

points to this: "If Christ were not essentially the true, eternal God, it would be impossible for Him to communicate divine power and majesty to the assumed human nature with which He is personally and inseparably united. What He does not have, He surely cannot give.

10th ed., p. 223 Zoéckler, Handbuch II, 129 f. — The remark of the Princeton Review (1910, 689 f.) is correct, however, that modern kenosis, first on the continent and then also in England, was pretty much in itself completely senseless idioms are adopted and passed on without examination. As far as the old church is concerned, it has rejected reciprocity with great determination. *! The Formula of Concord is downright horrified by a tametv@otic [tapeinosis, humiliation] which, according to the divine nature, should be given to Christ. *) been removed from the agenda. See also Kirn, Grundrif 3, p. 103 ff. This has certainly not improved the situation. It has now become more fashionable to reject the "two-nature doctrine" at all. (Seeberg, Grundwahrh.5, p. 112 ff. Cf. the supplements of Winter to Luthardt's Dogmatics, p. 236). Ihmels contradicts Seeberg, but weakly. (Zentralfragen 2, p. 185.) Cf. about modern Kenosis also Strong, Syst. Theology, Il, 686 ff.

rejects reciprocity (De fide orth. II, 15) with the much quoted words: "The Godhead does indeed communicate his own divine attributes (td oiketa avynpata) to the body, but he himself remains indivisible from the sufferings of the flesh (dtapéver apétoyoc); for not as the Godhead worked through the flesh, so also the flesh suffered through the Godhead; for the flesh served the Godhead as an organ". Cyril: "Because the flesh is connected with the life-giving word, it has been made completely life-giving. For it did not draw down the Word connected with it to its perishable nature, but it itself was lifted up to the power of the higher nature. (In Tohannem, lib. 4, c. 23. Catalogus, p. 749.) Using the image of fire and iron, Basil teaches "one-sidedness" like this: "What is the deity in the flesh? Just as fire is in iron, not so that it loses something, but so that it communicates something (ov petaBatikacs, GAAO LETASOTIKaS). For fire does not pass into iron by self-draining, but it remains undisturbed in its place and communicates its own power to it (ov yap EKTPEYEL TO TLP MVP TPOG TO GidNPOV, LévoV SE KATH YOOPAV HETADISM@OW BVT THC oucsias 6vvépewc). The fire is by no means reduced by communication (éAattobtat) and fulfills completely what is connected with it. (In Nativitatem Christi; Catalogus, p. 749. The pévew kata yopav is a common Greek phrase to describe the term: to remain in undisturbed order or constitution. Cf. the larger encyclopaedias). Augustine distinguishes between the way the Godhead participates in suffering and the way human nature participates in divine majesty: "Iniuria sui corporis affectam non fateor Deitatem, sicut maiestate Deitatis glorificatam novimus carnem. (Contra Felicianum Arianum, c. 11. Catal., p. 750.) Likewise John of Damascus: "This" (the divine nature) "communicates to the flesh its own glorious attributes (avyjpata), while it itself remains without suffering (Gaa%jc¢)." (De orthod. fide III, 7. 15.)

the divine nature in Christ, since in God there is no change, James 1:17, His divine nature, in its essence and properties, suffered no subtraction nor addition by the Incarnation, All divine attributes are communicated to the human nature of Christ. Reformed theology has finally made an objection to the communication of the divine attributes to human nature, which is taken from the indivisibility of the divine attributes. The argument goes like this: Either—as a result of the indivisibility of the divine attributes—all divine attributes of Christ must be pronounced according to human nature or none at all. Now, according to human nature, the Lutheran teaching ascribes to Christ omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence—the so-called working divine attributes—but not eternity, immensity and spirituality, the so-called resting divine attributes. But this means that—precisely because of the indivisibility of the divine nature and the divine attributes—the whole Lutheran doctrine of the communication of divine attributes to human nature falls away. If the Lutherans do not want to call Christ "eternal", "incorporeal" and "immeasurable" according to his human nature, they have no right to ascribe omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence to Christ according to his human nature. This is how the Reformed argue before and after the Neustadt Admonition (Admonitio Neostadiensis). ** In particular, they thought was not, in or by itself, either diminished or increased thereby. p. 690, § 71: "We do not believe, teach or profess such an outpouring of the majesty of God and all the same attributes into human nature, thereby weakening divine nature or giving something of hers to another that she did not keep for herself. p. 550, § 39 [Trigl. 827, F. C., Epitome VIII, 39.]: "We reject and condemn as contrary to God’s Word and our simple Christian faith... when it is taught and the passage Matt. 28:18: ‘All power is given unto Me,’ etc., is thus interpreted and blasphemously perverted, namely, that all power in heaven and in earth was restored, that is, delivered again to Christ according to His divine nature, at the resur- rection and His ascension to heaven, as though He had, also according to His divinity, laid this aside and abandoned it in His state of humiliation. By this doctrine... the way is prepared for the accursed Arian heresy, so that finally the eternal deity of Christ is denied, and thus Christ, and with Him our salvation, are entirely lost if this false doctrine were not firmly contradicted from the immovable foundations of the divine Word and our simple Christian (catholic) faith.

naturam humanam omnipotentem et immensam [?), cur unio cum natura incorporea non faceret eam incorpoream? Sadeel, De veritate humanae nat. Christi, p. 10: Qui affirmant omnipraesentiam corporis Christi, id dicunt fieri vi unionis hypostaticae tov Aoyov: eo quod o Adyoc All divine attributes are communicated to the human nature of they could press the Lutherans with the predicate of eternity. No Lutheran claims that Christ is to be attributed eternity according to human nature; neither is all power in heaven and on earth given to him according to human nature. >) This reformed, so vigorously asserted Either-Or has again the double characteristic that it is a. against Scripture and b. against reason. It is against Scripture, because it is not the Lutheran Church, but Scripture that makes the difference in the statements that have been criticized. For Scripture says of Christ, according to human nature, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and divine honor, as has already been demonstrated in detail, but Scripture does not say of Christ, according to human nature, eternity, but expressly an age of eight days and thirty years.

Scripture. The Apology of the Book of Concord has therefore sufficiently defended the doctrine of the Formula of Concord,*® when it says in relation to the Reformed objection: "We answer here with few words that we do not go further or teach from the communication of the divine majesty or attributes, for God's Word illuminates us. Since God's Word reports of the communication of other attributes, but says nothing about eternity, we are not to be ashamed of anything. And therefore we do not have to fear a division of the divine attributes. For the Son of God, who reveals such teaching about the communication of divine power, life-giving power, and suchlike things, he will also well know the way how such communication can happen without separation of the attributes. To whom we also command it, and in such mystery we are not to ponder or ponder with our reason outside his word."°> Likewise, Chemnitz points out in the first place that the Reformed objection contradicts Scripture. "You see", (inquiunt) communicat corpori suam omnipraesentiam, At omnipraesentia sive ubiquitas tov Adyov non potest separari ab aeternitate ipsius Aoyov. Nam quia divina natura est simplicissima, idcirco proprietates divinae essentiae, quae sunt ipsa essentia, sunt indivisibiles. (By Frank II, 377.)

he writes, "that the quibblers do not start from the revelation of Scripture, which is what the one given by Christ as given to him in the time according to human nature says, but they counter the revealed Word with their quibbling (argutias illas). >®) But the Reformed Either-Or, although it operates with reason against Scripture, is also less than reasonable, if you look at it from the Reformed or generally human point of view. It involves suicide again in the first place. According to Reformed teaching, the divine personality of the Son of God is communicated to the human nature of Christ. If the Reformed theologians rightly refuse to testify eternity of the human nature of Christ because of the communicated eternal divine personality, they have forfeited any right to demand of the Lutherans that they testify eternity of the human nature of Christ because of the communicated eternal divine omnipotence. Thus, even from the Reformed point of view, the Reformed offensive so vigorously undertaken collapses completely in on itself. Let us also think of the union of soul and body in man, an analogy used by Scripture itself (Col. 2:9) to illustrate the union of God and man in Christ. It would not be reasonable for someone to say, with regard to the union of soul and body, "If the body becomes a living body through union with the soul, then through the same union it must also become immaterial. If it does not become immaterial, it is not to be called a living body. The argument of the Neustadt Admonition is just as unreasonable: If human nature does not become immaterial (incorporea) through the union with the divine one,

naturis, c. 23, p. 127 (Baier III, 55), the Reformed introduction in this way: At uno idiomate tov Adyov non communicato humanitati nulla prorsus communicata dicentur; ac vero infinitas, aeternitas, spiritualitas non sunt carni tributa, ergo nec idiomata reliqua. Hunnius antwortet: Hic initio respondeo, nos in hoc mysterio nihil ultra praescriptum divini Verbi vel affirmare vel defendere. Quia igitur manifesta habemus testimonia, Christo homini communicatam omnipotentiam, infinitam sapientiam, virtutem vivificandi et praesentiam usque ad consummationem saeculi, propterea credimus. Rursum quia Scriptura nusquam dicit humanitatem Christi esse ab aeterno, esse factam infinitam etc., ideo hoc etiam non asserimus.. All the divine attributes of human nature communicated. /English ed. ~ 238-239] it does not become omnipotent (omnipotens) through this union either. Although the Reformed Either-Or enough is rejected by the fact that Scripture only speaks of the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, but not of eternity, of the human nature of Christ, through the revelation of Scripture we are in a position to give a more detailed explanation of the reason why not all divine attributes can be equally spoken of by the human nature of Christ, although with the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9), of course, all divine attributes, not only those that are active but also those that are at rest, have entered into human nature. The reason is this: the divine attributes, even within the personal union, remain absolutely and always the essential attributes only of the divine nature and never become, for example through outpouring (transfusio), the essential attributes of human nature. Thus, the Formula of Concord, at the beginning of the Eighth Article, says of the person of Christ: Accordingly, we believe, teach, and confess that to be almighty, eternal, infinite, to be of itself everywhere present at once naturally, that is, according to the property of its nature and its natural essence, and to know all things, are essential attributes of the divine nature, which never to eternity become essential properties of the human nature.°> If, then, the divine attributes never become essential attributes of human nature, in what way do they apply to human nature? They become inherent in human nature only in this way, and therefore they are expressed by human nature only to the extent that and because they become effective in human nature as the body of divine nature. Luther too, as has already been demonstrated, does not understand the communication of divine attributes to human nature as "rigidly physical" but as "dynamic", that is, as the penetration of human nature by the divine for the purpose of divine action by human nature. Human nature is to him the "hand tool" for the divinity. Let us take as an example the divine omnipotence. We ascribe to the human nature of Christ all power in heaven and on earth, life-giving power, judicial power, etc., not as an essential attribute,

