1. The Nature and Concept of Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation.

1. The Nature and Concept of Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation.

About the nature and concept of humiliation and exaltation the following is repeated and compiled here: Since the incarnation of God consists in the fact that the Son of God entered into his human nature without any reduction of his divine I or his divine attributes, that is, in the entire fullness of divinity,°’® Christ was also according to his human nature from the first moment of the unio personalis on and during his whole life on earth in possession of the 66€a Sov. This was set forth under the genus maiestaticum both in general and in relation to the individual divine attributes, in particular also in relation to omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. Therefore, the humiliation of Christ consists in the fact that Christ renounced during his earthly life the use of the divine glory communicated to his human nature, as far as this renunciation was required by his redeeming ministry, namely the ministry that he—in accordance with the divine method of redemption—should be under the Law in place of men (yevOpévoc 026 vOpov) and suffer and die in place of men (yev6 Lévoc vttep NLov Katépaa). This, as is well known, is the Lutheran doctrine of humiliation. The Formula of Concord says: This majesty He had immediately at His conception, even in His mother's womb, but, as the apostle testifies [Phil. 2:7], laid it aside (seipsum exinanivit); and, as Dr. Luther explains, He kept it concealed in the state of His humiliation, and did not employ it always, but only when He wished (usurpavit). °°

repeated as often as the aforementioned writing of Chemnitz. The repetitions are in the nature of things. All Christological heresies are set up in opposition to a few basic Christian truths, especially in opposition to the unio personalis. Thus, Chemnitz is induced to put the same basic truths on the table again and again when discussing the numerous errors.

The same thoughts are also expressed in the following words, but with a strong emphasis on the fact that through self-emptying according to the humanity the true human development of Christ was assured: This [divine] majesty He [Christ] always had according to the personal union, and yet He abstained from it in the state of His humiliation, and on this account (qua de causa, namely because of the expression) truly increased in all wisdom and favor with God and men; therefore He exercised (exercuit, exercised, used) this majesty, not always, but when [as often as] it pleased Him, until after His resurrection He entirely laid aside the form of a servant, but not the [human] nature, and was established in the full use, manifestation, and declaration of the divine majesty (in plenarium usurpationem, manifestationem et declarationem divinae maiestatis collocaretur). ®") The doctrine of exaltation is so closely connected with the doctrine of humiliation that the former is always given with the latter, and the nature of humiliation cannot be described without also speaking of exaltation, as is evident from the words of the Formula of Concord. If humiliation consists in the partial non-use of divine majesty according to the human nature, exaltation consists in the full use of divine majesty according to human nature. Of exaltation in particular, the Formula of Concord says: Hence we believe, teach, and confess that the Son of Man is realiter, that is, in deed and truth, exalted according to His human nature to the right hand of the almighty majesty and power of God, °) because He [that man] was assumed into God when He was conceived of the Holy Ghost in His mother's womb, and His human nature was personally united [fuerit unita] with the Son of the Highest. °°) Furthermore, it says in more detail, with a comparison of the states: We therefore hold and teach... because the entire fullness of the divinity dwells in Christ, not as in other holy men or angels, but bodily, as in its own body, so that it shines forth

Miiller, p. 685, § 52. [Trigl. 1033, Sol. Decl., VIL, 52]

282] with all its majesty, power, glory, and efficacy in the assumed human nature, voluntarily, when and as He wills, and in, with, and through the same manifests, exercises, and executes (exerceat, operetur et perficiat) His divine power, glory, and efficacy, as the soul does in the body and fire in glowing iron. This was concealed and withheld (for the greater part, maiori ex parte) at the time of the humiliation; but now, after the form of a servant (or exinanition) has been laid aside, it is fully, powerfully, and publicly exercised before all saints, in heaven and on earth (In translation: Haec autem naturae humanae maiestas in statu humiliationis maiori ex parte occultata et quasi dissimulata fuit. At nunc post depositam servi formam [seu exinanitionem] maiestas Christi plene et efficacissime atque manifeste coram omnibus in coelo et in terris sese exserit. [Google]) ®* And thus [Christ] entered into His glory [Phil. 2:9 ff.], so that now, not only as God, but also as man, He knows all things, can do all things, is present with all creatures, and has under His feet and in His hands everything that is in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, as He Himself testifies Matt. 28:18, Eph. 4:10. 8°) If we want to summarize, the doctrine of the Formula of Concord of humiliation and exaltation contains the following points: 1) Humiliation and exaltation refer to Christ according to the human nature. The relationship to Christ according to the divine nature is a "blasphemous reversal. °° 2. Christ,

according to human nature, is in possession of the divine majesty from conception propter unionem personalem. 3. The exinanition or deprivation consists in the fact that Christ did not merely apparently, but really renounced the use of divine majesty. As a result of this renunciation, Christ has developed in a truly human way. Non-use and "concealment" of divine majesty are synonymous. 4. Non-use is not renunciation of all use. The full weight of His deity, for example, which was attached to His death, made it infinitely meritorious. ° 5. Exinanition differs from exaltation in that the divine majesty in the state of exinanition is only limited, and officially limited, while in the state of exaltation it is used, effective or revealed completely in and through the human nature (exercere, sese exserere, operari, lucere). These main points of the doctrine of the estates also express the definitions of Lutheran dogmatists. Baier says: "The exinanition of Christ refers to his human nature and consists in the fact that Christ temporarily abdicated the full use of the divine glory which human nature received in Personal Union through communication". °® Baier describes the exaltation as follows: "The state of exaltation is that in which Christ, according to the human nature, after discarding the weaknesses of the flesh, accepted and exercised the full use of divine majesty. °° Regarding the difference in status, Hollaz says: "Christ did not always exercise the divine majesty communicated to his flesh in the same way, but from conception to death and burial he withdrew and inhibited its full use (retraxit et inhibuit); but after the quickening, resurrection, ascension and elevation to the right hand of God, he made full use of it."©°

eius naturam atque in eo consistit, quod Christus maiestatis divinae, quam in unione personali humana natura communicatam accepit, usu plenario aliquamdiu se abdicavit. [Google

humanam naturam, depositis infirmitatibus carnis, plenarium divinae maiestatis usum suscepit et exseruit. [Google]

maiestatem divinam non semper eodem modo exeruit, sed a concep— 283] As far as the Reformed and Roman Catholic doctrine of the states is concerned: It must be said that since, according to Scripture, humiliation consists in the partial non-use, and exaltation in the full use of the divine majesty communicated to the human nature of Christ, but since the Reformed and Roman theologians declare the communication of the divine majesty to human nature to be impossible by virtue of their axiom: "Finiitum non est capax infiniti" [the human nature is incapable of the divine majesty], everything that these theologians say about the humiliation and exaltation of Christ in accordance with their theory is outside of Scripture. As a rule, they relate the humiliation and exaltation to both natures. ©! tione usque ad mortem et sepulchrum eiusdem plenum usum retraxit et inhibuit, vivificatus autem, resuscitatus, evectus in coelum et exaltatus ad dextram Dei eandem plene usurpavit. Ex quo oritur duplex Christi status exinanitionis et exaltationis. [Google] In further description, dogmatists distinguish between subiectum quod and subiectum quo of humiliation. Quenstedt: Subiectum exinanitionis est vel quod vel quo. Subiectum quod est persona tov Adyov, non qua doapKos et incarnanda, sed qua Mvoapxog et incarnata.... Subiectum quo est natura humana, utpote quae sola deteriorationis [Verringerung] capax est. Nec enim nisi secundum humanam naturam in forma Dei fuit et habuit ta Ioa tp See (sollte hei®en: ro sivai Ioa Sew] et potuisset, si voluisset, se aequalem Deo gerere. [Google] (Syst. I, 475.) With regard to the obiectum exinanitionis Quenstedt says: Obiectum exinanitionis, seu quo se exinanivit Christus, non est essentia aut maiestas divina carni communicata. Si enim communicatam divinam maiestatem assumptae carni subtraxisset, ipsam unionem personalem rescidisset aut dissolvisset, ast semper a primo conceptionis momento Filius Dei fuit et mansit et inhabitantem totam plenitudinem Deitatis secundum carnem perpetuo dywpiotac retinuit et possedit, sed id, quo se abdicavit, in genere fuit woppn tov veov, id est, status divinus gloriosus seu deiformitatis, hoc est, divinae maiestatis plenarius, universalis et non interruptus usus, non quod nunquam ea uteretur, sed quod non semper et tum solum, quoties ex officii ratione expediret.... In specie obiectum exinanitionis est (1.) usus plenarius et universalis divinae gloriae, Ioh. 17, 5, (2.) omnis opulentiae, Matt. 8, 20, (3.) omnipotentiae, Luc. 22, 42. 43, (4.) omnisapientiae, Luc. 2, 52, (5.) omniscientiae, Mare. 13, 32, (6.) omnipraesentiae, Eph. 1, 20 [als majestitische Gegenwart und Herrschaft gefabt), (7.) cultus adorationis religiosae, utpote cuius plenario usu status exaltationis definitur, Phil. 2, 9—11., [Google] p. 476. 480.) — In reference to the exaltation Quenstedt says: Subiectum exaltationis est vel quod vel quo. Subiectum quod est Aoyos evoapkoc sive Christus SeavSpwnoc. Subiectum quo natura non divina, quia haec simpliciter ajetaBAntoc, sed humana est, Ps. 110, 7; Phil. 2:9. [Google] (L. c., p. 526.)

Ul, 55 ff.; Baumgarten, Streitigk. I, 312; Heppe quotes from Mastricht (Theo- But since they want to hold on to the immutability of God, the humiliation and exaltation according to the divine nature becomes to them underhand a mere manner of speaking, a mere occultatio [veiling], a mere manifestatio of the Godhead before the eyes of men. In relation to the human nature, humiliation means many things to them: the assumption of the human nature, the unusual measure of shame and suffering, etc., but not the renunciation of the use of the divine majesty which is bodily resident in human nature. Exaltation according to human nature is to them the communication of very great finite gifts (dona extraordinaria finita) in contradiction with the clear statements of Scripture. Phil. 2:9-11: 16 dvopa to bzEp TaVv Svopa, tva Ev TO OVOLATL TAV YOvD KaLYH — Kal Mdo0 yAMoou sSoLoAoynontat Sti KOPLOG 3Inoovs Xptotdéc; Matt. 28, 18: ndoa sFo0vota ev TO Ovpavg Kat Ext THS YN; Eph. 1, 20—23: vaepdvo méons apyiis KTA., Kai Tavta vaétacEv Vd TOUS m0dac aitov; Eph. 4, 10: vaepava tévt@v Tov ovpavev, tva TANpwaon TA mavta. (Cf. the remarks on the genus maiestaticum p. 169 ff.,) It is also self- evident that the old and new Unitarians' doctrine of humiliation has nothing in common with the doctrine of the Scriptures, since they deny the essential (metaphysical) divinity of Christ, the "two-nature doctrine", and thus the communication of divine glory to human nature within the personal union is for them a non-ens. When the Unitarians still speak of an exaltation of Christ, they understand this to mean Christ's elevation to intellectual, moral, etc. world rulers or even church rulers, with or without resurrection from the dead. The older Unitarians (Socinians) usually let Christ rise from the dead. For newer Unitarians, the bodily resurrection of Christ is not essential. All that matters to them is that Christ, through what he said and did on earth, is the "agent" of moral, pious and other ideas and feelings, whereby he remained in the grave and yet can be a "spiritual royal power". © retico-praet. theol. V, IX, 4): Status humiliationis seu exinanitionis est is status, quo Christus quoad divinam quidem naturam seipsum privavit usu et manifestatione gloriae sibi alias competente, et quoad humanam naturam cum extrema humilitate subiectus est legi divinae ad perferenda et agenda omnia, quae ad restitutionem peccatoris requirebantur. [Google

resurrection and ascension as external facts and historical 284-285] Modern theologians, and just also the positive ones, judge quite unanimously that the Christology of the Formula of Concord gives the impression of being "unfinished". °°?) In contrast to that Frank, although he himself paid homage to "further development", rightly remarked: "Those theologians" (the authors of the Formula of Concord), "by placing next to each other thetically according to the Scriptural findings what is difficult for human understanding to grasp, gave much less thought to the difficulty of such understanding than the theologians of the present day do, because they had learned the differre in aeternam scholam [defer to the eternal school] better than they had."©™) Hase also reminded of the same fact: "The Lutheran Church only wants to impart the faith and keep the saving mystery as a mystery against all perversions". In fact, what the Formula of Concord and the Lutheran teachers who agree with it say about the humiliation as well as the exaltation of Christ proves to be not a "dogmatic construction" but the clear teaching of Sacred Scripture and thus in accordance with "historical reality". Lutheran teaching does justice to all Scriptural statements about the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. The following is repeated and compiled here: In the Scriptures we have two series of scriptural statements about Christ's life on earth. In one series, Christ is attributed the possession of divine glory and all things. ®® In the other series of statements, Scripture ascribes poverty, limited knowledge, limited power to the same Christ in the same earthly life: tiring, imprisonment, suffering, dying and burial. © It is useful to remember that in these two series of Scriptural statements we have the greatest contrasts ever expressed by a person. World history, however, offers us enough examples that the powerful of this earth have become completely powerless, the rich completely poor. But historical individual events does not belong to the doctrine of faith, but to the science of the life of Jesus.."