detailed presentation, p. 687 ff, § 60 ff. [Zrigl. 1017, 9; F. C., Sol. Decl., VII, 9; cp. also Sol. Decl., VII, 60 ff.] but because the Son of God exercises his divine power in the human nature that belongs to his person. But Scripture itself makes a clearly discernible difference among the divine attributes, as far as outward activity or the effect on creatures is concerned. It presents some as dormant, others as active. Let us take the creation of the world as an example. God was certainly also with and in the world creation after his eternity or as the eternal God. Nevertheless, Scripture speaks in such a way that God did not create the world through his eternity but through his omnipotence, that is, eternity is presented in the creation of the world as resting, omnipotence as working. Now even the Reformed do not claim that this separates eternity from omnipotence, that is to say that a separation among the divine attributes is created. Moreover, the fact that God was in and with the world creation even after his eternity is shown by the fact that the property of eternity is indirectly expressed, namely by the property of omnipotence, when the omnipotence through which creation took place is described as the eternal omnipotence or the omnipotence of the eternal God. This now also applies to the communication of the divine attributes to the human nature of Christ. Christ's human nature is and remains a creature even within the Personal Union. Admittedly, this creature nav to nAjpapa Tis YedtNTOG has entered into this creature, and it is therefore not misleading, but rightly spoken, when we say that all divine attributes, not only the working ones (omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence), but also the resting ones (eternity, infinity, spirituality), dwell in human nature and are communicated to it in this sense. But because only the working divine attributes in human nature, which is and remains a creature, come directly to efficacy, so too only the working ones are directly sawn out of human nature, while the resting ones come indirectly, namely to the working one, to the statement. To remind us of examples, omnipotence and omnipresence are directly attributed to Christ according to human nature, when Scripture teaches us that in time and after the Exaltation everything is put under_Christ's feet, and he fills the universe and the Church. © The

All the divine attributes of human nature communicated. [English ed. ~ 240 Eternity, on the other hand, is only indirectly expressed, namely in the effective attributes. So the omnipotence given to Christ in time is expressly characterized as eternal omnipotence, when Dan. 7:14 says of the "power, honor and kingdom" given to the Son of Man: "His power is eternal, which does not pass away. In the same way the 60€a, through which Christ is made glorious according to his human nature by the exaltation, Joh. 17:5 is explicitly described as the eternal 5d€a: And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Also Joh. 1:14 the glory, which the disciples saw in the incarnated Logos in the state of humiliation, is characterized as 66&a ®>¢ povoysvotc mapé matpoc, that is to say as eternal divine glory. In this way, not only the later Lutheran dogmatists, but also Chemnitz and his contemporaries give from the Scriptures the closer reason for the fact that not all divine attributes are equally expressed by the human nature of Christ, although with the fullness of the Godhead all divine attributes have entered into humanity.

Scholastici scriptores et alii eruditi recte dicunt: idiomata essentialia in divinitate esse simpliciter ipsam absolutam Dei essentiam, cum qua unum et idem eunt. Et essentiam illam Dei in sese consideratam esse ojépiatov atque ideo idiomata etiam essentialia absolute in sese in Deo considerata non esse a se invicem distincta; non enim alia sui parte Deus est sapiens, alia potens, alia iustus,... sed unica, individua et simplicissima essentia divina est ipsa potentia, sapientia, vita divina etc. Sed quando individua illa divinitatis essentia ad creaturas refertur atque ita relate ad extra consideratur, quod scilicet in creaturis non eadem in omnibus, sed in aliis alia efficiat, quaedam iustitia sua, quaedam bonitate, quaedam potentia sua etc.: in ea relatione seu consideratione aliquam quasi distinctionem inter essentiam, et attributa eius docendi et discendi causa cogitamus,... atque tunc etiam in illa relatione aut consideratione attributa divina aliquam inter se distinctionem admittunt. Quaedam enim sunt, quibus divina essentia quasi extra se evepyeia quadam, ad creaturas egredietur..., qualis est iustitia, bonitas, potentia, maiestas seu gloria, sapientia, vita.... [Google] Alia vero sunt attributa, quae quasi intra ipsam essentiam manent nec peculiaribus evepyeiaic, actionibus, operationibus aut effectis in creaturis ad extra se proferunt vel cognoscenda se praebent, ut illis tanquam actu secundo describi et intelligi possint, qualis est aeternitas, immensitas, infinitas, quodque est spiritualis essentia.... Aeternitas et immensitas Deitatis, quia ad totam plenitudinem Deitatis pertinent, personaliter inhabitant in assumpta Christi natura, sed non We cannot close this passage without recalling that in the argument based on the indivisibility of the divine being and the divine attributes we are confronted with a great wealth of imaginary human wisdom. It is a peculiares pro se (in itself) evepyetac in assumpta natura et per eam proferunt et exerunt, Reliqua vero Deitatis Yerbi attributa ita personaliter inhabitant in assumpta natura, ut evepyetac suas in illa et per illam exerant, sicut dictum est, quibus tamen aeternitas et immensitas individuo nexu cohaerent. Divina enim potentia tov Adyov, quae operationes suas per assumptam naturam exerit, est aeterna et immensitas potentia. Haec amantibus veritatem plana sunt. Et reliquae quidem creaturae from évepyeia illorum attributorum Divinitatis qualitates quasdam mutuantur, tanquam rivos ex fonte et radios a lumine deductos. In Christi vero assumpta natura ipsa divina potentia Verbi non habitus aut qualitates tantum efficit, sed ipsas operationes suas divinas per carnem assumptam exerit, eo modo, sicut dictum est. Atque inde sumitur denominatio, quod caro Christi praedicatur vivifica. [Google] Quod vero dicitur, carnem Christi non factam esse ex unione aeternam, infinitam, immensam et spiritualem essentiam, ideo non totam plenitudinem Deitatis personaliter communicatam assumptae humanae naturae, facile solvitur. Neque enim ex reliquorum etiam attributorum personali communicatione humanitas Christi in seipsa aut secundum Se, essentialiter aut per essentiam, proprietate aut conditione aliqua naturae, facta est omnipotens, omniscia, vivifica, sed quia assumpta humanitas attributa illa Divinitatis Aoyov personaliter sibi imita habet, ita ut in illa et per illam operationes suas exerant, sicut de ferro ignito dictum est: ideo dicitur communionem cum illis habere. About the examples of soul and body and fire and iron Chemnitz adds: Et anima, quae et ipsa est aépwtoc, non habens partem extra partem, cum sit in toto corpore tota et singulis partibus tota, potentias quidem suas communicat corpori, ut oculus videat, auris audiat, cor intelligat, non tamen corpus ideo aut inde fit substantia spiritualis et immortalis sicut est anima. Ignis etiam se totum et facultates suas communicaticat ferro ignito, non tamen ideo aut inde ferrum ignitum fit substantia elementaris levis, sursum tendens, nec ideo vera et realis communicatio ignis ad ferrum infringitur. Sed satis sit de illis argutiis, cum lucerna pedibus nostris et lux semitis nostris sit patefactum Verbum Dei, cuius facem praelucentem in magni huius mysterii explicatione solam merito ac necessario sequimur. [Google] (De duabus naturis, p. 128 sq.) - Quenstedt summarizes the facts of the case completely in writing: Recte dicitur omnia attributa divina esse naturae humanae communicata, item quaedam, nulla, Omnia communicata sunt quoad inhabitationem et possessionem, quaedam saltem quoad immediatam praedicationem et enunciationem (ut evepyntika sive quae habent actum primum et secundum, ut omnipotentia, omniscientia etc., non vero avevépynta, ut aeternitas, infinitas etc.). Nulla sunt communicata quoad e subiecto in subiectum transfusionem. [Google] (J. c. IT, 228.) 243] wisdom that bears no concern for crisscrossing the divine essence and attributes with so-called "logical necessities," as if God were not o@> anpdortov to men,>* but a God whom, without His revealing Word, they have completely seen through in His essence and work. Of course, it is an established truth that there are no parts in God, but that the divine attributes of God are indivisible beings themselves. The infinity of God excludes all parts in God. But it is also a fixed truth that we human beings cannot have the slightest idea of an infinite and indivisible being. But because God wants to be recognized by us men, he has lowered himself to our human imagination and revealed himself in his Word, as it were, in pieces, that is, in individual attributes. We human beings in this life must adhere to this revelation, distinguish the characteristics from one another and ascribe to the individual characteristics only the effects that God himself ascribes to them in his Word. Then we recognize God only in bits and pieces, &« népouc; but according to the Apostle's explanation, this is the normal recognition for this life. °°) To those theologians and philosophers who want to correct scriptural statements with the "absolute oneness" of God, of which they have no conception at all, the much-abused Word is rightly applied: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The Third type of Communication of Attributes (genus apotelesmaticum) The burden of dogmatics with a special statement about the communion of natures in the performance of official works (amoteAéopata) is also the fault of the Reformed theologians and their Christological fellows. > Indeed, the Reformed theologians very firmly demand that the human nature of Christ be separated in its action or work (operatio, actio) from the action or work of the divine nature, because human nature as a finite entity (finitum) cannot be an organ for the activities of the infinite divine nature. Hodge for example says:

"Omnipresence and omniscience are not attributes of which a creature can be made the organ">°) The old Reformed theologians share this view. Danaeus insists: even if every nature has its own effect within the person, this is not to be understood "as if the divine nature were to add the human nature to the community of its peculiar action or effect, as being connected with it, or participating in it, or causing it" (quasi ad evepyeiacg seu operationis sibi propriae consortium et participationem natura divina assumat humanam veluti sibi sociam et cooperatricem ac ouvaitiov). *°° A few pages later °° the same Danaeus says: "Each nature of Christ, in this enjoyment of communication, acts what is peculiar to it, without the other nature being brought about or added to the action peculiar to it" (non convocata in suam propriam evépynoty neque ascita altera natura). Likewise Zanchi: "As for the actions through which [the Person of Christ] acts (operatur), some are peculiar to the Godhead, others to humanity, and because they are peculiar, those which belong to one nature cannot be communicated to the others, otherwise they would cease to be peculiar" (alteri communicari non possunt, alioqui desinerent esse propriae). **®) We have here on the Reformed side with the genus apotelesmaticum only one application of the rejection of the genus maiestaticum. If the human nature of Christ is not capable of the divine attributes, in particular also of the working attributes of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, then it is naturally also not capable of all official works, for whose direction these divine attributes are necessary. Let us consider the Reformed opposition according to the individual divine attributes at work in the orientation of official works. Wherever it is a matter of an official work for the alignment of which the divine omnipotence is required, human nature, because of its finiteness, cannot keep up. This explains the very strange Reformed doctrine of the

245] miracles of Christ. The miracles of Christ also belonged to his official works, because he should and wanted to be recognized by his miracles as the Son of God and Savior of sinners who appeared in the flesh. >°) And indeed when he dwelt among men, his disciples saw in him, in his flesh, that is, in his human nature, his divine glory. > The disciples thus made a distinction between the miracles of Christ and the miracles of the prophets and other messengers of God. The Reformed doctrine, on the other hand, now says that Christ, according to his human nature, works miracles no differently from Peter and other human miracle-workers. Hodge also saw: "The human nature of Christ is no more omniscient or almighty than the worker of a miracle is omnipotent. > The reformed separation of the human nature of Christ from the omnipotence of the divine nature is also expressed by Zwingli's doctrine of substitution (alloeosis). Just as Zwingli wants to have the Son of God removed from the subject of Scripture's statements, if the predicate is suffering and dying, so he also wants to have Christ's human nature removed from the subject of Scripture's statements, if the predicate is omnipotence. Therefore he makes the proposal to change the statement of Christ John 6: "My flesh is the right food" by substituting the subject in such a way: "The divine nature is the right food. °’ The later Reformed, as we have seen, sought to avoid the expression GAAoiwotc (alloeosis) and permutatio, because it represents an overt maltreatment of the statements of Scripture that is too obvious. But just as their more detailed explanations of how the Son of God is to suffer and die coincide objectively with Zwingli's alloeosis,**) so they also separate in great objective agreement the human nature of Christ from the omnipotence of the divine nature. They do not accept the scriptural statement in John 6: carnem Christi esse vivificam [My flesh is meat indeed], and use the image that the human nature of Christ did no more to perform His miracles than the hem of His garment to heal the woman who is sick with an issue of blood or the staff of Moses to perform Moses' miracles. 574 Tn short, it is Reformed

121; with Gerhard, De pers., § 288; with Quenstedt II, 300 sq. doctrine that the human nature of Christ is excluded from participation in the works of omnipotence because this is beyond its capacity. When the Reformed theologians also use the term "organ" for the human nature of Christ, they do not think of an organ which belongs to the living unity of the person and to which omnipotence is communicatively inherent, but of an organ in the sense of "merum instrumentum", that is, an organ relationship, whereby the human nature of Christ comes into a rubric with the miracle- working prophets and apostles. According to Reformed doctrine, the divine omnipotence remains separate from the human nature of Christ just as it remained separate from the human nature of Peter when he healed the lame man the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful. > In the same way, according to Reformed Christology, the situation is the same with regard to official works, for the performance of which omniscience and omnipresence are required. Let us pay attention to the prophetic ministry of Christ. The prophetic ministry of Christ consists in the fact that he taught from his divine knowledge, namely as 6 @v Etc Tov KOATOV Tov aTPdc in distinction to all other messengers of God. >°) According to the Reformed conception, however, the human nature of Christ is excluded from this unique teaching according to divine knowledge, which is due only to Christ, for: "A human soul which is omniscient is not a human soul"*’ As Christ's miracle, so also his preaching according to human nature is in the same line as the preaching of the prophets and apostles. Let us also pay attention to the royal office of Christ. To this office belongs that he is present and active in his Christendom on earth, fulfilling and governing his Church, which is his body, and preserves it against the gates of hell. According to Reformed doctrine, however, the human nature of Christ is excluded from this activity, because it is at one time incapable of an act of omnipotence, and at another time its entire radius of existence and action is only localis and visibilis,>® thus not extending beyond the height of the body, about six feet. This is why the Heidelberg Catechism says that Christ, according to his human nature, is now no longer with his Church on earth. * Christ, as far as his haman nature is taken into account, rules his Church in absentia, as secular

247] rulers have to be content with an absentee rule with regard to their kingdoms. Among the works of Christ's royal office is also his presence and action in the universe, for Christ, in order to secure his Church, also occupied all the adjacent territory, the All of Things. He has taken into His hand the sea and the dry land, clouds, air and winds, men and animals, angels and devils and all unbelievers. This sphere of action encompassing the universe is expressly attributed to Christ by Scripture when it says that he ascended above all the heavens to fill the universe (ta mévta), that all things were put under his feet. 580 But in these works of the government of all things, according to the Reformed teaching of Christ, human nature cannot compete; for—as Heidegger says in agreement with Zwingli, Calvin and all true Reformed—: Corporis humani non alia quam visibilis, localis, circumscriptiva praesentia est [The presence of the human body is nothing other than visible, local, circumscribed]. > Calvin, where he is consistent, expressly extends the separation of the work of nature to the high priestly ministry of Christ. When he calls Christ's merit the merit of a person who only through predestination receives redemptive value,>* he is thinking of human nature in the work of suffering and dying separated from the value-giving divine nature.. The Reformed doctrine that is really held is that the divine and human natures of Christ cannot be subject to common action, but that the natures must necessarily remain separate in their actiones and operationes, because the finite human nature is not capable of real communion with the infinite divine nature and especially with the working divine attributes (omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence). As we saw, Danaeus expressed this in the following way: " Every nature in Christo does what

spatio contineatur, ut suis dimensionibus (about six feet in length) constet, ut suam faciem habeat. — Garriunt (Calvin means the Lutherans) de invisibili praesentia. — Nec promissio (Matt. 28:20: "Iam with you") ad corpus trahenda est. (L. c., 30.)

belongs to it in this genus of communication, non convocata in suam propriam evépynow neque ascita altera natura." And in basic summary Zanchi takes: Christ, insofar as he is God, has nothing to do with the work of human nature, and Christ, insofar as he is man, has nothing to do with the work of divine nature. *8) And the error is so gravely meant at this point, too, that he appears as the savior of Orthodoxy, namely as the savior of Christ's human nature. Communal action with the divine nature would destroy human nature. To prevent this misfortune, Danaeus of the actiones naturarum says: Communionem quidem habent ad idem opus seu anotédeoua, sed non habent communicationem inter se. The Christian Church holds fast against these human thoughts on the basis of Scripture—and this is a description of the so-called genus apotelesmaticum—. "All the official works that Christ as prophet, high priest and king has worked and still works for the salvation of mankind, he works according to both natures, in that each nature does not work what is peculiar to it separately from the other, but in constant communion with the other in an undivided act of God's humanity (actio Seavdpum). (4) The Formula of Concord describes this genus: Secondly, as to the execution of the office of Christ, the person does not act and work in, with, through, or according to only one nature, but in, according to, with, and through both natures, or, as the Council of Chalcedon expresses it, one nature operates in communion with the other what is a property of each. Therefore Christ is our Mediator, Redeemer, King, High Priest, Head, Shepherd, etc., not according to one nature only, whether it be the divine or the human, but according to both natures. *®°) Reformed theology, which denies that the human nature of Christ can participate or cooperate in the works of omnipotence, omniscience,

non vult nec operatur voluntate et potentia humana, sic neque idem qua homo est, vult et operatur voluntate et potentia divina.

regard to the "idem opus" later.

communicationis idiomatum consistit in eo, quod operationes ad officium Christi pertinentes non sunt unius et solius cuiusdam naturae, sed utrique communes, quatenus utraque ad illas, quod suum est, confert et sic utraque agit cum communicatione alterius. (Comp. III, 70.) 249] and omnipresence, is in contradiction with itself, with Scripture, and with the testimony of the ancient Church. It is in contradiction with itself. It seems prima facie to be a very reasonable consideration when Zanchi says that the actions of the Godhead, because they belong to the Godhead (Deitatis propriae sunt), cannot be communicated to human nature, and when, in the same sense, Hodge assures us that human nature as a creature cannot become an organ of divine knowledge and omnipresence. But this seemingly reasonable consideration is not reasonable for Reformed theologians. Reformed theologians, as is well known, want to state to the Unitarians the unio personalis, that is, they want to state that the divine TI or the divine Person has been communicated to the human nature of Christ, and thus human nature has truly been made the organ of the divine Person. But now the divine Person has exactly the characteristics of the divine works. The divine Person of the Logos is just as divine, infinite and a proprium of Godhead as the divine acts or effects of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. **°) By what right, then, does Zanchi argue that the actiones divinitatis, because they are divinitatis propriae, cannot be communicated to human nature, and by what right does Hodge assert that the human nature of Christ cannot be made the organ of divine knowledge and divine omnipresence, since both theologians want to assert to the Unitarians the communication of the divine person to human nature? So here again the self-contradiction of the Reformed theologians is present, which we had to remind of many times already. While they want to concede the communication of the divine person of the Logos to human nature, they want to reject the communication of the actions (actiones) of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, which are equally divine and peculiar to the Godhead, and call them the destruction of human nature or Eutychianism. This self-contradiction can be lifted only in two ways. Either they must give up their polemic against the Unitarians and deny with the Unitarians the unio personalis of God

and man, or they must abandon their opposition to the Lutheran church and confess with the Lutherans as the communication of the divine T’’, so also the communication of the divine actiones of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, tertium non datur. Here again we say, following from Seeberg: Whoever admits the unio personalis of God and man has lost the right to say a word against the communication of the divine actiones to human nature. But the Reformed separation of natures in their actiones or operationes is above all in direct contradiction to Scripture. In the words of Scripture 1 John 3:8: E1c tobto epavepd9n—namely ev oapki 8 —6 vidc tov Yeov, iva Avoy) Ta Epya Tov diaBodov there is talk of all divine works (actiones) through which the Son of God became and still becomes the Savior of man. But all these divine works are carried out through the flesh that has been taken in. The flesh or human nature of Christ is therefore the organ chosen by God for the divine work of redemption in all its parts. The assertion that the human nature of Christ, because it is finitum or a creature, cannot be an organ for the divine omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence ("cannot be made the organ"), is a rejection of the whole divine method of redemption. This assertion is tantamount to declaring that there was a deplorable abuse on God's side when he sent his Son into the flesh so that the same one would establish the ministry of salvation in the flesh and through the flesh. As certainly as God did not commit any error with the incarnation of His Son for the redemption of men, so certainly already in John 3:8 and all equivalent scriptural statements the explanation is given that the human nature of Christ is an exceedingly suitable organ for the effects of the divine nature, no matter whether they are effects of the divine omnipotence or of the divine omniscience and omnipresence, in other words: that the human nature of Christ, in spite of its creaturely nature, is entitled to common action with the Godhead, or that all the official works of Christ are divine-human actions. The testimony of this truth runs through the whole of Scripture and can be called the real scopus of Scripture. As the seed of the woman, that is, through human

250] nature as an organ, the Son of God crushes the head of the serpent.*®® As Abraham's seed, that is, in and through human nature, he brings blessings among the Gentiles. *8° As he who was born of the woman, that is, in and through human nature, the Son of God was put under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, and we might receive adoption. > As a preacher on earth, that is, in the flesh and through the same, he teaches not only ek Tic yg, but as 6 ev Etc TOV KOATOV Tov ZaTPdc With divine knowledge. > As the King exalted after suffering and death, that is, according to and through human nature, he rules not in absentia, but everywhere present in the world and the Church. °° In view of the scriptural statements that the ministries of the Son of God can be carried out through the accepted flesh, the assertion that the human nature of Christ cannot be an organ for the divine actiones appears, however, as a monstrosity. Rather, it stands thus: as we have no right according to Scripture to ascribe to the Son of God, after His incarnation, a being outside the flesh (esse extra carnem), for: 6 AOyoc oGpé EyEvETO, so we have no right according to Scripture to ascribe to the Son of God, after His incarnation, an efficacy outside the flesh (operatio extra carnem); for this very purpose the Son of God appeared in the flesh, that in the flesh and through the flesh He might destroy the works of the devil, and that in the flesh and through the flesh He might be prophet, high priest, and king. In order to maintain this clearly testified truth of Scripture, the Church has therefore felt compelled to establish the so-called genus apotelesmaticum, in which she confesses: Christ performs all the ministries (GoteAéouaté) according to both natures, each nature doing what belongs to it in a constant communion with the other in an unseparated act. As far as the scriptural evidence for the genus apotelesmaticum is concerned, there is still a remark to be made. One has found it strange and confusing that the same scriptural statements are cited in two or even in all three genera. But this is entirely appropriate. Let us take as an example Joh. 1:7: The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from

all sin. If, against Nestorius, Zwingli and comrades, we have to emphasize that in these scriptural words the blood of Christ is the blood of the Son of God, not merely of human nature, we cite the words under the first genus (genus idiomaticum). It is necessary to draw the attention of Nestorius, Zwingli and the Reformed theologians to the fact that in this scriptural passage the divine work of purifying sins is attributed to the Blood of Christ, that is, to Christ according to human nature, the words are appropriately used also under the second and third genus, because the words express that the human nature of Christ is both divine power communicated (genus maiestaticum) and communion (actio) with the divine nature (genus apotelesmaticum). The fact that we separate the contents of one scriptural statement into three genera is not due to Lutheran vastness and love of polemics, but to the existence of people who, together with Nestorius, Zwingli and comrades, denied and still deny that the Son of God has blood and that this blood has divine power and divine effect. We can call the genus apotelesmaticum the directly practical genus. Under the same genus we find the scriptural statements in so far as they describe Christ in his ministry or work which he has directed and is still directing towards the whole of humanity and his Church. This happens, as the dogmatists have expressed it, either through a nomen officii concretum, as: Christ, Savior, mediator, prophet, high priest, king, light, etc, or by propositiones officium Christi describentes, in which Christ as the subject is stated: to bear sin of the world (Joh. 1:29), to give oneself for our sin (Gal. 1:4), to give oneself for our sin as a gift and sacrifice, to give God a sweet odor (Eph. 5:2), to die for our sin (1 Cor. 15:3), to suffer in the flesh for us (1 Petr. 4:1), to heal us through His wounds (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Petr. 2:24), give his life as a guilt offering (Isaiah 53:10), redeem from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15), destroy the works of the devil (1 Joh. 3:8), take power from the devil who had power over death (Hebr. 2:14), make saved what is lost (Luke 19:10), to accomplish the cleansing of sins through himself (Hebr. 1:3), The practical importance of the genus apotelesmaticum. [English ed. ~ 251-252] acquire the church through His own blood (Acts 20:28), bless all the nations of the earth (Gen. 22:18), be the light of the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6; Luke 2:32), reveal and make visible the invisible God of earth (Joh. 1:18; 3:13; 14:9; 1 Joh. 1:1 ff.), pray for the Church (Joh. 17; Rom. 8:34; 1 Joh. 2:1), be present with the Church (Matt. 28:20), give gifts to the Church (Eph. 4:7,

such statements the subject is expressly named according to both natures (such as: Christ died for our sins) or only according to one of the two natures (such as: the only begotten Son preached it to us—the woman’s seed crushes the head of the serpent)—always the whole person performs the works according to both natures, each nature doing what belongs to it (proprium) in constant communion with the other (cum communicatione alterius). And it is in this unique interaction of God and man in one Person, that is, in divine- human action, that the unique character of Christ's work is rooted in his prophetic, high priestly and royal office, while through the Reformed separation of the actiones of human nature from the actiones of the Godhead, if carried out consistently, Christ's work loses its unique character and is lowered to the human level. The subject matter is so important that we will immediately add a special section on it. The Practical Importance of the genus apotelesmaticum. It has already been pointed out that the genus apotelesmaticum can be called the directly practical genus. The first two genera, the idiomaticum and maiestaticum, are necessary prerequisites for the apotelesmaticum. The Church fights for the first two genera in the interest of the third. In the first genus we hold with respect to Nestorius and Zwingli that not a mere man but the Son of God was born of Mary and died on the Cross, and n the second genus, we hold with respect to all Reformed opponents that the human nature of Christ is co-manifestly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, in order to be able to hold in the third genus that all of Christ's actions also bear a divine-human and thus unique, saving, and consoling character. °° The unique character of the prophetic ministry of Christ, as has already been explained, is that in Christ God himself teaches on earth. This unique character of Christ's teaching on earth is emphasized by Scripture in general when it says: " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son",>°) and in particular when it says that Christ did not teach sk ti\¢ yc, from the earth, as the prophets and also John the Baptist did, but as 6 @v sic TOV KOAnOV tod Hatpdc > In other words: Christ taught uniquely on earth, quite differently from all other messengers of God, namely from his own divine knowledge: "No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has proclaimed it to us. But whoever claims, from the Reformed point of view, that Christ's human nature is not capable of divine knowledge ("omniscience is not an attribute of which a creature can be made the organ"), is thereby depressing Christ's teachings according to his human nature—and it is through this nature that all his teaching activity on earth took place—down to the level of the prophets and apostles. This is the consequence of the false principle that the actiones of the two natures in Christ are "non (habent) communicationem inter se [they do not (have) communication with each other]". °°» But above all, the fellowship of natures, the communicatio actionum inter se, must be kept to the central 593a) Therefore Hollaz calls the genus idiomaticum and the genus maiestaticum the fundamentum proximum for the genus apotelesmaticum: Fundamentum huius communicationis remotum est unitas personae et intima communio naturae divinae et humanae in Christo. Fundamentum proximum, est communicatio idiomatum primi et secundi generis.[Google] (Examen, De pers. Christi, qu. 67.) Philippi: "Both genera of idiom communication (the idiomaticum and the maiestaticum) have to do with the Person of the God-man as such. But the purpose of the Incarnation is none other than world reconciliation and world redemption. If we now look at the work (amotéAeopa) of the God-man, we find a third genus of idiomatic communication, the so-called genus apotelesmaticum. (Glaubenslehre IV, 1, p. 276 f.) 593b) Hebr. 1:1-2. 594) Joh. 1:18; 3:13.