doeveiac); Joh. 4:6 (kexomlaKkas Ek THS OSotMopiac); 18:12; 19:16. 30 ff. these states followed one another, and besides, they were always only finite quantities, since even the greatest human power and the greatest human wealth are always limited. But in the double series of scriptural statements of Christ, one and the same person in the same life on earth and at the same time is ascribed all-possession and poverty, omnipotence and limited power. How can both series of scriptural statements be united with each other? Scripture does not leave this to our conjecture, but carries out the unification itself in such a way that it says, for example, of the fact of Christ's death: "No one takes life from me, but I leave it from myself. I have the power to leave it and the power to take it again." ©®) So it came to pass that Christ died, that he did not use the power that dwelt in him. The same is to be said of all parts of the humiliation, of his poverty, his weariness, his limited knowledge, and all the state of humiliation. Even at the time of his imprisonment, Christ insists that he did not use the divine power at his disposal. He lets himself be bound by the multitude, eénoav avtoév, but immediately before that he throws the same multitude to the ground with a word. ©) This too is based on Scripture, when the Lutheran confession and the Lutheran teachers in their description of humiliation restrict themselves to stating that Christ did not renounce all but the full use of his divine glory: For where his ministry required it, Christ has used his divine 60a In the miracles he worked on earth he revealed and saw his disciples tnv d0€av avtov, thy SdEav co Lovoyevovcs mapa matpdc. 7 He was also not excluded from world preservation and world government in the state of humiliation according to human nature: 6 matHp Lov ews dpti epyaCetat, Kayo epyaCoua 7° In his teaching on earth he did not speak ex t¢ y"¢, like prophets and apostles, but as 0 wv Etc TOV KOAMOV TOV TATPOG, as 0 WV EV TO ovpave [which is in the bosom of the Father],° In Christ's life on earth, the use and non-use of the divine glory is regulated by his office as Redeemer,

18:6. Luther, StL. VIII, 862 ff.

286] which included not only revelation of God through teachings, but also obedience to the Law and suffering and death in the place of men. According to the Scriptures, Christ lived an official life throughout, that is, he lived here on earth as a servant of God and of men, not Himself: Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. 7 ody éavt@ Hpecsv. If Christ had lived unto Himself, he would not have had to go out in the lowly human form reported in the Gospels, in which the avSp@zot (multitude) mistook him for John the Baptist or Elijah or Jeremiah or the prophets one. °°) Rather, he could have appeared in such a way, by virtue of the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him, that at the sight of him everyone should have exclaimed: "God walks on earth! If a light placed in a lamp shines through it with its brightness, how would Christ's human nature, in which the fullness of the Godhead dwelt as in his body, have been radiated with divine glory if he had used that glory! The three disciples saw the divine manifestation or form corresponding to the unio personalis of God and man in something the three disciples saw in Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration: "He was transfigured before them, and his face shone as the sun, and his garments became white as light. 7° In the same manifestation all people will see the $eav9pazoc when he will come on the Last Day ev ty 56En avtov. ° But in this divine form, which would have been the normal form for him, the God-man, he could not have been under the Law and could not have suffered and died. Parents, relatives, the Jewish people, the chief priests and their servants together with Pilate and his soldiers would have fled from him in horror. Therefore it was now in the interest of his redeeming ministry that he restricted the use of his divine majesty to the extent that he did not act as Lord but as servant, not as a God- man but as a human being like other human beings, and even died on the cross. He did all this out of love of God the Father: " But that the world may know that I

love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence ",°* namely, to suffer, and for the love of men: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". This is the humiliation of Christ. This teaching of humiliation is also found in Phil. 2:5-11. Admittedly, there is a great disagreement among the theologians about this scriptural passage. But this is not the fault of the Apostle’s words. More recently, all that is essential is wrong in the commentary by Meyer, and all that is essential is right in the commentary on Nosgen. 7! The scopus of the passage is quite clear. For the purpose of securing Christian unity, the apostle exhorts Christians to serve each other humbly, denying their own interests, v. 3-4: "Do not do anything by quarrelling or vain glory, but by humility, respecting one another above oneself, and looking not upon your own, but upon the other's things. The apostle emphasizes this exhortation to humble self-denial through the example of Christ: Christians should have the same self-denying disposition that was in Christ, v. 5: Todto @poveite év dpiv 6 Kai év Xpiot ‘Inood,!! But how was Christ of Jesus minded? That Christ Jesus "emptied himself", éavtov éxévaoe [made himself of no reputation ]. The apostle himself says what the eavtov éxéveae, self- emptying, consisted of in both negative and positive terms: negative in that Christ Jesus, who was in the form of God, did not make any pomp and circumstance with this "being in the likeness of God" (Oc €v pope Oeod dTapyav ody ApnayLoV Hyi\caTo TO eivat ica. Od); positive in that Christ Jesus took the form of a servant, becoming the same as other people and therefore was not invented by them like the God-man, but like an ordinary man (Lope SovAov AGBoOv Ev OLOLOLATL AvVOpOTOV yEvopLEvos Kai OYNWATL ebpebsic ac GvOparoc, v. 7-8). After the apostle has thus negatively and positively predestined what "self-emptying" Jesus Christ had practiced with respect to his person,

change the meaning.

context is later explained under "Individuals to Phil. 2:5 ff. is proven. 287-288 ] he still particularly points out in the following words to what servant service Jesus Christ humbled himself: He humbled himself in obedience against God's will until death, and not only to a common death, for example on a bed, but also until death on a cross (v. 8: étameiv@osv EAVTOV YEVOLLEVOG DINKOOS LExpPt avatov Vavatov dé otavpod). These are the thoughts expressed by the words of the apostle. But here the question was and is now asked whether the humble self-denial of Christ, which the Apostle presents to Christians for imitation, consisted in the fact that the eternal Son of God became man, that is, assumed a human nature, or in the fact that the incarnate Son of God appeared among men in his earthly life not in divine form, as a God-man, but as an ordinary man. Reformed theologians and modern kenoticists assert the former, Lutherans unanimously teach the latter. What is decisive is not the reference to the fact that 6g goes back to Xpiot6c nootc and Xptotécs Inootc is the name of Adyoc evoapKoc. We must admit that the Incarnate Son of God can also stand in the subject, even if the predicate goes to the divine nature, as in Jn 6:62: The Son of Man was in heaven. 7!) More important is what both the old Lutheran teachers and a number of modern theologians point out, that otherwise Scripture does not present the Incarnation of the Son of God to Christians for imitation, but the meaning and transformation of the Incarnate. 7! The decisive factor, however, is the fact that in this passage the apostle does not say a word about the Incarnation and acceptance of human nature. Rather, the apostle expressly determines the self-renunciation that Christ Jesus

[the incarnation] cannot be exhibited as an object of imitation. Also Nosgen, op. cit. Also Quenstedt II, 482: Christus ab apostolo nobis in exemplum imitationis proponitur, sed incarnatione ipsum imitari aut similes fieri non possumus. Discussion on Matt. 5:48 in Philippi, op. cit. p. 470; in Nésgen, op. cit. p. 233. Philippi also points out that "@pdvyaic is otherwise only a predicate of man, not of God"; op. cit. p. 471. Quenstedt II, 476: Tribuitur ei ppoveiv, quod homini proprium. [ppovetv is attributed to him, which is proper to man. ] did not appear in the world "in divine form", as God and Lord, but in "the form of a servant", as a servant and an ordinary man, and was therefore regarded by men. 7!>) Meyer 7'° means that the expression ev oper Seov vmdpyov, "being in God's form", describes Christ according to his divine nature or in his "pre-human form of existence". He refers for his opinion to passages like Col. 1:15, where Christ is called "the image (eixkav) of the invisible God" according to his divine nature, and to Hebr. 1:3, where Christ is also called, according to his divinity, the "splendor (azabyacua) of the glory of God and the image (yapaxtnp) of his being". But these passages are not identical. For according to these passages Christ is according to the Godhead not "in God's image", ev sikdvi Tov Seot, but God's image itself, eikov tov Seov, and not "in the splendor of God's glory", but God's splendor itself, ov anavyaoua tio 56EN¢ KtA. So according to these passages the

"servant form" in Luther, St. L. XII, 468 f. 473 f. He proves that "divine form" cannot designate the divine being or the divine nature and "servant form" cannot designate the human being or the human nature, but that "form" in both cases expresses the appearance or "conduct". Luther explains the misunderstanding of this "fine text" Phil. 2 by saying that some "do not respect the way St. Paul spoke". Also Nosgen remarks against the relation of the words sv popoy Yeo vadpyov to Christ's "prehistoric being": "If one thinks that the sentence V. 6: ‘in that he was in divine form' must be interpreted as such, then the expression ‘form’ is just as little appreciated as the used word of time. The divine form is in contrast to the servant form, and the latter denotes the habitus of the servant of God. Christ entered into the ranks of the servants of God. (Cf. Matt. 20:28 and the Old Testament 7? Jay [HEBREW].) According to this, the apostle cannot mean by the word 'figure' the physical appearance or the formation of the body" (human nature) "but only the habitus of his conduct and appearance. The divine form he meant would have consisted in a coming forth in divine power and authority, as he, according to his superhuman nature, has been able to carry it with him from the very beginning on earth. He was entitled to it according to his beginning and end (Micah 5:2), as the apostle V. 6 "indicates through the temporal word of the participle sentence" (vmapyov). But Jesus Christ did not intend, by adhering to such a life form and such a form of his appearance, to usurp the being as wise as God, violent towards men and contrary to God's Word. (op. cit., p. 234 sf)