The practical importance of the genus apotelesmaticum. [English ed. ~ 253-254] work of Christ, namely, to the high priestly office in which Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice to God for the sins of the world. Christ suffers not according to divine nature, but according to human nature. But also according to his divine nature he is and works in and with this suffering, in that the divine nature remains personally united with the human nature, sustaining it and giving infinite value to suffering, so that from the joint action of the two natures results a suffering for the whole world, that is, a work by which the reconciliation of the whole world with God has come about. Without the combined action of the divine and human natures, Christ's life, suffering and death would have no more value or meaning than the work of a human saint. Christ's high priestly work would lose the character of the work of redemption. Admittedly, we cannot set out the mode in which God, who is in himself incapable of suffering, could enter into the communion of suffering in his human nature. We have also recognized that all attempted approximations are evil. °° But the fact of communion in suffering is so certain when Scripture calls the death of Christ the death of the Son of God and bases the reconciling value of this death on it. °° This is the point from which Luther opposes Zwingli's Alloeosis: "So learn to grasp this article, that this Person of Christ be kept whole and that both natures of work be joined together, though the natures are different. For according to the divine nature he is not born of man, nor is anything taken from the Virgin. And it is true that God is the Creator, and man is a creature; but here they are gathered together into one Person, and are called God and man one Christ, that Mary has born a son, and the Jews crucified such a person, who is God and man. Otherwise, where he would be mere man than other saints, he would not be able, with all his holiness, blood and death, to take away one sin from us or extinguish a drop of hellish fire. °°® Furthermore: "We Christians must know this: Where God is not in the balance and gives the weight, we sink with our bowl. So this is what I mean:

Therefore, where it should not be said that God died for us, but only a man, we are lost; but if God's death and God died in the scale, he sinks under it, and we go up as a light, empty scale."**) Therefore, Luther's judgment of Zwingli's figure of speech "Alloeosis", through which he separated the Son of God from the work of suffering, is not too sharp: "Beware, beware, I say, of the Alleosis! It is the mask of the devil, for it is the last one to inflict such a Christianity, according to which I would not want to be a Christian, namely, that Christ should no longer be, nor do with his suffering and life any more than another mere saint. For if I believe this, that human nature alone has suffered for me, then Christ is a poor Savior to me, he himself probably needs a Savior. Summa: It is unspeakable what the devil seeks with the alloeosis... Now the Zingel not only denies this highest, most necessary article, that the Son of God died for us, but blasphemes the same and says it is the most abominable heresy ever. To this leads him by his conceit and damned alloeosis, that he separates the Person of Christ and leaves us no other Christ but a pure man who died for us and redeemed us. What Christian heart can hear and suffer such things? But then the whole Christian faith and the happiness of the world is taken away and condemned. For the one who is redeemed through humanity alone, of course, is not yet redeemed, and will never be redeemed." This is the effect of the Zwinglian alloeosis that cancels out Christ's high priestly office. It is also true, as has already been proved, that later Reformed theologians in their theoretical explanations of the Son of God's relationship to suffering do not get beyond Zwingli's alloeosis in a factual way. But I repeat here the point that at this practical point of the redeeming work of Christ's Passion most Reformed forget their Finitum non est capax infiniti, that Calvin's saying that Christ's merit as the merit of a human being has no redeeming value in itself has found little imitation, and that even the Neustadt Admonition leaves the reformed point of view, when it lets the suffering of the human nature of Christ be given infinite value by the divine nature

The practical importance of the genus apotelesmaticum. [English ed. ~ 255-256] (ut sit Abtpav et pretium sufficiens pro totius mundi peccatis, aequipollens poenis aeternis) and thus admits as a communion of natures, so also a cooperation of them. Also again Hodge’s statement is to be referred to: " Such expressions as Dei mors, Dei sanguis, Dei passio have the sanction of Scriptural as well as of Church usage. It follows from this that the satisfaction of Christ has all the value which belongs to the obedience and suiferings of the eternal Son of God, and His righteousness, as well active as passive, is infinitely meritorious. © This is in contradiction with the so often repeated and stubbornly held assertion that no real communication between the natures and their operations can be accepted or allowed because of the incongruity of the latter. But in discussing the sad doctrinal differences, we do not want to omit to point out again and again the fact that God's Word is also validated underhand with those who, in the excitement of the struggle, seek to pervert themselves out of party spirit. There is no need to point out the practical importance of the joint action of natures in the royal office. If the Lutheran Church teaches that Christ, even according to his human nature, is everywhere present and active in his Church until the end of time, and that he fills and rules the universe, we hear the objection on the opposing side: why expose human nature to the danger of destruction, of being transformed into a "ghost", etc., by participating in the omnipresent rule in the Church and the world? Is not Christ alone by his divine nature man enough to rule the church and world omnipresently? To this it must first be answered that Scripture allows divine power to be given to Christ in time, that is, according to the human nature,

and that the elevation to omnipresent dominion in church and world refers expressly to his human nature, as has already been explained in detail. °°) This also settles the feared destruction of human nature. ° In the second place, the answer is that it is certainly comforting for the children of God to state, on the basis of Scripture, that Christ is present on earth with his whole Church and with each member of the Church, not only according to his divine nature, but also according to his human nature, according to which he is their brother. The Formula of Concord draws attention to this when it says: <Therefore we regard it as a pernicious error when such majesty is denied to Christ according to His humanity. For thereby the very great consolation is taken from Christians which they have in the aforecited promise (as Matthew 28: ‘I am with you’) concerning the presence and dwelling with them of their Head, King, and High Priest, who has promised them that not only His mere divinity would be with them, which to us poor sinners is as a consuming fire to dry stubble, but that He, He, the man who has spoken with them, who has tried all tribulations in His assumed human nature, and who can therefore have sympathy with us, as with men and His brethren, — He will be with us in all our troubles also according to the nature according to which He is our brother and we are flesh of His flesh. °°) Chemnitz not only dedicates a separate chapter in De duabus naturis to the consolation of this fact, but also points out in numerous other places in this writing to the "dulces consolationes" [sweet consolations] which lie in the communion of the operationes of the two natures. © By the way, also