288-289] expression év Lopoy Veov vadpyov does not fit Christ according to His deity. But it does fit on Christ according to his humanity. Provided that the human being Christ is God, or that the entire fullness of the Godhead dwells in the humanity of Christ in the flesh, humanity is eo ipso "in divine form", that is, in possession of the divine glory, and if the divine glory does not fully operate or shine out in earthly life, but Christ appears on earth in servant form and in his habitus (oyjLan) presents himself quite like other human beings who are not God, this can only come from the fact that a self- emptying took place in such a way that he, according to his humanity, in his appearance gives the divine form or the equality with God and instead takes on servant form, as it was demanded in the interest of redemption. Finally it must not be forgotten that the "self-emptying" (eavtov Exév@oEv) is in contrast to the following exaltation. If the kenosis was in the Incarnation or in the acceptance of human nature, then—by virtue of the contradiction—the exaltation should be understood as dehumanization or abandonment of human nature. 7!) Thus the relationship of "self-emptying" to the acceptance of human nature refutes itself. So says the Philippians passage—

servi non natura humana intelligi potest, alias in exinanitione naturam divinam, in exaltatione vero naturam humanam deposuisset adeoque in neutro statu Sedv8panos esset, quod absurdum. Male igitur exinanitio per incarnationem definitur. Quo pacto exaltatio per excarnationem esset describenda. Dorner remarks against the modern kenoticists: "The subject of the sentence, as the Lutheran dogmatists irrefutably prove, is Jesus Christ, but not the Logos; for (apart from everything else) how can an act of kenosis such as the alleged one, which falls entirely into the invisible realm, be presented to the Philippians as an example? Or how can the Logos be exalted (v. 9), without first committing another petitio principii by inserting a kenosis other than that of which we know? (In Philippi IV, 1, 475.) Dorner repeats this execution, Christl. Glaubenslehre 2 II, 285 s. Nésgen: "V. 11 absolutely proves, as in the verses before, that Christ as such is spoken of, who was not yet raised to the LORD in the kingdom of God. This is also indicated by his designation as the one who, although he was full of the Spirit and the power of God, only behaved as a man.... Therefore, in this passage from Philippians there can be all the less talk of an action of the Logos or of Christ in his prehistoric being. (op. cit., p. 233.) we will have to leave it at that—of a "self-emptying" of Christ, which consisted in his renunciation of the use of the divine glory that was in him through the unio personalis, in so far as the renunciation was required by his position as servant of God and of men. The words Phil. 2:6-9: "Whether he was in divine form" etc. describe the personal armor which Christ wore for the direction of his ministry in his intercession for men. Luther aptly calls humiliation the "ministerial figure" of Christ. 7!® It is of course a wonderful armor and figure. The worldly warrior who wants to win the victory gathers his sword to his side and strives upwards. Christ's armor for the victory to be won develops in the opposite direction. Christ ewvtov éxévmoev, emptied himself, emptied himself, destroyed himself, became low, very low. But this strange equipment is due to the nature of the work to be aligned. There was no need to conquer cities. Nor was it to throw him who holds people captive from God's doom into hell with a divine word of authority. It was necessary—in execution of the divine method of redemption—to pay for the guilt of sin on behalf of mankind through submission, suffering and dying. Of course, this could not be done in such a way that he partially or completely discarded his divinity. He could not renounce his divinity in the state of humiliation. He had to attach the full weight of his Godhead to his subject and to his suffering and dying, as the Scriptures testify. 7! Still in the midst of death he had to be the strong God, in order to overcome death through death, to raise up the temple of his body again, ’ to be able to take life again. 7) The Formula of Concord rightly points out that Jesus Christ " likewise in death, when He died not simply as any other man, but in and with His death conquered sin, death, devil, hell, and eternal damnation". 77 In order to be able to become obedient, to suffer and to die in the place of men, he must renounce the use of the likeness of God, not only apparently, but truly. How this was possible is not "cognitively grasped", but

289-290] believed on the basis of the testimony of Scripture. As is well known, Luther expresses this in this way: "In secret he leads his power, he walked in my poor form; he wants to catch the devil," and when we speak of a renunciation of the use of the divine form on the part of him who was and remained God, and to whom therefore the divine form was also at the command of mankind, it is not unseemly to think of the parallel between the first and second Adam in this passage from Philippians. The first Adam was a mere man and wanted to be seduced by the serpent to be like God. Through this sin and death came into the world. The second Adam is not a mere man, but the LORD from heaven. ’*°) He is God and therefore also according to his human nature in divine form. But instead of boasting about his godliness, he became like a lowly man. In this way, sin and death were abolished, and the shame that the first Adam caused with his will to be God was made good. Singular to Phil. 2:5 ff. The tbxdpyov in év popot Oeod bxadpyov expresses in contrast to the simple (see 2 Cor. 8:9: mAo0bo10cG wv) the being or the facts more strongly, for example: "being in the form of God". Christ was in divine form, but did not display it, but emptied himself. Nosgen: "It was proper for him to be in divine form." Cf. from the rich man Luke 16:23: vadpyov ev Bacdvoic, he was in agony. — On the question whether Gpmaydc is to be grasped in oby GpmaypLov nyijouato actively or passively, which means, the act of robbery or the object of robbery, the robbed (the booty), much unnecessary erudition was wasted. The philological investigations have—just as in 7Anp@pa, Eph. 1:23; cf. note 398—produced exactly the opposite result. Some prove that Gpmaypdc is only the act of robbery, others that, as a word on loc, it could also designate the object of robbery (Meyer - Lipsius, N6sgen). Here the passive meaning is determined by the context. Even those who only want to concede the active meaning to dpmaypdc do not hold this meaning themselves, as soon as they connect oby GpmayLov Hyioato with its object, to eivat ica Sew, the "Being Godlike". Being equal to God denotes a state, and no human mind can conceive of a state as an act, but rather it necessarily converts the act, here the act of robbery, immediately into the object of robbery. "Christ did not consider being like God to be an act of robbery" is an unthought that no one has actually succeeded in. (Cf. Lipsius in Nosgen II, 235, note 1.) —

. That is why the meaning of the words: "He did not think that being equal to God was robbery" is determined by the context: Christ did not flaunt the likeness of God. Joh. Olearius (Universa theol., p. 579): Christ non velut rapinam ostentavit deiformitatem. Wolf also aptly states this in his Curae z. St. — The statements sv Lopon eov vadpywv and To sivo1 toa Sew are of course conceptually different, but factually identical, since the apostle with the latter expression takes up the former again or, more precisely, uses the latter for the former. The thought of progress lies in the obx dpmaypov Hyjouto; Christ was in divine form, but did not display it. The "likeness of God", just as the "figure of God" does not denote the divine being, but rather the divine manifestation, which would have been the normal manifestation for Christ according to his human nature, in which the entire fullness of the Godhead dwelled bodily, if it had not taken place, which Paul describes with the words: "He did not regard the likeness of God as a robbery, but expressed himself by taking on the form of a servant and entering into the likeness of man. — In the three explanatory sentences of participation Lope SovAov AgBav, EV OLOIHpLATL Gv8paTaV av8paonov YEVOLEVOG KOL KOL OYNPATL EvPEVE'IG Oc AVEpParoc the apostle fully expresses that Christ, through self-emptying, has indeed and truly behaved like an ordinary human being. — To eavtév exév@osv; kevoiv we find Rom. 4:14; 1 Cor. 1:17; 9:15; 2 Cor. 9:3 and means to empty, dismiss, destroy. The meaning does not cause any difficulty at any of the points mentioned, because it is clearly determined each time by the context. Rom. 4:14: If those who are heirs of the law, kekev@tat 1 aiotic, then faith is emptied or dismissed (Luther: "so faith is nothing"), because works and faith in justification cancel each other out. 1 Cor. 1:17 the apostle warns against preaching the gospel with clever words, lest the cross of Christ kev@9n, be destroyed, because clever words and Christ's cross do not go together. 1 Cor. 9:15 the apostle would rather die than let anyone destroy his glory of having preached the gospel to the Corinthians in vain, kev@on. Exactly the same way kevobv 2 Cor. 9:3 is used by the glory of the apostle in relation to the loving activity of the Corinthians: iva 291] Ly TO KADYHLA NU®V TO vTEP DLV KEv@tH. Thus also in the Philippian passage the meaning of yevotv is determined by the context. It does not matter whether EAvTOV KEvobv empties itself, empties itself or expresses itself, destroys itself, translates se evacuare, se exinanire, se inanem reddere etc., since the negative and positive approximation indicates exactly in what respect Christ emptied himself, emptied himself or destroyed himself. As already mentioned above, there is not a word here about either the half or whole rejection of the Godhead or the acceptance of human nature, but the eavtov exévwoev consisted in the fact that Jesus Christ, who was in divine form, did not display this godlike likeness, but instead took on the form of a servant, entered into the likeness of man and was therefore also found by the audience in his behavior as a mere human being, not as a divine human being. He was so "invented" (evpeBsic) because he presented himself in this way through sovtév exév@osv. The aynpati svpsi-slc dc é.vOpmmoc was the case to the extent that it was possible for the audience to hold Christ in spite of his miracles for John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or the prophets. If he had not emptied himself, but had used his being like God as on the mount of transfiguration, this would not have been possible. And all the more would not have been possible the climax of self-emptying, which emerges in the servant service (Metzer: "action"), v. 8: stamsivm@oEv EAUTOV YEVOLLEVOG DITT KOOG péypt Oavatov, Davatov dé atavpod. Correct Meyer: "The relationship [of etamEetvMosyv] to exév@oev is climactic, but not as if Paul did not see the self- emptying v. 7 as self-abasement, but as if the former, in the ignominious death of Jesus, manifested the character of tazetv@otc in the most evident way. — Well Luther says to the etazsivmosv savtov: "That is: about that, that he proved the servant's form by becoming like a man and letting himself go like a man, he did the rest and became less than all men, he let himself down and served all men with the highest service, that he gave his body and life for us,... and... carried such death, which was the most shameful, namely on the cross,...... as an arch- boy over all boys, in which he also lost the favour, thanks and honor of his adopted servant form, which he had proved that he was even destroyed. But all this he did not do, that we should be worthy or deserving of it, for who would be worthy of such service to such a person? but that he would be obedient to the Father" (yevopevoc varKooc). (St. L. XI, 475.) Luther says of this passage from Philippians: O what words do we find that St. Paul speaks in this place, when he does not speak in any place. He must have been quite inflamed, cheerful and funny. We cannot refrain from putting here the following words of Luther, in which Luther explains that the humiliation of Christ happened in obedience against God's will and thus reveals God's heart towards mankind: "Here St. Paul, in a word, opens up heaven and allows us to see into the abyss of divine majesty and behold the unspeakable gracious will and love of the Father's heart toward us, that we may feel how God has been pleased from eternity with what Christ, the glorious Person, was to do for us and has now done. Who here should not have his heart melt with joy? Who here should not love, praise and give thanks, and again not only become the servant of all the world, but should like to become less and more vain than nothing, when he sees that God Himself has thus dearly meant for him and so abundantly poured out and proved His fatherly will in the obedience of His Son.... O how many now are preachers of the faith, who think they know all things, and have never smelled nor tasted these things! Oh how soon they will become masters who have never discipled before! They do not taste it, therefore they cannot give it, and remain useless chatterers." (ibid, 476) Misconceptions of the humiliation of Christ. First of all the view that humiliation is objectively identical with the incarnation is to be rejected. Even orthodox teachers have called the Incarnation an humiliation in the sense of condescension (én Soo1c). 77° For, however, it implies a wonderful condescension that the majestic God takes a human nature into his person. But here we have to do with the humiliation that Scripture contrasts with the subsequent exaltation. And just as exaltation does not consist in dehumanizing or discarding human nature, so too humiliation does not consist in the incarnation or in the acceptance of human nature, but in the fact that the Son of God became a lowly man, that is to say that according to his human nature he accepted pope SovAov, although Lopgy Seov was at his command. Strong therefore rightly observes: "We may dismiss, as unworthy of serious notice, the view that it [the nature of humiliation] consisted essentially in the union of the Logos with human nature; for this union with human nature continues in the state of exaltation."’?) Therefore, Lutheran teachers also rightly demand that a distinction be made between the Incarnation and humiliation, even though they coincide in time. This distinction is certainly correct, just as it is true that with the exaltation the humiliation, but not the humanity of Christ, ceased. Secondly, the view of humiliation of kenoticism

293] must be rejected.. The essence of this view is that it reduces in various ways and to various degrees the divinity of Christ. It was born, as has been repeatedly recalled, of the fear that a Godhead who is not reduced would necessarily exert such a strong pressure on humanity that it would suffocate it, and that there could no longer be any question of a "truly human development of Christ". In order to relieve the pressure of the Godhead and to secure for human nature the air of life and development, the kenoticists facilitate the Godhead. Some of them, the semi-kenoticists, let the Son of God discard his divine attributes that have an effect on the world (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence), while others, the pan- kenoticists, in order to relieve the pressure even more, let the Son also transform his divine ego into a human ego. *) Against this modern-kenotic version of the humiliation of Christ it must be said above all that it contradicts historical reality. What the kenoticists—the whole and the half— note about Christ as absent, the Scriptures attribute to Christ in his life on earth. Here again it is shown that the facts do not conform to human thinking. First of all, as far as the eternal divine I Christ is concerned, Christ claims the same for himself very emphatically in his state of humiliation. When the Jews wanted to reduce his T° to not yet fifty years, Christ testifies to them: "Before Abraham was, I am."’ And as far as the divine attributes that have an effect on the world are concerned, Christ very emphatically claims for himself the effect of omnipotence on the world in the state of humiliation. When the Jews accused him of unlawful Sabbath work, he instructed them: "My Father has been at work up to now, and I am also at work," ° Where God works, there He is also. 7?!) Also the divine omniscience is in Christ in the state of humiliation, for He teaches

detailed presentation under "Unio personalis und christologische Aufstellungen der Neuzeit", p. 114 ff. Further note 175: von Ottingen against v. Hofmann and Frank.

on earth not "from earth" but from divine knowledge. Thus, the kenotic doctrine of divine attributes that have been discarded and of a "transposed" divine ego is to be described as a dogmatic fiction and construction that is contrary to Scripture, that is, contradictory to historical reality. — But the modern kenosis not only contradicts the reality reported in Scripture, but also comes into conflict with reason or the natural knowledge of God, because not only Scripture but also the natural knowledge of God teaches an unchanging God. It is true that pagans who thought themselves wise have transformed the 66a of the imperishable God into an image equal to that of perishable human beings,’**’ but they have done so in so far as they suppressed through injustice the natural knowledge of God conveyed by the works of creation (tv adiOeiav sv adikia Katéyovtec). 7 More recent theologians have also rightly pointed out that modern kenosis fails already on the fact of God's immutability. >) — The modern kenosis finally destroys the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity as well. Just as there are not three instances, but only one instance of the divine being, so there are not three instances of the divine omnipotence or of the divine effect on the world, but only one divine omnipotence. Now if the kenoticists deny the divine omnipotence of the Son of God in the state of humiliation, they consequently deny the omnipotence of the Father and the Holy Spirit, or they must teach three Almighties, three Lords and three gods. 7° Christ explicitly ascribes to Himself, even in the state of humiliation, like the numerical unity of the being,’* also the numerical unity of the omnipotence

what is reported to us in Joh. 1:48 ff.; 2:23 ff.; 4:17 ff.; 11:14; Matt. 21:2; 14:13; 9:2 ff.

the doctrine of the Trinity" as a result of modern kenosis it is correct. Loofs, RE.* X, 263.

effect with the Father 7**) as well as the unchanged hypostatic relationship to the Father 7°). The kenoticists improperly refer to scriptures according to which Christ is given by the Father in the days of the flesh in answer to His prayer, like Joh. 11:41-42: " Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always"; Luke 22:42-43: Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. These and parallel scriptural statements go to Christ according to its human nature and come into their full right in holding the scriptural teaching of the non- use of the divine glory dwelling in its human nature. Inasmuch as Christ, according to his human nature, does not use the divine glory, he asks for and takes from God during this time like every other human being. This asking and taking belongs to the renunciation of the use of the divine glory and to entering into the human likeness, ev 6po1mpLati Gv9pam@V YEVOLEVOS KO oxnpatt evpry9eic > av8paroc. So in the old Kenosis, which consists in the renunciation of the use of divine majesty according to human nature, the scriptural passages dealing with asking and taking come into their full right. The new kenoticists, on the other hand, do not do justice to the series of scriptural statements that show Christianity in its state of humiliation in possession of both the divine ego and the attributes that have an effect on the world. It is also clear that kenosis, which consists in renouncing the use of divine glory, gives sufficient space to "genuine human development and "true human life". Where there is no use of the divine omnipotence, there is escape, tiredness, hunger, suffering and death. Where there is no use

with the fact that eadem numero actio comes to Him with the Father: a yap av exetvoc ToIn, Tavta Kai 6 vioc OLoiws Zotet. When Keil notes in Joh. 5:19 that Jesus says of himself that he is "working in the likeness of God", this is not exactly said. According to the context, Christ does not just say that he is working in the likeness of God, but that his work is identical with that of the Father.

Kat 6 zatip ev spot. Joh. 1:18: 0 @v Etc Tov KOATOV Tov maTpdc. The relationship to the status of the exaltation (Meyer) is entered here. missing in Google Books! ] of divine omniscience, there is increase in wisdom, sleeping,’* not knowing the Last Day, and not knowing the necessity of dying. About the objection that there can be no distinction between ktroic and yprotic with regard to the divine attributes communicated to human nature, the necessary has been said before. We recall once again the prudent words of Boehl: "In what way this self-emptying and self-abasement is to be made comprehensible—we are unable to state that. The confession to know nothing is the highest wisdom here... Jesus Christ, the eternal wisdom, did not apply this wisdom. This cannot be explained rationally; we cannot indicate how he could deny omniscience and forget it, so to speak. But it is historically certain that he did not apply it."°) Hase also reproaches the semi-kenoticists: If the born-again Orthodoxy indeed holds on to the fundamental ideas of the Church—divine and human nature are essentially different and united only in this one personality—but, listening to reason against the communicatio idiomatum as its further education, wants to go beyond it, then it brings about... the earthly unity of life of the God-man at the expense of the divine nature. It goes beyond all human reason, as the one whom the universe did not decide to close itself into the womb of a virgin, and the human child, who has become one with the omniscient, could develop humanly. 7° If we want to summarize, the Lutheran doctrine, according to which humiliation consists in the non-use of divine glory according to human nature, has the following good attributes:. it is completely consistent with Scripture, that is, with historical reality; 2. it leaves the divinity of Christ untouched

He says on the following page: "We do not need to add the divine nature as a dogmatically known thing to Jesus of true human nature. That Christ knew about his divine nature "dogmatically" even in the state of humiliation is testified by the Gospels throughout. He knows: "I and the Father are one", Joh. 10:30. He knows Himself as 6 viocg tov Yeov tov Cavtoc, Matt. 16:13 ff., as 6 vioc tov Seov, Matt. 26:63. 64.

and does not need to conceive of a God who discards a part of his divine attributes or even transforms his divine ego into a human ego; 3. it allows the humanity of Christ to come into its own, since Christ, when not using his divine glory (KovyaCovtos tov Adyov), possesses it as if he did not possess it, and therefore, in living and dying, enters fully into the human likeness. Both the Confessions ™) and the Lutheran theologians 4*) are quite clear that this is only a presentation of the facts reported in Scripture, but that no information is given about the how or the possibility of the facts. But also the semi-kenoticists and the pan-kenoticists are finally faced with an inexplicable mystery. After the divine attributes that have an effect on the world have been deciphered, they still retain the divine ego of the Son of God, and so the incomprehensible fact of how God and man can form an ego. These, like all deniers of the "two-natures doctrine", are unable, as Ritschl confesses, to explain the emergence of such a unique person, as it appeared historically in Christ. The sacrifice of Christ's half or whole divinity is, seen in the comprehensibility of the historical person of Christ, brought in vain. It would at last also be contrary to Scripture if humiliation were to be understood as a mere concealment (kpvyic) and not at the same time as a real renunciation (kév@otc) of the use of the divine glory. If one does not want to be drawn into the confusion that prevailed at this point in the cryptic-kenotic dispute and has not disappeared from the history of dogma either, it must first of all be emphatically emphasized in what twofold scriptural sense one must speak of a "concealment" of divine glory in the state of humiliation. Recent dogmatic historians often speak as if the expressions "concealment", "secrecy", used by the Formula of Concord of the state of humiliation, betrayed "docetism" and an unobjective compromise between "Swabians and Saxons". When Scripture says that Christ revealed his divine glory in humiliation through divine acts, for example, by the transformation of water into wine

1025, 30; 1031, 51, 53; 1035, 60; 1049, 96]

(é~avépwoev),’> she thus teaches that Christ's divine glory—apart from these sporadic acts of revelation—was hidden, veiled or kept secret in lowliness. In other words, it is scriptural doctrine that the possession of the divine glory (ktjotc) was usually hidden during Christ's life on earth. But we must go one step further. If we look at Christ in the occasional use of his divine glory, as in the transformation of water into wine and the stilling of the storm, we see that Christ was not radiated with divine glory in this occasional use as on the mount of transfiguration, but stood before men in the form of a servant, ev dno1tmpLaTL avVOpaToV avOpamoV KaL OYHLATL Evpsveic Oc &vOpwmoc So also the occasional use (ypyoic) of divine glory was still hidden or obscured by the servant form. The servant form concealed the use of divine glory to the extent that it was possible for malicious people to present Christ's miracles as a result of satanic influence. 7°" The glorious figure on the mount of transfiguration was seen by only three disciples, and to these was imposed silence until after the resurrection. °) According to Scripture, then, in the state of humiliation there is not only a veiled possession, but also a veiled use (occulta usurpatio) of divine majesty. Therefore not only Luther and the Swabians, but also Chemnitz and the Saxons used the expressions "concealment" and "secrecy" to describe the Status exinanitionis. The same usage has therefore also passed over into the Formula of Concord without "compromise", when it says that Christ this majesty He had immediately at His conception, even in His mother's womb, but, as the apostle testifies [Phil. 2:7], laid it aside; and, as Dr. Luther explains, He kept it concealed in the state of His humiliation, and did not employ it always, but only when He wished. 7») To have pointed this out in more recent times is a credit to Frank. But it is to be rejected if someone wanted to understand the humiliation as if Christ did not really renounce the full use of his divine majesty, but only hid or concealed this full use.

297] The view was to contradict the historical reality of the servant figure, as described in Scripture, which was necessary for the orientation of salvation by way of satisfactio vicaria. That is why the people of Tiibingen [1619— 1627] in particular, in the crypto-kenotic dispute, rejected the full use of the divine majesty for the state of humiliation, on the grounds that if the divine majesty had been used to the full, Christ's suffering and dying and the whole work of redemption in general would have been impossible. 7°) According to the Scriptures, Christ was not merely apparently but really poor, he did not merely apparently but really increase in wisdom, he did not merely apparently but really not know a number of things at times, he was not merely apparently but really found as a human being in gestures, he was not merely apparently but really captured, crucified and killed. All these historical conditions and events of Christ's life on earth include a renunciation, not merely apparent, but real, of the full use of divine glory. Luther in particular also very energetically rejects every appearance and mere concealment here, when he, with reference to Mark 13:32 remarks: "Is not here the gloss necessary: The son knows not, that is, he will not say it. What does the gloss do? The humanity of Christ, like another holy natural man, has not always thought, spoken, willed, acted all things. 7 So does the Formula of Concord when it says that Christ truly (revera) increased in all wisdom and favor with God and men; therefore He exercised this [divine] majesty, (which he ‘had for all things’) not always, but when [as often as] it pleased Him, until after His resurrection He entirely laid aside the form of a servant, but not the [human] nature, and was established in the full use, manifestation, and declaration of the divine majesty °’’ — Likewise, it is factually incorrect if in the crypto-kenotic dispute the people of Tiibingen are portrayed as representatives of a mere veiling (sola kpbyic). Already Calov has taken up the people of Tiibingen in this respect. Calov says: " The gentlemen of Tiibingen confess in Amica admonitione super decisione Saxonica, p. 70, that Christ has divested Himself of the full use

of the Majesty (se evacuasse), the divestiture is not merely a veiling (kpvwic). They deny it to p. 60 that they ascribe to Christ, according to human nature, in the state of humiliation, the full use of the divine majesty without any retraction (absque ulla retractione).... For in this way (say the Wiirttembergers) Christ would have been manifest and exalted in glory from conception, if he had kept the violence from his human nature, and thus he could not have suffered or died, for which he had come into the world". 7>®) That the cryptic-kenotic dispute was about other things than the full use of divine glory in the state of humiliation will become clear from the following passage. >?)