cautiously (similar to Luther, St. L. Il, 778): Non dico, divinam naturam Aoyov non posse divinas suas operationes sine adminiculo assumptae perficere. Potuit enim illud ante incarnationem et adhuc idem posset. But then he adds immediately: Sed singulari evdokia voluit assumptam nostram naturam in communionem divinarum suarum operationum, praecipue in officio Messiae, tanquam organon assumere, ut certum pignus salvationis nostrae naturae nobis in seipso ostenderet, utque sciamus nos aditum et communionem habere ad officia et beneficia Filii Dei, Regis, Pontificis et Capitis nostri, quia ad effectionem et com- The practical importance of the genus apotelesmaticum. [English ed. ~ 256-257] at this point the practice among the Reformed is better than the theory of the theologians. In the Congregationalist, a few years ago, there was a letter from a layman in which he affirmed that he imagines his Savior to be present only in the human munionein illorum officiorum assumpsit humanam nostram naturam, qua nobis consubstantialis, cognatus, imo Frater noster est, Caro de carne nostra, et nemo carnem suam odio habet, sed nutrit ac fovet eam, sicut Dominus ecclesiam, [Google] Eph. 5. XXIII, p. 126) Furthermore: Adversarii ipsi [the Reformed] fatentur, Christum ipsum ante omnia nobis donari et nostrum fieri, nobis adesse, ac nobiscum coniungi oportet, ut ita ex ipso, in ipso et per ipsum impleamur in omnem plenitudinem Dei, Eph. 3. Non autem divina natura Christi medium est, per quod humana ipsius natura se nobis communicet, ut ipsi coniungamur, sed sicut veterum sententiis ostendimus, cum natura nostra a gratia, vita et salute, quae est in divina natura, per peccatum divisa et abalienata esset, ita ut nudam divinitatem, secum in iudicio divino agenteifi, non melius ferre posset, quam stipula ignem consumentem, Filius igitur Dei Mediator, naturam nobis excepto peccato cognatam et consubstantialem, hypostatica unione sibi copulavit, ut divinitas cum illa et per illam, qua Frater noster est, non tantum salutem nobis promereretur, verum etiam nobiscum ageret et divina salvationis beneficia nobis communicaret. Cumque fidei nostrae infirmitas onere carnis depressa in hac vita non possit secreta coelorum conscendere et perlustrare, Christus ipse ad nos venit, ecclesiae suae totus adest et tanquam caput membris suis in terra militantibus se coniungit, in illa, cum illa et per illam naturam, qua Frater noster, cognatus et consubstantialis nobis est, ut hoc modo ad communionem et consortium divinae naturae nos perducat. [Google] (Cap. XXX, p. 209.) Chemnitz describes the Reformed error as follows: Fingunt humanam in Christo naturam munere suo, propter quod assumpta fuerat, tunc prorsus defunctam fuisse, quando in cruce dixit: Consummatum est", ita ut nunc post exaltationem Filius Dei in regno suo assumptam suam humanitatem prorsus non adhibeat ad operationes illas salvationis exercendas, expediendas seu perficiendas, quas in officio tanquam Messias, Rex, Sacerdos ac Caput nostrum in ecclesia in credentibus nunc operatur... Hoc tantum ipsam [humanam naturam] in passione meruisse, ut iam divina natura per se sola in regno Christi omnia agat, non adhibita ad hoc assumpta natura, sed absque eius communione et cooperatione ecclesiae sola divinitas adsit, credentes iustificet, vivificet et reliqua salvationis beneficia praestet et impleat. Ita quidam propositionem Ephesini concilii, quod caro Christi vivificet, eludunt. Regarding the source of this error Chemnitz notes: Hae opiniones inde oriuntur, quod humana natura in Christo tantum in meris physicis terminis [after the natural height] consideratur, ad quae scilicet et in quantum essentiales seu naturales eius proprietates et facultates se extendunt. [Google] (L. c.) — Frank also points out (III, 284 ff.) emphatically the following to characterize the Lutheran confession: nature. And it has always seemed to us somewhat doubtful whether also a Christian theologian is able, when he says: "I am with you all days until the end of the world", to imagine Christ outside his flesh present only according to his divine nature. The genus apotelesmaticum and the ancient church. The Reformed are also mistaken about the genus apotelesmaticum in terms of the historical facts, namely their conformity with the ancient Church, especially with the Council of Chalcedon. Both the Reformed Confessions and the individual Reformed teachers are, of course, very zealous in assuring their conformity with the early Church's teaching tradition. The second Helvetic Confession asserts the reverent acceptance (religiose recipimus) of the communication of the attributes Tf we step back from the practical field of confession, here we must remember the special practical interest which faith, precisely in its evangelical-Christian form, has in the fact that every action of the Son of God with us is at the same time humanly mediated, God-human in the full sense of the word. Just as in the case of the genus apotelesmaticum, in its connection with the genus idiomaticum, we had to emphasize that, for the sake of the reality of redemption, every action of Christ in this regard did not take place without the participation of the divine nature, so it is no less important for faith that, where it is a matter of the exercise of power by the Redeemer after the completion of the work of redemption for the realization of the aims of that work, every action of Christ in this connection does not take place without the participation of human nature. For it would, our article says, as Christ's majesty would be deprived of such majesty after his humanity, thereby depriving Christians of their supreme consolation.... Therefore, the participation of human nature in the acts of Christ's majesty is only the other side of the participation of the divine in the events and achievements of his obedience unto death; and is the interest of faith in the first sentence a direct one, and in the second no less the interest of the Evangelical faith, which speaks to Luther: "I have no God, neither in heaven nor on earth, I know of no one else but the flesh which is in the womb of the Virgin Mary. God without flesh is of no use." (Walch VI, 74; St. L. VI, 50.) Krauth says of the Reformed separation of Christ's humanity from the works of the royal office: "Cold speculation has taken our Lord out of the world He redeemed, and has made heaven, not His throne, but a great sepulcher, with a stone rolled against its portal. (The Conservative Reformation, 357.) 258-259] taken from Scripture and recited by the whole ancient Church. ®® Boehl also says: "We take with us Reformed Christians of the Confession of the Faith a position in the Council of Chalcedon and its symbol of the year 451. Likewise, Hodge claims: "The Reformed Church is adhering to the doctrine as it had been settled in the Council of Chalcedon". © But this is an illusion. The Council of Chalcedon, as is well known, confesses in relation to the union of natures the " indivisible" and "unseparated" (Gdin1pétw@c, ayopiotacs). These adverbial determinations, however, also refer to the inseparability of the natures and their actiones and passiones, which Nestorius denied. Since, according to the Reformed doctrine, Christ's human nature is only given a localis et visibilis praesentia under all circumstances, and since divine nature is and acts in innumerable places where human nature cannot be or act because of its local praesentia, which does not extend beyond the height of the body, the Reformed doctrine presents itself as the exact opposite of the ddiaipétas and dywpiotws of the Council of Chalcedon. The Reformed do not accept Leo's letter to Flavian °' either. As is well known, Leo says: Agit utraque forma [Nature] cum alterius communione quod proprium est. The Reformed only accept this axiomatic sentence: A git utraque forma quod proprium est [Both forms act in their own way]. The assumption of "cum alterius communione" is impossible for them because, according to their Christology, human nature cannot exist and act beyond its length without being destroyed, and therefore divine nature must be and act extra carnem beyond the local radius of human nature. The disagreement with the early Church also becomes apparent when we pay attention to what ancient teachers taught about the human nature of Christ's acting in the individual divine works. While Hodge believes that the human nature of Christ cannot become the organ for the divine attributes without destruction, Damascus (III, 17 [Trigl. 1143]) says: The flesh of the Lord was enriched with divine operations "The flesh of the Lord has become rich in divine effects (tac Osiac

universa vetustate in explicandis componendisque Scripturarum locis in speciem pugnantibus usurpatam religiose recipimus.

on account of its complete personal union with the Word, in no way having suffered loss with respect to those things that are by nature its own. °!) While Hodge in reference to the divine omnipotence means: "The human nature of Christ is no more... almighty than the worker of a miracle is omnipotent", and places Christ's miracle-working according to his human nature on an equal footing with Peter's miracle-working, Cyril, on the other hand, insists that the way how the divine omnipotence works through Peter or Paul is to be distinguished from the way in which the omnipotence operates through the human nature of Christ, in which the fulness of the Godhead bodily dwells. He says: "Although, therefore, the nature of the flesh, inasmuch as it is flesh, cannot quicken, nevertheless it does this because it has received the entire operation of the Word. For the body not of Paul or of Peter or of others, but that of Life itself in which the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, can do this. Therefore, the flesh of all the others can do nothing, but only the flesh of Christ can quicken, because in it dwells the only-begotten Son of God". °!9) While Hodge asserts in relation to divine omniscience: "A soul which is omniscient... is not a human soul. The Christ of the Bible and of the human heart is lost if this doctrine be true...; omniscience is not an attribute of which a creature can be made the organ",°!#) Damascenus, on the other hand, first of all says in general terms with reference to the relationship of instrumentality: The flesh has communion with the operating divinity of the Word, because the divine operations are accomplished as through the organ of the body (exteAgioSat), and because He that works both in a divine and human fashion is one (Seixas TE Go Apa Kat dv8parivecs). Then he continues with regard to participation in divine knowledge: For it is necessary to know that His holy mind (vovuc) works also its natural operations, etc., shares in the working and managing and guiding divinity of the Word, understanding and knowing and managing everything [the entire universe] (t6 7aV VOOV Kal YIVACKOV KAI dtémov, not as the mere mind (wtA6c) of a man, but as personally united with God and being constituted the mind of God.

[Trigl. 1133, 110]

259-260] as personally united with God and being constituted the mind of God (@¢ Yee Kat’ vrdotAOW NvOLévos Kar Geo Geob voc ypnuatioac). >!) Furthermore, Damascenus says: "The soul (yoy) of the Lord, although it was one that did not know what was to come, nevertheless, because it was personally united with God the Logos, it had the knowledge of all things (ndvtov THY yvaouv eixev), not by grace, but by personal union."*!® While Hodge, together with all Reformed theologians, declares: "Omnipresence is not an attribute of which a creature can be made the organ" Oecumenius (according to Theophylact), as is well known, remarks on Eph. 4:10: For, indeed, He [Christ] long ago filled all things with His bare divinity; and having become incarnate (capkmOsic), that He might fill all things with His flesh (iva 16 névta pete mANpwon), He descended and ascended. °!) While Calvin places the miracle of Christ's coming through closed doors while the door was opened by God's omnipotence, because a true human body cannot enter through closed doors, °!® Augustine keeps the doors closed and says: "We see him [the human body of Christ] entering through closed doors. The assertion that this could not have happened because it was against the nature of a true body is declared by Augustine to be blasphemy (sacrilegum). °'® An unbiased historical research will always come to the conclusion that the Lutheran Church in its Christology has for itself the consensus of the ancient Church, while the Reformed Church is definitely moving in the Nestorian paths rejected by the ancient Church.

Dominum nostrum, cum ipse sit veritas, in aliquo fuisse mentitum. Nec nos moveat quod clausis ostiis subito eum apparuisse discipulis scriptum est, ut propterea negemus illud fuisse corpus humanum, quia contra naturam huius corporis videmus illud per clausa ostia intrare.... Si enim potuit [Christus] ante passionem clarificare illud sicut splendorem solis, quare non potuit et post passionem ad quantam vellet subtilitatem in temporis momento redigere, ut per clausa ostia posset intrare. [Google] (Cf. also the Sermones, 156-160, 1. c. X, 675 sqq.) The different meanings of identical expressions in the genus apotelesmaticum. In the above exposition of the genus apotelesmaticum, it has been repeatedly noted that Lutherans and Reformed use certain expressions in different ways. These include in particular the expressions "organ" and "official act" and, above all, again the expression "personal union". In order to clarify the situation and in the interest of understanding, we have put together what was said earlier under a special section. Also the Lutherans—not only from Chemnitz, but from Luther onwards—call Christ's human nature the organ or instrument in the performance of the official works—Luther: "hand-tool"®®—Godhead, because the Son of God has destroyed and still destroys the works of the devil in and through the assumed human nature. Lutherans, however, teach a specific—not merely gradual—difference between the organ relationship of Christ's human nature and the organ relationship of other human beings, through which God performs his divine works, for example, the divine work of conversion or rebirth,°* the healing of the lame,®™ the raising of the dead,°*) etc. Lutherans justify this difference by referring to the fact that mere human beings, as performers of divine works, are instrumentum separatum, that is, instruments that are and remain outside the Person of the Son of God in the performance of divine works. The divine power by which the divine works are performed is not even communicative to the mere human instruments. The human nature of Christ, on the other hand, in the accomplishment of the divine works, in the destruction of the works of the devil, is not instrumentum separatum, but coniunctum, and indeed personaliter coniunctum, that is, an instrument belonging to the Person of the Son of God, in living, personal unity with the Son of God, and therefore also the divine power by communication (communicative). According to Reformed doctrine, the distinction between the organ relationship of the human nature of Christ and the organ relationship