truth representations, that even Swabians like Brenz and Andreae rejected any mere appearance with regard to the conditions and events of the earthly life of Christ and taught a real non-use of the divine glory in the state of humiliation. Brenz says, "Christ became like another man. So it is said, not that Christ was not a true man, made up of a body and a rational soul, but because he took on all sorts of human weaknesses in the manner of men: he was born, he grew, he gained in strength and intellect, he needed food and drink, he hungered, thirsted, sat, went from place to place. According to the divine form that he had, he could have been seen from the very beginning of his incarnation, not only in a heavenly body that needed neither food nor drink nor local movement, but he could also display the highest wisdom and speak in the language of the angels. But because it was the time of humiliation, he wanted to become like another man and be subject to human weaknesses.... Born in Bethlehem, he had no honor able place in the inn, but was sent away to the stable and put in a manger; very poor he wandered about and had not, as he laid his head down; called to the sick, he came to the Lord as a servant; he washed the feet of the disciples, which is slave labor. Captured by the rulers, he received many pranks like a servant. What needs much words? Isaiah calls him a servant by heavenly father's command." (De divina maiestate etc., p. 82; in Frank III, 337 f.) Furthermore, Brenz says: "His parents only offered a pair of doves for his redemption (Lésung). They fled with him to Egypt and raised him up by the work of their hands. All these things belong to the servant's estate (sunt servilia). When he grew up, he had no dominion (dominationem), but became a servant of other people. He wandered from place to place to preach the Gospel; he healed people's diseases and washed the disciples' feet. The Crypto-Kenotic dispute. At the beginning of the 17th century (1619-1627), a dispute about the state of humiliation took place within the Lutheran Church between the theologians of Tiibingen and Giessen. 7° That is truly to be a servant, not a master... Because he was the incarnate Son of God, he could have needed only the heavenly attributes of spirit and body, namely that he would have felt no sadness, no fear, no pain in the spirit, and would have felt no cold, no hunger, no thirst, no weariness in the body.... But for the sake of man's salvation he wanted to become like men, but without sin. That is why he hungered, thirsted, perspired, froze, felt pain and sadness, was subject to all evils and therefore to death. (Expl. in epist. ad Phil. to ch. 2:7.) Likewise the Swabians in their "Declaration" of 1565 of Christ in the state of humiliation say Christ "did not know all things, did not see all things, did not hear all things, did not do all things, although the power of God, into which he was set through personal union, is infinite and unwritten. — Therefore, even though he truly died on the cross and lay in the tomb, he heard nothing with his bodily ears, saw nothing with his bodily eyes, spoke nothing with his tongue, nor did he do anything else that His Majesty could do, and yet the Son of God did not leave this body, but personally remained united with him and through his death now alone our salvation—to which then also belongs the obedience, that he remained obedient to the Father in the form of a servant—and at that time did not want to do anything else in him, because that he received his body, that he did not see decay.... In the same way, when a man sleeps or is raptured, his body lies there, and sees, he hears, hears and speaks nothing; he understands nothing, he knows nothing about himself or about other people as long as he sleeps, and yet he remains a true, whole, personal and reasonable man; for his body and soul are together, although the soul has the effect described above... has none in sleep". (In Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk 2 II, 368.)

Giessener: Balthasar Mentzer, Justus Feuerbyrn. Both parts, also the people of Giessen, declared that they wanted to record that Christ, in the state of humiliation according to human nature, the possession (ktro1c) belonged to the divine majesty. The people of Giessen thus do not belong to a class of modern kenoticists like Thomasius, who in their doctrine of the state of humiliation deny Christ the possession of the "relative" divine attributes according to the divine nature, and thus also according to the human nature. In the dispute between the Tiibingen and Giessen people, the main issue was how far Christ, according to the human nature, was to use (ypyjotc) the divine glory that had been communicated to his human nature through the unio personalis. When it is usually said that the Giesseners stood for a real deprivation (kév@otc) of use, and the Tiibingeners for a mere concealment (kpbyic) of use, the facts of the matter are thus very imprecisely described. 7° Because the people of Tiibingen are in favor of a retractio of divine glory in the execution of the high priestly office. Since the Tiibingeners taught a retraction of divine glory in the exercise of the high priestly office, that is, in relation to the orientation of the ministry of the Redeemer or the performance of satisfactio vicaria, they did not teach a mere concealment (kpvyitc), but a real renunciation (kév@otc) of the use of divine majesty. Thummius explicitly describes retractio as a withdrawal of the use of omnipotence, retrahere exercitium omnipotentiae. and ruled the whole universe,’ the answer to the question posed in this way is neither yes nor no, but rather a division of the question. It must be firmly established that Christ was present in statu exinanitionis even according to the humanity was present to creatures (praesentia Christi secundum humanitatem apud omnes creaturas etiam in statu exinanitionis). Of course not according to the visible, spatial way, as he was in the manger in Bethlehem and in the temple in Jerusalem, but according to the "third", "supernatural, divine way", according to which he is one person with God. It must never be forgotten: Because the humanity of Christ is assumed into the Person of the Son of God, it is eo ipso everywhere where the Person of the Son of God is. After the incarnation of the Son of God, that is, even in the state of humiliation, there is no Son of God outside his human nature (extra carnem). This fact is given with the concept of the Incarnation, 5 A0yoc oapé eyéveto, and comes still more emphatically to the statement that in the human nature of Christ as its body dwells the whole fullness of the Godhead.

his being in the world, we must let him remain within his humanity (intra carnem), unless we wanted to transform the unio personalis into a mere unio mystica or sustentatio, that is, to spend it. This truth, namely, the presence of Christ among creatures according to the humanity even in the state of humiliation, is expressed in the well-known words of Luther in the Formula of Concord: Now, since He [Christ] is such a man as is supernaturally one person with God, © and apart from this man there is no God, it must follow that also according to the third, supernatural mode He is and can be in every place where God is, and all things are through and through full of Christ, also according to the humanity, not according to the first corporeal, comprehensible mode, but according to the supernatural, divine mode.... And if you would point out a place where God is, and not the man, the person would already be divided

Gieseler III, 2, 328.

where God is, and not the man, the person would already be divided.... 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. °° Only two kinds of people can deny the praesentia Christi apud creaturas secundum humanitatem from their wrong point of view. First of all the Reformed, in so far as they let the Son of God, even after his incarnation, be no less outside than within his human nature ’° and thus let the unio personalis go. Then the modern kenoticists, because they came from the whimsical thoughts that the Son of God, according to his divine nature, had abandoned his world position or had withdrawn from creatures by discarding omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. For if the Son of God was in a position of humiliation minus world position, especially minus omnipotence and omnipresence, according to his divine nature, he could of course not make human nature, which had been assumed into his person, present to the creatures. But anyone who wants to remain unaffected by the Extra Calvinisticum and the modern kenosis must neither deny nor tamper with the truth that Christ was present to creatures in the state of humiliation even according to his humanity. Insofar as this happened within the Lutheran Church in the crypto-kenotic dispute and also later, one fell short of Scripture and confession. One also contradicted oneself, inasmuch as one wanted to hold on to the unio personalis and confess the axiom, in which the unio personalis is expressed against the Reformed error: Neque caro extra Aoyov, neque A6yog extra carnem. 1°)

Calvinisticum.

sqq.), Hollaz (De pers., qu. 58), as well as C. F. W. Walther (Baier 11. 62. 63). — That the praesentia ad Aoyov or the unio personalis does not divorce the praesentia ad creaturas can be seen in Gerhard. Gerhard also repeats the saying that the personal union of natures in itself does not relate to the creatures, since personal union is also conceivable if one imagines the creatures as not existing. But as soon as Gerhard starts to describe the personal union or praesentia ad Aoyov he immediately brings into his description the presence with the creatures. He says (De pers., § 218): "Because Christ's flesh was immediately elevated into the person The other part of the question, whether Christ already in the state of humiliation ruled the whole universe also after his humanity, is to be answered with No, if the sense of the question is that, whether the humanity of Christ in the state of humiliation already in the same degree as in the state of exaltation, i.e. plena maiestatis usurpatione, took part in the world government, only with the difference that what secretly (/atently) took place in humiliation became outwardly apparent in the state of exaltation. But since at this point in the crypto-kenotic dispute and, moreover, mistakes were made on both sides, it is necessary to describe the world standing of Christ according to human nature before and after the exaltation on the basis of Scripture. Even in the state of humiliation Christ has a world position according to human nature. First of all, in so far as Christ's miracles performed in humiliation were carried out by his human nature. If Christ changed water into wine, calmed the storm, drove the fish into the net, raised the dead, this was certainly a mighty power effect on the world and nature. But this power effect did not take place outside but within his human nature and therefore through it. And this was a "through," not as in the case of miracle-working prophets and apostles, as the Reformed teach,’ but a "through," whereby the human nature of Christ was instrumentum personaliter of the Logos at the first moment of the incarnation and was personally united with him, so after the incarnation has happened neither the Logos is outside the flesh nor the flesh outside the Logos, and therefore the Logos is never and nowhere separated from his flesh, nor the flesh separated from the Logos, but, where" (namely in the world) "you put the Logos, there" (namely in the world) "you must also put the flesh, lest a Nestorian separation of the person consisting of both natures be introduced, as the saved Luther addresses in the book 'That these words "This is my body" still stand firm'. Admittedly, one could think away from the creatures in the unio personalis, but in thinking away one must not forget that nevertheless the creatures find there and remain there, and that the Son of God did not assume a human nature in his person in a world that was thought away, but in a world that actually existed, and thus put it with the creatures wherever his Person is. In short, it is a mere playing with words when later dogmatists, in contrast to Luther and the Formula of Concord, want to separate from the so-called praesentia intima the praesentia apud creaturas. Scherzer and Hollaz clearly prove this.

coniunctum, instrumentum ovvepyov, mere instrumentum aepyov. All Lutheran teachers agree on this. This is what the Decisio Saxonica also wanted to record when it stressed that Christ, in the state of humiliation, had done his miracles "secundum utramque naturam", that is, also according to human nature. 7 But only the only occasional divine work of power in the miracles of Christ, but also the continuous and uninterrupted divine world preservation and world government (continua et incessans conservatio et gubernatio mundi), which Christ in his humiliation says of himself: "My Father works up to now, and I also work",’ did not take place outside but within his human nature and in that sense also through human nature. Just as there is no being of the Son of God outside human nature in the state of humiliation, so there is also no divine effect, thus also no world preservation and world government of the Son of God in the state of humiliation, outside his human nature. The Christian Church understands this too. When she sings, "He who is a little child became little, who alone preserves all things", she does not mean this as a mere way of speaking, that is, she does not only refer the preservation of all things to the divine nature with the exclusion of the human or with the exclusion of the child, but she also lets the little child participate in this work. And this is the truth of the Tiibingen's saying that the little child in the manger also rules the world. It is as one. This is the truth of the Decisio Saxonica when it wants to relate the words of Christ: "My Father is working up to now, and I am also working" only to the individual act (particulare opus) of healing the Bethesda patient and not to the lasting effect in the world. 7 The Decisio

eiusmodi miracula Christus secundum utramque naturam fecerit. (Cf. Calov VII, 629.) Fil) Joh. a7;

prius illud de Patre explicetur semper operante inde a creatione usque in hunc diem conservando res conditas, omnino etiam hoc posterius de Filio, utpote de quo idem eadem ratione offertur similiter iutelligendum erit, neque tantum ad miracula restringendum Sabbato edita, aut de imitatione exempli Patris explicandum, sed de identitate ope— Here, however, the question of the difference between the estates is raised with force. If every effect of power, thus also the effect of power on the world in the state of humiliation, took place within and in that sense also through human nature, how does the state of exaltation still differ from the state of humiliation? It must be said: The state of exaltation is peculiarly and distinctively associated with the sessio ad dextram, that is, a divine omnipotence through human nature to the degree or in the fullness that human nature thereby has the plena usurpatio maiestatis divinae, is completely radiated by divine glory and is placed on the ruler's throne in the world and the Church (inthronisatio Christi secundum humanam naturam). These are the statements often made at Chemnitz, in which the difference between the states is determined by the fact that the Godhead allows His Majesty to enter into or come to the fore in the assumed human nature in a state of humiliation to a lesser or incomplete degree, in a state of exaltation to a greater or more complete degree. 7) The "more" or "complete" for the state by exaltation

where it says for example: Exinanitio Phil. 2. non significat privationem, ablationem, despoliationem... plenitudinis divinitatis, quae in Christo corporaliter habitavit ab ipso momento conceptionis, sed respicit usum seu usurpationem eius, quod scilicet infirmitate tecta non semper tempore exinanitionis in humana natura Christi luxerit et per eam plene ac manifeste se exseruerit, virtutem enim divinam present et corporaliter inhabitantem ab operatione in humanitate et per humanitatem Christi paulisper retrahens et retinens... permisit naturales proprietates et reliquas assumptas infirmitates quasi solas in humana sua natura praevalere, praedominari et se exserere [Google] Furthermore: Jn illa natura, in qua divinitas Aoyov propter hypostaticam unionem super omnia excellentissimo modo lucere et operari debebat, gloriam, potentiam et operationem suam tempore exinanitionis quasi infirmitatibus tectam occultavit et ab opere, sicut Ambrosius loquitur, retraxit, ut tantum naturales proprietates et infirmitates by exaltation consists in being lawful at the right hand of God. It was therefore not spoken in accordance with Scripture if the people of Tubingen, and before that Brenz’ Christ, wanted to ascribe the sessio ad dextram Dei to Christ according to human nature, even in the state of humiliation. 7) Being in heaven (esse in coelo) is already attributed to Christ in the state of humiliation. 7 Sitting on the right hand side, on the other hand, belongs only to the state of elevation. ’ For just as the human in assumta carne inesse et praedominari viderentur, idque non tantum externa facie coram hominibus, verum etiam coram ipso Deo.... Per sessionem vero ad dextram Dei ingressus est in plenariam et manifestariam usurpationem et ostensionem eius potentiae, virtutis et gloriae Deitatis, quae tota plenitudine personaliter in assumta natura ab initio unionis habitavit, ut nunc non amplius, sicut in exinanitione, se contineat, retrahat et quasi lateat, sed ut in assumta, cum assumta et per assumtam humanam naturam plene, manifeste et gloriose exserat, [Google] (p. m. 216-218.) Also Hollaz (De statu exin., qu. 110): Christus communicatam carni suae maiestatem divinam non semper eodem modo exseruit, sed a conceptione usque ad mortem et sepulcrum eiusdem plenum usum retraxit et inhibuit, vivificatus autem ad dextram Dei eandem plene usurpavit, Ex quo oritur duplex Christi status. [Google]

naturam iam inde a primo conceptionis momento sedisse ad dextram Dei Patris, non quidem modo gloriose maiestatico, sed sine illo et sub forma servi. Likewise Brenz speaks in his Catechism: Quod attinet ad humanitatem Christi, consedit quidem ipsa rei veritate ad dextram Dei, quam primum Verbum caro factum est. Una enim est persona, Deus et homo, revelatione autem et glorificatione non ante dicitur ad dextram Dei consedisse, quam resurrexit a mortuis et ascendit ad coelum. [Google (Catechism, Viteb. 1594, p. 189.)

with Scripture to ascribe a being in heaven to Christ in the state of humiliation even according to human nature. If Quenstedt includes the saying that "Christ had ascended into heaven even then, when he was excepted in God" in the antithesis (II,

synonymous with the sessio ad dextram Dei. It gains this meaning only through the relevant nearer definition such as 1 Petr. 3:22: ev de&14 tov Seot mopsv9E'ts sic OVPaVOV KTA.

humanity) "has begun to sit there" (at the right hand of God) "to be seated. Humanity has not sat there before." Calov: Docet Scriptura, Christum non a primo conceptionis momento, ut Domini Wuertembergici volebant, sed in ascensione demum ad dextram Dei exantlatum esse, Marc. 16:19; Eph. 1:21; 4:10 At quid aliud sessio ad dextram Dei quam plenissimum illud in coelo et terra dominium importat? [Google] (Systema VIL, 626.) nature of Christ remained in the form of a servant during the temporary miracles (opera particularia), for example during the calming of the storm, it also remained in the form of a servant and unenlightened during its participation in the world government, which according to John 5:17 already took place in the state of lowliness. The words Joh. 17:5: And now, O Father, glorify thou me (Sd€ao6v ps) with thine own self with the glory (ty 806En) which I had with thee before the world was are about a glorification that only comes about through the exaltation. At the same time, at this point the glorification is described as such, which does not just refer to a revelation to the outside world, but also to the state of human nature itself. Only now is the human nature of Christ in its fullness penetrated and radiated by the divine glory, so that it is placed on the throne of world dominion, with the complete elimination of the servant form. This is what the Swabians also seem to have meant when they, like Brenz, put it down to "revelatione": et glorificatione: "According to revelation and glorification, Christ is not said to sit at the right hand of God until he had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven." 7’® But their way of speaking, that Christ already in statu exinanitionis has the sessio ad dextram Dei, was not according to Scripture and gave rise to confusion among themselves and even more among others. Judgments on the Crypto-Kenotic dispute. What is one to think of the crypto-kenotic dispute? Calov, the most pugnacious and without doubt most astute theologian of the 17th century, judges: "Perhaps the gentlemen of Giessen and the gentlemen of Tiibingen differed only in the way of speaking" (fortassis modo loquendi tantum differebant). ") He justifies this judgement as follows: "Those [the Giesseners] maintained that Christ in the state of emptiness truly emptied himself, but only as to the use of divine glory; 7° but these [the people of Tiibingen] did not deny

universality of being Christ according to human nature in the state of humiliation (propinquitatem carnis Christi ad creaturas substantialem). But they did not want to call it omnipresence. (Cf. Scherzer, Syst., p. 233.) that Christ had truly emptied himself,’*!) but their assertion was that Christ had led the general rule in heaven and on earth in a hidden way,’®) which, irrespective of orthodoxy, could be admitted by the gentlemen of Giessen to such an extent that ktjotc or the possession of divine glory had been hidden and had also not manifested itself everywhere and without interruption with regard to yprjoic or its use. ’*%) In my opinion, they could have easily come to an agreement if they had only understood each other properly in the heat of the dispute. For the Giesseners did not deny that Christ possessed divine omnipotence and omniscience of potency (actu primo); nor did they deny that Christ actually_used these attributes (actu secundo), even if not so perfectly and perpetually, especially when the Giesseners admitted their omnipresence in the state of humiliation with regard to being inseparable from creatures (quantum ad é6\a0Taciav).". Calov's remarks on the state of humiliation are among those parts of his dogmatics that bear the traces of fleetingness, while Quenstedt devoted a very detailed and careful treatment to the same subject. 7 But Calov's incomplete treatment of the dispute is more objective and impartial than Quenstedt's. On the one hand, Calov rebukes the Wiirttembergers for having, contrary to Scripture, advocated a primo conceptionis momento of sitting at the right hand of God; ®°) on the other hand, he reproaches the Giesseners for the fact that one could also speak of a hidden use of divine majesty in relation to the general world government "without prejudice to Orthodoxy". Of course, Calov should have explicitly referred to the derailment of the Giesseners in his dogmatics 7° if they did not want to refer Joh. 5:17 ("My Father works until now, and I also work") to the general world

himself in all those things which could have hindered the work of redemption, namely the performance of obedientia activa and passiva. (Baumgarten, Streitigk. II, 488.)

made the attempt to relate pydCeo9ai only to miracle healing.

government or if they wanted to exclude Christ's human nature from it. Finally, Calov also rightly points out that what the "Decisio Saxonica" set up as the main point of contention was not denied by the Wiirttembergers.

As far as the judgement of more recent theologians is concerned, most see in the dispute between the Tiibingen and Giesseners a proof "that it could not go on like this", i.e. that in Christology one had to leave the old paths and plough a new one. Semikenoticists like Thomasius claim that the kenosis of the Wiirttembergers and the Giesseners did not go far enough. The kenosis of the use of the divine attributes according to human nature must be developed into a kenosis of the possession of the working divine attributes according to divine nature. Only in this way was a truly human life of Christ on earth conceivable. The Pankenoticists consider this further training to be insufficient and demand that the divine ego of the Son of God be offered to "steerability" as a reconciling sacrifice by transforming the divine ego into a human ego. The newer Unitarians do not want to have anything to do with the metamorphoses of the Godhead that the kenoticists accept. But they see in the cryptic-kenotic dispute a confirmation of their demand to break with the "two-nature doctrine" altogether, to let the man Christ exist in person and to find the "Godhead" of Christ in the fact that God had "worked" or "revealed" the man Christ only in a "unique", "absolute" way. ° We believe that all these attempts at formation contradict the historical reality as witnessed in Scripture, and we believe that we have sufficiently demonstrated this., that is, the fact that the

Son of God, after the Incarnation, has no being and no activity outside of his human nature (extra carnem), and thus the Extra Calvinisticum must be rejected in every respect. If Lutherans nevertheless become divided, this can only be because, as a result of the personal excitement that a dispute easily generates—Calov says: "propter aestum disputationis""—they lose sight of their own proper position on this or that point. This was the case with the Giesseners and the Saxon "Decisores" as well as with later theologians, when they a) partly denied Christ’s praesentiam apud creaturas secundum humanitatem [presence among creatures according to humanity], partly did not want to_call it omnipresence, b) showed inclination to exclude Christ according to the human nature from world preservation and world government altogether (regnavit mundum non mediante carne). They did both in contradiction with their own doctrine of the unio personalis, according to which the Son of God, after the Incarnation, has no being and no activity outside his humanity (extra carnem), in contradiction with their own rejection of the Extra Calvinisticum and in contradiction with explicit statements of Scripture.!) This was the main impetus that the people of Tiibingen took to the position of the people of Giessen. Admittedly, the people of Giessen immediately carried out a partial self-correction by conceding that Christ, without destroying his servant form, had carried out such interventions into the kingdom of nature and the world government as are present in the miracles of Christ (the feeding of the five thousand, the stilling of the storm, etc.), even according to human nature. The intention was a good one on both sides. The Giesseners were anxious to preserve the humiliation or servant form

of the Tiibingeners' position: "that by this means the guiltiness is sought and maintained, that he [the dear Savior Christ], both in the state of his humiliation and exaltation, remains inseparable from all creatures in person, completely and in all his official functions, may this doctrine thus be provided that no Nestorian, Jesuit, Calvinist... nor some other enthusiasts... can stay and hide among them, as if it were safest to refrain from all unnecessary scrupulation, research and dispute, give honor to Christ Jesus and remain with the simplicity now shown, so that the weak in faith will not be annoyed, the adversaries will not be pleased, and the bond of peace with such a high breaking off of the Church of God will not be triggered and torn apart. (Kurzer und einfdltiger Bericht etlicher strittigen Fragen usw. Tiibingen, etc.) Tiibingen 1625, p. 16) 300] of Christ. But they lost sight of the fact that we human beings can only determine, on the basis of Scripture, how much use of the divine majesty is compatible with self-emptying or servant form. On the other hand, the people of Tiibingen endeavored to preserve the unio personalis even in the state of humiliation. They rightly advocated that the Son of God, after his incarnation, has neither an esse nor an operari outside of humanity. But they were not justified in concluding from the unio personalis that Christ is already entitled to the sessio ad dextram Dei in the state of humiliation, since Scripture attributes the sitting at the right hand of God to Christ only in the state of exaltation. Whoever started the dispute is of little consequence to the matter in hand. Baumgarten sees the blame on the part of the Tiibingeners, who, with their doctrine of the "concealment" of divine majesty in the state of humiliation, have made the contradiction of the. Giesseners would have caused. °7) But we must not forget that the "concealment" of the divine majesty in the state of humiliation by the Formula of Concord doctrina publica was in the Lutheran Church,’ after the events of Luther and Chemnitz. If we look at the controversy which has been public since 1619, Wagenmann judges ’°) historically more correctly that this controversy was initiated by Balthasar Mentzer of Giessen, namely by a statement about the omnipresence of God. Mentzer had, in his argument with the Reformed expressed the view that the omnipresence of God was not to be defined as being universal (adessentia simplex), but always as universal action (omnipraesentia operativa). Mentzer was first contradicted by his own colleagues, the theologians J. Winkelmann and J. Gisenius from Giessen. At the instigation of Landgrave Ludwig von Hessen, the dispute was settled by declaring that the nature and effect of the divine omnipresence could not be separated. There the matter could have rested. But Mentzer was not satisfied. He turned to the chancellor of the University of Tiibingen, Matthias Hafenreffer, for an expert opinion. Hafenreffer

secretly." [Trigl. 1023, 26

seems to have had reservations about getting involved. He left it for almost two years. But Mentzer repeated his request for an expert opinion. And now a report came in against Mentzer. The Stuttgart Consistory had also expressed the wish that Dr. Mentzer would spare the troubled church with such "innovation". Theological correspondences followed. But soon the matter was dealt with in public pamphlets. Both parties claimed that the other had first gone into public. The people of Tiibingen contradicted both Mentzer's definition that the omnipresence of God is always to be understood as an active omnipresence and the conclusion Mentzer drew from his definition that Christ, according to His humanity, does not deserve divine omnipresence in the state of humiliation. They reproached Mentzer that with his assertions he pushed aside the unio personalis as the reason (fundamentum) of Christ's omnipresence according to his humanity and thus violated the unio personalis. The same questions appear again in the "Decisio Saxonica", which already excluded the questions in the title. What should we think of these questions? The question whether the divine omnipresence is to be defined as divine omnipresence (omnipraesentia, adessentia simplex) or as divine omnipresence (omnipraesentia operativa) contains a false opposition. It is to be said: Wherever God works, God is also there. God never works in absentia. ’ As far as the working of the omnipresent God on creatures is concerned, it can be said on the basis of Scripture: Wherever God is, there he works, or he lets his working rest (retrahit, suspendet operationem) according to his pleasure (quando voluit). We cannot say on the basis of Scripture that where God is, He must

quatuor illorum... controversorum capitum principaliorum de vera descriptione et fundamento praesentiae Dei eiusque Filii Iesu Christi apud creaturas, nec non de incessante et plenario dominio Christi secundum humanam naturam in statu humiliationis, et quid humiliatio, exinanitio et evacuatio Christi sit. In the German edition: "Of actual description, also of the main reason for the presence of God and His Son Jesus Christ with creatures, as well as of the constant and complete governance of Christ according to his human nature in the state of humiliation, and what the humiliation and expression of Christ is.