261-262] of merely human performers of divine works falls away. In this sense, Hodge said, "The human nature of Christ is no more omniscient or almighty than the worker of a miracle is omnipotent," and in this sense, Reformed teachers expressly declare that the miracles of Christ, as far as his human nature is concerned, are on a par with the miracles of the prophets and apostles. This difference with regard to the meaning of the word "organ" corresponds to the basic difference between Reformed and Lutherans. While the Reformed apply their axiom: Finitum non est capax infiniti also here in the genus apotelesmaticum, the Lutherans also in this genus, that is, in the performance of all official works, hold on to the truth witnessed in Scripture, that in Christ, however, finite humanity is capable of the infinite divinity, as the union into one I shows. Therefore, Lutherans call the human nature of Christ an organ capable of divine works and co-operating in the same (Spyavov siypynotov Kai Kat ovvepyév),°™ while the Reformed use the image that the divine power of the Son of God is active through his human nature, like water flowing through a pipe, or that the hem of Christ's garment was the organ of divine power by which the woman who was made bloody was healed. Therefore, in the way Reformed theology conceives the organ relation of Christ's human nature, it again becomes apparent that this theology exalts the uniqueness of the binding between God

et ovvepyov. In operibus officii mediatorii natura humana Christi est quidem Adyov organon, sed non separatum, verum to Ady personaliter unitum, non agpyov, qualis fuit baculus Mosis, sed ovvepyov, scii. tale instrumentum, cui tov Adyov ceu causae principalis subsistentia et maiestas tributa est. [Google] (II, 299.). (II, 299.) Hollaz: Quando humana Christi natura actionum officii mediatorii organum vel instrumentum dicitur, eminentissima ratione [manner] id intelligendum est, ut vox instrumenti ab omni imperfectione defaecetur. Non enim est instrumentum separatum, uti fenestra est, quando sol pellucet, non exanime sicut securis aut malleus fabri, non avepyov, ut baculus Mosis, sed est instrumentum arctissime et personaliter unitum atque ovvepyov, it is organum vivum sicut membra corporis sunt viva organa animae per ea agentis; non est instrumentum brutum ut asina Bileami loquens, sed intelligens; non commune ut quilibet ecclesiae minister, sed singularissimum et sine pari example. [Google] (Examination; De pers. Christi, qu. 63.) and man in Christ, that is, the unio personalis. Hodge does indeed think he is refuting the Lutherans when he writes: "They admit that for God to exercise His power, when Peter said to the lame man, 'Rise up and walk,’ was something entirely different from rendering Peter omnipotent. °>) This is true in relation to Peter. Peter, as "the worker of a miracle", did not become omnipotent, but the divine omnipotence acted through him as through a "channel", a "tube", etc. But Peter was not a God-man either, but was and remained a mere man in his miracle. In Peter, not as in the human nature of Christ, "all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily", and of Peter, therefore, it is not said, as of Christ, "He manifested His glory, and His disciples believed on Him",® but Peter expressly characterized himself as instrumentum separatum when he declared: "Why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?°) Hollaz sets the matter out perfectly when he says: "Very great is the difference between the man Christ and the prophets and apostles, who also performed miracles and are called God's vessels and organs. For the Logos worked in the flesh as in his own temple, with the flesh as personally connected with it, through the flesh as a uniquely co- operating instrument, according to the flesh (secundum carnem) as a subject partaking of the divine majesty. Therefore, the flesh of Christ is called, in casu recto, "giving life", his hand omnipotent, his eye all-seeing, his blood cleansing from sin. In Paul, on the other hand, Christ acted in Paul as not personally but accidentally connected (in Paulo non personaliter, sed accidentaliter unito), not through Paul as a unique but universal instrument, let alone, according to Paul, as a subject participating in the divine omnipotence. Therefore, Paul's flesh must not be called animating, nor his hand omnipotent, nor his eye omniscient". °°) The Apology of the Book of Concord says of the different meanings that the Reformed and Lutherans associate with the term "organ": " They say that we do not properly declare the difference between the living Godhead and the assumed flesh of Christ, because the flesh of Christ is

263-264] only an organum of animation, but the Godhead of Christ is unica causa efficiens, the one main cause or source. Now we also say that the flesh of Christ is an organum. But we add that it is an organum sanctificatum, perfecte omnia habens [a sanctified organ, having all things perfectly], as Epiphanias speaks, and not such an instrument, as nothing feels or adds, like a water pipe, as our opposite blasphemes. °) The Apology uses the strong term "blasphemy" because the Reformed view of the organ relationship of Christ's human nature abolishes the unio personalis. The Apology goes on to say about this point: "If the adversary's poem should stand, it would have to follow irrefutably that the assumed human nature in Jesus Christ, as far as the performance of miraculous works is concerned, would not be entitled to more than the staff of Moses or Peter and the other apostles, who in the name of Jesus Christ raised the dead and performed other miraculous signs, for which they used their voices and wills. Whichever one is abhorrent to hear. For this is nothing else, because the personal union of both natures in Christ in a good Nestorian way, denies and makes of Christ only a bad apostle or holy man. ©° Lutherans and the Reformed also understand the term "official act" (anotéAeoud) in different senses. Lutherans understand it to mean joint action or work, so that every action is neither merely divine nor merely human, but God-human (actio Yeavopixn [theanthropic]). The Reformed, on the other hand, do not want the communion to refer to the action itself, but only to the result of the action. They do so in accordance with their fundamental error that the human nature of Christ is not capable of communion with the divine nature and with the actions (actiones or operationes) of the divine nature. Therefore, in the genus apotelesmaticum the Reformed theologians distinguish between actiones and opera. With regard to actiones they reject the communion; with regard to opera—opera being understood as facta externa or effectus (result) operis - they want to admit communion. Therefore Danaeus says against Chemnitz, as we have already

seen above: Utraque Christi natura in hoc communicationis genere id quod suum est agit, non convocata in suam propriam evepynoiv, neque ascita altera natura [rejection of the communion in the act itself, évépynyotc, actio], et tamen unum et idem cum altera effectum spectat et producit [Google [concession of the communion in relation to the result of the act]. Against this Reformed divorce of actio and opus it must be repeated that it is first of all against Scripture. Scripture teaches the communion precisely in relation to action (agere, actio, €vépynoic), when it takes divine action directly from the human nature of Christ, or, more precisely, when it says that divine action can be carried out through human nature, that is, uno actu, as in the Scriptural statements that the blood of the Son of God cleanses us from sin, or that the Son of God takes power from the devil by his death. ° Thus Scripture teaches not only a common result of the separate action of natures, but a common action of natures, or the action of the divine nature through the human. Then, the separation of actio and opus, or, which is the same thing, the assumption that the actiones of the divine and human natures have no communion among themselves (inter se),*) destroys the opus itself, the opus conceived as a result, because the value of the opus, conceived as a result, is based precisely on the fact that the actiones of natures are "interlocked" ° or actiones Seavdpikat, just as Scripture derives the value of the act of redemption from the acting together of God and humanity when it says that God has acquired the congregation through his own blood. ©? Without this union of actiones we would have the theory of acceptance or Calvin's "meritum hominis", which in itself has no value, but only acquires value through God's estimation. The military strategy of "separate marching and united striking" does not apply to the action of God and man in Christ, because in Christ it never concerns separate armies or even two persons (GAAoc Kat GAAOc), but always only one person. "United striking" takes place

265-266] here insofar as and because "united marching" takes place here, that is, Christ's action for humanity has redemptive and saving value insofar as and because all actiones of the God-man are God-Man actiones. It is obvious that in the Reformed separation of the actiones of natures a mere thought operation takes the place of an objective fact. According to this, Christ's action would not actually be God-human, but would only be regarded as God-human. Thus also the opus, conceived as a result of the action, would not have a redeeming value in itself, but this redeeming value would only be added to it in God's thoughts. It is admittedly consistent with what we heard above from Danaeus that Christ's suffering is attributed to the Son of God only by means of a thought operation without any real communication (praedicatione dialectica sine ulla reali communicatione [dialectical preaching without any real communication]). °° Also the Apology of the Book of Concord already points to the erroneous Reformed distinction between actio and opus in the genus apotelesmaticum: "They" (the theologians of the Neustadt Admonition [Admonitio Neostadiensis]) "make a distinction and give for that the apotelesmata, effecta or official works are common to both natures, but the effects themselves, from which these official works arise or are performed, remain inherent to each nature and are not communicated. Now the Concilium Ephesinum [Council of Ephesus], on the other hand, writes on the words of Christ in John 6: ‘My flesh is meat indeed' not only the effecta, apotelesmata, or official works of both natures in common, as our opponents do, but needs clearly such words, in and with which to give life to the flesh or [the] adopted human nature of Christ an activitas, operatio or cooperatio, an effect, power or participation, to be ascribed, as he speaks: carnem Christi esse vivificam or vivificatricem, Christ's flesh be alive or quickening, which words cannot be understood other than by the power or co-operation to give life."°) Frank also drew attention to this difference between Lutherans and the Reformed with regard to the genus apotelesmaticum. °®) He says: If we keep to that agreement according to which the Reformed, no less than the authors of the Formula of Concord, confess that Christ is Mediator, Priest, King,