Baier, ed. Walther, II, 23. also work in every way. Of course, God always works in so far as the creatures are maintained in existence and in their natural activity solely by God's work. ®) In other respects, Scripture also attributes to God a resting or suspending effect, a jovyaCewv. God was always present with the Canaanites in all their iniquities. But He rests His punishing omnipotent hand, because according to His divine judgment the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.) God's punishing work was only carried out when God's time had come. This also applies to God's work in showing his goodness. "If thou givest them, they gather; if thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good things. If you hide your face, they will be terrified."®°° According to Scripture, as Chemnitz in particular pointed out, this rest and work has also taken place instead of the quite unique connection between God and man in Christ. One and the same whole fullness of the Godhead was bodily in Christ's human nature before and after the Exaltation. But in humiliation the Godhead was only partially and temporarily revealed through action in the human nature, whereas in the state of exaltation the Godhead of Christ in his human nature comes uninterruptedly and completely to efficacy and thus also to revelation. Chemnitz says that Christ in humiliation "withdrew and held back the present and bodily indwelling divine power from the efficacy (ab operatione) in and through human nature a little (paulisper retrahens et retinens), so that it was veiled before God and man by weakness (infirmitate tecta), while in the state of exaltation it comes fully, manifestly and in glory to the efficacy (plene, manifeste et gloriose se exserit)". ®° In relation to the omnipresence of Christ according to the human nature, therefore, this is how things stand: Since, from the Incarnation, Christ's divinity dwelt not outside but within humanity as its own body, from the Incarnation onwards it made itself present to humanity without any extension wherever it (the divinity) was. Thus, even in the state of humiliation according to

The humanity, Christ does not have a merely imagined and possible (potential), but a real and essential (essential) omnipresence. This is the teaching of the Formula of Concord when it says that from the Incarnation "all things are full of Christ through and through, even according to the humanity, not in the first, bodily, comprehensible way, but in the supernatural, divine way". The Formula of Concord also adds that by denying this truth the Incarnation of the Son of God or unio personalis is annulled. °° Christ's being everywhere according to the humanity must therefore also be recorded for the state of humiliation. But as far as the effect or activity or revelation of the divine majesty in the human nature and through the human nature of Christ is concerned, according to the Scriptures there is a minus and a plus, namely a partial and temporary effect or activity or revelation in the state of humiliation 8) and a complete and lasting effect or activity or revelation in the state of exaltation. °° Thus Luther, Chemnitz and the Formula of Concord, as can be seen from the quotations given. A false contrast is also contained in the question that was finally the core question in the crypto-kenotic dispute, namely the question whether the actual and next foundation (fundamentum proprium et proximum) of the omnipresence of Christ according to the human nature is the unio personalis or God's will and pleasure or the exaltation to the right of God. This contrast between unio personalis on the one hand and God's will, God's promise, exaltation on the part of God, etc. on the other hand, would only have a meaning if at the Incarnation of the Son of God only about one third of the fullness of the Godhead had entered into human nature. But since it is certain, and the people of the Giessen wanted to state it, that the entire fullness of the Godhead dwells in the human nature of Christ in the flesh, it is also certain and had to be stated by the people of Giessen that the will of God, the promise of God and the ascension to the right hand of God is not a foundation outside and beside the unio personalis or the entire fullness of the Godhead, which in Christ's human nature already dwelt in the flesh from conception. It is in

5:17.

300] the unity of these factors—the fullness of the Godhead, God's will, God's power and action—it is well-founded that Scripture not only ascribes the raising of Christ from the dead to the glory of the Father,®°°) but also says that Christ raised himself up and took back life of his own power. *°° That is why Chemnitz insists almost to the point of weariness that everything that was given to Christ according to the humanity by the will of God and especially also by the exaltation, does not come to him "from elsewhere and from outside" (aliunde et ab extra), but only through the unio personalis. Of those who teach differently and want to derive what Christ has been given to humanity from a source other than the unio personalis, Chemnitz judges: evertunt unionem personalem, they overturn the personal union. He uses the harsh words on this point: "No man of sound senses (nemo sanus) will say that the exaltation and glorification of human nature has come from outside or from elsewhere than from personal union" (ab extra vel aliunde quam ex hypostatica cum Deitate unione accessisse). ®° Chemnitz uses these harsh words because the assumption of a source of reference other than the unio personalis must be based on the idea that there is something greater than all the fullness of the Godhead, who from the moment of conception has lived in human nature. And like Chemnitz, the Formula of Concord knows only the unio personalis as the foundation of all that "is said of the majesty of Christ according to his humanity" in the state of exaltation and humiliation. Four successive paragraphs describing the divine majesty of Christ according to the human nature in both states begin with the words: "For the sake of this personal union", "propter hanc hypostaticam unionem". ®°® It is at first strange that so soon after the Formula of Concord one could seriously ask the question whether Christ's omnipresence according to human nature in the unio personalis or in the will of God or in sitting at the right hand of God had its fundamentum proprium. These false contrasts can only be explained by the fact that the Giessen and Saxon decisors had partially lost sight

Decl., VU, 23—26] of the incarnation of the Son of God and the unio personalis. But this is how it will be in the Christian Church until the end of days. It will remain the case that both in the life of individual Christians and theologians and in the life of the Church as a community, divine truth must be acquired and fought for anew, again and again, against contradiction from within and without. A few words should also be said about the fact that in the opinion of more recent theologians the cryptic-Kenotic dispute has come over the church with a kind of natural necessity. The controversy is explained as a natural consequence of the fact that Christological differences, which were not settled before the Formula of Concord between the Swabians and the Saxons, especially between Brenz and Chemnitz, were not carried out, and that the Formula of Concord was only a compromise. °°) These "opposites" have already been pointed out earlier. Here, we shall recall what has already been mentioned, and add what has not yet been mentioned. Just the most important of these "opposites" are invented, as Frank has already clearly proved. °!° It is not a Swabian peculiarity to speak of a concealment or secrecy of the divine majesty in the state of humiliation. Rather, these expressions are used throughout by the "Saxon" Chemnitz in De duabus naturis, and they have therefore also passed over into the Formula of Concord without compromise. And Swabians and Saxons could indeed not avoid describing the deprivation or humiliation as the non-use or concealment of divine majesty, because they agreed on both sides that Christ possessed divine majesty according to human nature from conception. ®!)

RE.3 X, 261; Nitzsch, Dogm., ed. Horst Stephan, 1912, p. 520. Dorner, op. cit.: No wonder that the only appeased opposites in the dispute between the Tiibingen and Giesseners came apart again.

completely forget how Chemnitz himself spoke about this point. Polycarp Leyser reports: "Jn quam sententiam" (it was about the praesentia generalis, that is, about the omnipresence of Christ according to the humanity in all creatures) "Dr. Chemnitius said on December 28, 1582 in conventu at Quedlinburg, which I distinguished ex ore ipsius: that I should say that Brentius was wrong in this and did not understand it: 301] Likewise, it is not a Saxon peculiarity to understand the relationship between deity and humanity in Christ as the effect of deity in and through humanity. Luther too grasps humanity as a "hand-tool", that is, an instrument, of the Godhead. The fact that Luther had thought of the relationship between divine and human nature as "rigidly physical" is a fiction of dogmatic history. Furthermore: When Dorner thinks that Chemnitz was only done violence by the Swabians because he had only let himself be "pushed" by the Swabians to the teaching "that mankind had been in possession of the divine attributes from the beginning". *!) then it can be said: According to all that we know of Chemnitz at all, Chemnitz never had any other teaching than that in Christ's humanity the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily from the very beginning. If there was no opposition between Swabia and Saxony on these decisive points, there was no reason for a compromise in the Formula of Concord, and therefore the dispute between the Tiibingen and Giessen people cannot be attributed to the "unimportant opposites" in the Formula of Concord. On the contrary, one must say that the quarrel of the Tiibingen and Giessen people was unnatural, if we judge it from the Lutheran point of view, which both wanted to record with seriousness. The people of Tiibingen inferred from the possession of the divine majesty in the state of humiliation their way of speaking that Christo, even in the state of humiliation, was entitled to sit at the right hand of God, and the people of Giessen inferred from the humiliation or the "servant figure" of Christ that Christo, in the state of humiliation, could not, according to human nature, participate in the preservation of the world and world government. Both acted un-Lutheran. What is given in detail on the one hand with the possession of the divine majesty, on the other hand with the servant form and is compatible with these concepts, Lutherans let themselves be told by the Scriptures themselves. This is the Lutheran principle that the Formula of Concord so powerfully inculcates. *'*) By disregarding this principle recognized by both sides, the people of Tiibingen fell into God will protect me well for the bravado, because Lutherus in scriptis dialecticis also thought of that." (Rechtmeyer, Braunschweig Church History V, Supplement to Chapter I, p. 16)

52—S53] contradiction with the scriptural passages, which let the sitting at the right hand of God according to the humanity only begin with the exaltation, and the Giesseners got into contradiction with the scriptural statements, which do not exclude Christ in the state of humiliation and according to the humanity from the work of the Godhead, especially also from the world preservation and world government (Joh. 5:17). Moreover, both parts became inconsistent. The people of Tiibingen again very definitely restricted the sitting at the right hand of God in the state of humiliation. They expressly rejected "plenarium et universalem usum acceptae maiestatis in statu humiliationis" on the grounds that the plenarius usus would have made vicarious satisfaction impossible and would have transferred the subsequent elevation to glory already into earthly life. *'4) The people of Giessen, too, greatly qualified their assertion that participation in the world government by human nature was not compatible with the servant form. They did so by allowing the miracles of Christ, including such interventions in the world government as the stilling of the storm, to be performed by human nature, without claiming that this reduced the servant figure to mere appearance. The people of Giessen only wanted to reject the participation of human nature in the uninterrupted divine effect on the world mentioned in Joh. 5:17. And in the way the "Decisio Saxonica" argues here, there is a very alarming inconsistency. The "Decisio" argues against the people of Tiibingen that Christ's participation in the world government according to the humanity would reduce the whole earthly life of Christ, especially his abandonment of God and his suffering and death, to a mere appearance. Words such as these appear in the execution: "May the Most High prevent such appearances".°!°) As is well known, Zwingli also drew Luther's attention to the fact that Luther connected things with each other that were impossible to reconcile. Zwingli tried to make clear to the audience in general and to Luther in particular, with quite an effort of rhetoric, that the "being in heaven" (esse in coelo), which Luther attributed to Christ according to the humanity already in the state of humiliation,®!®

simulationem! 301] is not suitable for the earthly life of Christ, but turns it into a mere appearance. Christ had demonstrably eaten and slept and even died on earth. But all these things obviously did not send themselves for a being in heaven. Luther replied with the deductio ad absurdum that the things mentioned were even less suited to being in God, that is, to the fact that the Son of Man formed one Person with God, because according to all human calculation personal union with God leaves no room for eating, sleeping, suffering and dying. But if one admits the greater, the personal being in God, it would be foolish not to admit the lesser, the being in heaven. Thus, according to Luther's process, the "Decisio Saxonica" should also have said: "It is higher and greater that the humanity of Christ in God, indeed with God, is one person, because it participates in the preservation and government of the world. If the greater does not abolish the form of a servant, neither does the lesser." So the "Decisio" would also have been overridden by the conversion of Joh. 5:17. In short, the crypto-kenotic dispute was, from the Lutheran point of view, not a natural necessity, but unnatural. As a natural necessity this controversy appears only to the more recent theologians, who consider it an edition of theology to present the proclaimed great mystery of God's Incarnation "cognitively", i.e. in a way that human reason understands, and therefore partly demand that a circumcision be made on Christ's divinity, partly urge that the whole "doctrine of the two natures" be abandoned. In this self-imposed goal of modern theology of the positive and negative generation the complaint about the "unfinished" of the Formula of Concord is rooted, together with the regret that the Lutherans could neither in the cryptic-kenotic dispute nor later on decide to leave the old paths, i.e. to continue the old kenosis to the modern kenosis or to give up the "two-nature doctrine" altogether. However, the offence caused by the dispute between the Tiibingen and Giessen residents was a great one.