Head of his Church according to both natures at the same time, and if we also add that they describe in a very similar way as Chemnitz the participation of the divine nature in the suffering of the human, then it cannot be denied that differences are hidden in these identical expressions. For Lutherans, the meaning is that "the special activity of one nature does not occur without participation in that of another". With the Reformed, on the other hand, the interest of this is that "the two radii of divine and human activity should run as separately as possible alongside one another and only meet at the extreme end, namely, at apotelesma [the result]. For the Reformed view it was important to distinguish the concept as a pure result, as a mere external fact, from the actions themselves, the result of which it is". But Frank's statement must be contradicted when he adds: "A clear discussion of all these points between the two denominations could not take place, if only because the differences have their roots essentially where there seemed to be full agreement, and therefore where the controversy was least directed: in the doctrine of the unity of the person. °° If anything, it is historically certain that the Formula of Concord and the Lutheran theologians, from Luther to Hollaz, saw the difference "in the doctrine of the unity of the person" and consistently demonstrated in the controversy that Reformed Christology, when it contrasted with Lutheran doctrine, abolished the unity of the person, the unio personalis. They prove: If the Reformed explicitly separate the Son of God from suffering (Zwingli) or associate him with suffering only through an operation of thought without real communication (Danaeus), nominetenus (Neustadt Admonition), then the unio personalis between God and man in Christ is thus abandoned. The Lutherans further prove: If, according to Reformed doctrine, the human nature of Christ is not capable of the divine attributes and actions (actiones) even when communicated (communicative), because finitum non est capax infiniti: according to the same principle, the human nature of Christ is not capable of the divine attributes and actions (actiones) even when communicated (communicative), because finitum non est capax infiniti: according to the same principle, human

~267-268] nature is also incapable of the divine I of the Son of God, and thus the unio personalis is declared impossible. And when the Reformed teachers assert with great agreement that the Son, after his incarnation, is and works extra carnem, they eo ipso substitute in Christ the union of God with all believers and with all creatures for the unio personalis between God and man. The authors of the Formula of Concord and the Lutheran theologians have recognized and demonstrated so clearly that the difference between Lutherans and the Reformed lies in the teaching of the unio personalis. From the Formula of Concord, the following sentences, among others, belong here: If the alloeosis is to stand, as Zwingli teaches it, then Christ will have to be two persons, one divine and one human, because Zwingli applies the passages concerning suffering to the human nature alone and divests them entirely from divinity. For if the works be parted and separated, the Person must also be divided, since all the works or sufferings are ascribed not to the natures, but to the Person ® Furthermore: And if you would point out a place where God is, and not the man, the Person would already be divided, because I could then say with truth: Here is God who is not man, and who never as yet has become man.... No, friend, wherever you place God, there you must also place with Him humanity; they do not allow themselves to be separated or divided from one another. There has been made [in Christ] one Person, and it [the Son of God] does not separate from itself the [assumed] humanity. © And Luther says in reference to the genus apotelesmaticum: "So learn to grasp this article, that this Person be kept whole, and that works of both natures be combined, though the natures are distinct. ©) Therefore, in order to clarify the differences between Lutherans and the Reformed, it must be said that they use not only expressions such as "organ" and "official acts", but above all the expression "personal union", unio personalis, in a completely different sense. The Lutherans understand by it a unio, by virtue of which the Person of the Son of God is everywhere in the human nature after the incarnation and also works everywhere in human nature—although in different ways before and after the exaltation.

The Reformed, on the other hand, if they are consistent, understand unio personalis a unio in which the Son of God is and acts even after the Incarnation as extra carnem as in carne. They think the unio personalis as unio of God with all creatures. Just as the Heidelberg Catechism teaches that the Son of God remains on earth in personal union with his human nature enclosed in heaven, because God is present in all creatures. Rejection of Eutychianism and Nestorianism by the genus apotelsmaticum. In a brief summary, and in order to reject both Eutychianism and Nestorianism, it must be said with regard to the genus apotelesmaticum: Just as in Christ the natures themselves are not transformed, but are and remain different (distinctae), so are and remain the actiones of the natures different (distinctae). This is expressed by the words: A git utraque forma (natura), quod sibi proprium est [Each form acts according to its own nature]. But just as the natures are not divorced (separatae), but personally connected (personaliter coniunctae), in the way that nav to mANpwpa Tic GEdtHTOSG dwells in human nature as in its body (ompanKws), so too the actiones of natures are never divorced (separatae), but always communal, that is, divine-human, Seavdpicai [theandric]. This is expressed by the addition: Every nature does what belongs to it cum communicatione alterius, in communion with the other. According to his divinity, Christ collaborates in all works that belong essentially or as proprium only to humanity, and according to his humanity he collaborates in all works that belong essentially or as proprium only to the divinity. In detail: Under the law Being, Suffering, and Dying come to Christ essentially or as proprium only xaté odpKa, not katé& Sedtya, but also according to the Godhead he is as certain in the obedience of the Law and in the suffering as the Scripture states these operations of the Son of God, *) and according to the Godhead he also works in the obedience of the Law and in the suffering, as certainly as the Scripture places the sufficing value of these operations

269] not in the predestination or the mere estimation of God, but in the participation of the Son of God. ®°) Any more detailed explanation of how is to be dispensed with. On the other hand: omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresent works, in short, performing divine works, is essentially or as proprium due to Christ only after the Godhead. But also according to his human nature he is and works in all the works of the Godhead, because the Son of God came into the flesh precisely for the purpose of working all his divine works as Prophet, High Priest and King in the flesh and through the flesh, that is, in and through the human nature personally united with him. Here, too, every more detailed explanation of how is to be dispensed with, but the fact is to be recorded, because Scripture also quite explicitly states these divine works of Christ according to human nature. © The human nature of Christ has been elevated by its reception into the divine ego as well as into the divine sphere of being, so also into the divine sphere of action. In describing the genus apotelesmaticum, Lutheran teachers reject with all desirable clarity both Eutychianism and Nestorianism. Some more debates on this may follow here. Hollaz: In officio mediatorio divinae et humanae naturae in. Christo distinctae, sed non separatae sunt évépyeia, agendi vires et operationes.... Quemadmodum duae Christi naturae, personaliter unitate, sunt et manent realiter distinctae, ita etiam agunt distincte, at non divise. [Google] (Examen; De pers. Christi, qu. 64.) To the words: Principium, quo expediuntur actiones officii sacerdotalis,, regii et prophetici, est utraque Christi natura, Hollaz adds with respect to the difference of action: Et quidem natura divina est principium original, cui infinita vis agendi formaliter [wesentlich] competit, natura autem humana est principium organicum respectu operationum divinarum, Vv. g. redemptionis, satisfactionis, salvationis etc.; agit enim tanquam instrumentum personaliter unitum ex virtute divina per unionem hypostaticam sibi communicata. At eadem Christi natura humana est principium formale respectu propriarum actionum et passionum, Vv. g. locutionis,

effusionis sanguinis etc. [Google] (Examen; De pers. Christ, qu. 63.) — Gerhard says in defense against Nestorianism: Verissimum quidem est, in operibus officii utramque Christi naturam agere, quod cuique proprium est, sed eo non absolvitur integra definitio, verum addendum etiam illud, quod canon Concilii Chalcedonensis addit: cum communicatione alterius. [Google] (De pers. Christi, § 283.) Quenstedt writes in defence of the Eutychian mixing of actions: Aliud est naturam humanam operari divina per propriam evépyeiay, et aliud operari divina per unitum Verbum et communicatam divinam maiestatem; non prius, sed posterius asserimus. (II, 299.) Etiamsi dicatur carnem etiam id agere, quod Aoyg proprium est, non sua naturali, sed communicata virtute: non confunduntur tamen évépyeiai, quia lenge alia ratione agit divina natura quam humana; illa independenter, haec vero nonnisi dependenter a doya. Non exerit virtutem illam ut sibi proprium idioma, sed ut communicatum a Ady. [Google] (II, 303.) Hollaz speaks of the communion which, in carrying out the ministries of Christ, is due to his human nature in the difference between the participation of God in the actions of all men: Non absolvitur concursu divino cum actione Christi hominis, quia Deus concurrit cum actionibus omnium hominum, qui secundum vires suas naturales agunt, neque tamen exinde resultat opus theandricum, sed requiritur etiam realis koiv@via naturarum in agendo, a qua est actio divino-humana, ut a gladio ignito est' ustio secans et sectio urens. [Google] (Examen; De pers. Christi, qu. 66.) J. B. Carpzov says in relation to the objection that a doubling of divine attributes and actions occurs when human nature participates in divine actions: Humana natura in Christo non tantum operatur humane et humanas actiones, sed et divinas, non quidem per vim propriam, sed communicatam, scii, divinitatis, cuius instrumentum ac edypyotov est humana natura, ut concurrant quidem duae naturae tanquam principium quo, sed tamen unam eandemque facultatem habeant, quam principale agens, divina natura scilicet habet ex se, humana natura vero per communicationem. [Google] (Isagoge in lib. Symbolicos, 1675, p. 1514 sq.) Quenstedt summarizes the historical situation in this way: Totus patrum chorus, qui sistitur a Chemnitio lib. de duab. nat. c. 17, eo tendit unaque voce concinit, Christum non solum in carne et cum carne agere et operari, sed etiam per carnem, ita ut carni non tantum ministerium exter- 271] num tribuatur, sed etiam illa ipsa efficacia divina, quae Aoyw quidem originaliter, humanae naturae vero énopévac et consequenter ex unione personali xoivovia reali attribuatur. [Google] (II, 302. Cf. above the section: "The genus apotelesmaticum and the ancient church", p. 284 ff.)