is eminently part of the life history of the Christian doctrine of the Person of Christ. Think of the annoying incidents at church assembies in the fourth and fifth centuries. Adolf Harnack, in the interest of his Unitarianism, cannot refrain from pointing out these annoying things in his lectures on "The Nature of Christianity". *! On the terminology relating to humiliation and exaltation. Above all, it must be noted that the use of the Formula of Concord, according to which concealment and non-use of the divine majesty are used as synonyms,®!®) does not betray "docetism", but is completely correct. The humiliation is 1. real and actual, not merely apparent, concealment (kpvyic), namely concealment of the divine majesty, inasmuch as Christ in the state of humiliation was and remained not merely nominal or reduced, half, but wholly essential God, and yet in his life on earth did not appear as God, but as a man like other men who are not God. It is worth recalling Frank's words: "The expression 'concealment and ambush’ has..... its perfect justification in the fact that in the perfect possession of Majesty from the moment of incarnation the servant figure of the incarnate was in any case a shell under which this Majesty was hidden."*'®) To this cover belongs in detail, that the one who was and remained God was born in humiliation, was subject to the duty and punishment of the Law given to man, fled, had neither property nor houses (Matt. 11:27), hungered, thirsted, lived on gifts (Matt. 8:20), wept, bound, beaten, mocked, condemned, crucified, and finally had himself killed and buried. This was certainly a real and strong veiling of the divine majesty. The general offence, which one takes in our time at the expression "veiling", comes from the fact that one does not let Christ

122-125

26]

be God in his earth life either at all (Pankenotics) or only,half (Semikenotics) or not yet (Dormer) or at all only nominally (Ritschl, Harnack). With the possession of the divine majesty during humiliation, the veiling of the divine majesty during humiliation is always given, as Frank correctly remarks. — The humiliation is 2. real and genuine, not merely apparent, self-emptying (kévotc, éavtov éxévwos), not indeed a self- emptying with regard to the divine nature, but certainly a self-emptying with regard to the human nature, which self-emptying consisted negatively in the renunciation of appearing in divine form (i.e. in the non-use of the majesty communicated to it), positively in the acceptance of the servant form and the general human habitus (oyjua). To this genuine self-renunciation belong precisely all the pieces of veiling mentioned, from the lowly birth to the letting oneself be killed and buried in view. The low birth was a veiling of the divine majesty and at the same time a non-use of the divine majesty according to the human nature to which it was given. Death was a disguise of divine majesty, which disguise consisted precisely in the non-use of divine majesty according to human nature. This is precisely the representation of the Formula of Concord, in that it juxtaposes concealment and non-use of the divine majesty as synonyms, for example in the words: "What [divine] majesty Christ had in his conception, even in the womb of his mother, but, as the Apostle testifies, renounces it, and, as Dr. Luther declares, was kept secret in the state of humiliation (secreto habuit) and was not always, but when he wanted, needed (usurpavit). And as for the state of humiliation the expressions non-use and concealment are used as synonyms, so for the state of exaltation the expressions use and revelation are used. *?° The description of humiliation and exaltation also corresponds to this, if it is taken into account that in the state of humiliation not a complete non-use but a partial use of the divine majesty was allowed. In this case, humiliation is described as partial non-use and concealment and exaltation as total use and

revelation. °*") The confusion in the dispute between the Tiibingen and Giesseners was largely due to the fact that "concealment" and "non-use" were opposed to each other instead of using them as synonyms in writing and according to the process of the Formula of Concord. Through this false opposition, which was set up in contradiction to Luther, Chemnitz and the Formula of Concord, the car was pushed onto a wrong track. More incidental matters concern the following: In the Formula of Concord (p. 679, § 26 [Trigl. 1022, 26]), in the description of Christ's exaltation, it says that it is "nothing else, but that he has completely laid aside the form of servant... and put into the complete possession and use of the divine majesty according to the assumed human nature". The expression "complete possession is at first sight disconcerting, because the confession of faith usually says that the state of exaltation consists in the full use, full revelation, and the revelation of divine majesty. To find in the expression "complete possession" a limitation of the confessional statements in which Christ, in the state of humiliation, is attributed the possession of the divine majesty par excellence, is not acceptable, because the immediate words are: "What majesty he had in his conception, even in his mother's womb, but..... not always, but when he willed, needed it." That is why Frank correctly says:*) The completeness of the possession of the majesty on the part of the human nature was not present in the state of the humiliation only in so far as to such completeness [of possession] the unrestricted use, the revelation manifesting itself everywhere is counted. The expression plena possessio is based on the idea that one possesses what one does not use as if one did not possess it. And this idea is given in Scripture itself. The Scriptures speak of a possession of divine glory that was already present in the state of humiliation, Joh. 1:14: "We saw his glory", Joh. 2:11: "He revealed his glory", as well as of a possession that only occurred in the state of exaltation, Joh. 17:5: Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. The Scripture thus gives

Chemnitz De duabus nat., p. 218, in his defense against the Reformed charge that he mixed up the estates.

the idea that the possession in the state of humiliation becomes a possession in the full sense of the word only through the transfiguration. It has already been explained that the expressions "to be in heaven" (esse in coelo) and "to be at the right hand of God" (esse ad dextram Dei) are not synonymous. Being in heaven is attributed to Christ according to the humanity already in the state of humiliation, while being at the right hand of God is attributed to him only in the state of exaltation. Brenz should therefore not have said (De personali unione, 1561, F. a. 1) that Christ, according to human nature, had already ascended into heaven through the Incarnation and was placed at the right hand of God, since only the former corresponds to the way of speaking of Scripture. On the other hand, Quenstedt should not call it an oversight that the Tiibingeners taught that Christ had already ascended to heaven through the Incarnation. °7?) Likewise, V. E. Léscher should not have so excused Brenz's talk of ascension to heaven through the Incarnation: He [Brenz] does not understand specialem, biblice dictam et determinatam ascensionem, rather latam et generalem or elevationem humanae naturae assumtae. ®) The ascensio in coelum per incarnationem facta is ascensio biblice dicta. Since Christ remained in heaven at the Incarnation after the Deity, as all those who do not want to let a "rupture in the Trinity" come through the Incarnation admit, and since humanity is assumed into the Deity, Christ truly could not avoid being in heaven even according to the humanity. And this is what he explicitly says about himself in Joh. 3:13. So Loofs, too, could have spared himself his astonishment and his mockery of Luther: "The Incarnation would then rather be an ascension of the humanity of Jesus. °°) This is precisely what of Christ Nicodemus testifies to, and with which he substantiates the fact that the Son of Man can testify to the "heavenly things on earth. We find that Lutheran teachers both deny and ascribe to Christ in the state of humiliation the "divine figure" (uop@r Beov). Thus, in one and the same sermon Luther says, on the one hand, "Thus now Christ expresses himself in divine form, in which he was"; and, on the other hand, Christ "made Himself

a stranger to the same [divine form]."; on the other hand: "Christ took the form of a servant and yet remained God and in the form of God. ®® Both are true, but in different ways. The singularity and alienation with regard to open Oeov refers to the removal of the usus, namely the usus plenarius, and the remaining in poper Veo refers to possession and limited use. Thus Luther explains himself: "Paul himself interprets what he calls ‘servant form’... that he has laid aside the figure of divine majesty and born of God as he truly was. Though he does not discard the divine form so that it cannot be felt or seen; for in this way no divine form would have remained, but he did not take it on himself, and did not flaunt it against us, but rather served with it, for he did miracles", etc. Furthermore, when Lutheran teachers say that the exalted Christ is the Christ "in divine form" and the humbled Christ is the Christ "in servant form", Lopey Geov is the fully developed divine form or usus plenarius, while pope SovAov is Christ in disuse or only partial use of the divine form. It is also meant when the humiliation is briefly defined as the depositio of the divine form and the exaltation as the collatio of the divine form. °? To designate the omnipresence of Christ after humanity in the state of humiliation and exaltation, the expressions omnipraesentia intima and extima were used especially by later theologians. In relation to this terminology, it should be said that if the term omnipraesentia extima is used to designate the sessio ad dextram Dei or the lawfulness of the throne of omnipresent dominion, which only occurs with exaltation, then the matter is correct. But if the omnipraesentia extima is opposed to the omnipraesentia intima in such a way as to exclude the presence of Christ among creatures in the state of humiliation—and this expression was used by later theologians—then there is an unthinkable and unimaginable thought and a violation of the unio personalis. This is shown by later theologians Scherzer *®)

and Hollaz.. Hollaz writes, De pers., qu. 58: Praesentia intima est, qua 0 Oyos adest carni et caro Adya, ita nt nec AOYOs sit extra carnem nec caro extra Aoyov. Praesentia extima est, qua Oyo una cum carne et caro una cum XOyo@ creaturis praesentissime adest, ita ut nuspiam et nunquam sit hOyos post factam unionem, ubi non sit caro. Praesentia extima est consequens praesentiae intimae et ex hac per immotam consequential inferior [Google]. Hollaz formulates the objection raised against this as follows: Ubi est unum unitorum, ibi etiam est alterum quoad praesentiam intimam, non autem semper quoad praesentiam extimam. Sic caro semper prdesen fuit A0yq, ubi ille extitit, neque tamen ex eo sequitur, quod caro prdesen fuerit creaturis extra hOyov existentibus. [Google] Hollaz answers: Sublata praesentia extima tollitur etiam intima. Nam quidquid non indistanter adest ibi, ubi XOyos praesens est, illud ne quidem ipsi hoyo indistanter (without separating space) praesens est. Ratio est manifesta, quia quae alicubi differunt ut distans et indistans, ut praesens et absens, illa duo ibidem sibi invicem non sunt praesentia. Quodsi igitur alicubi praesens creaturis est 0 A0yos, ubi ab iis distat caro, ibi praesenti Oyo non indistanter praesens est caro adeoque Oy0o¢ erit extra carnem. Sed si A6yo¢ est extra carnem, datur didotna inter naturam divinam et humanam Christi, quo ipso vinculum unionis personalis dissolvitur. [Google] Furthermore: Sicut caro exinanita actu, non solum potentia, fuit unita to Ady, ita etiam actu, non sola potentia praesens fuit, ubi 6 hOyos fuit. [Google] Hollaz then rightly cites the words of Luther and the Formula of Concord. The expressions have been used to describe the participation of human nature in the almighty action of divine nature in the state of humiliation: The Son of God in the state of humiliation always worked in and with human nature (in et cum carne), but not always through human nature (per carnem).

denied that both the miracles of Christ and his teaching by virtue of divine knowledge (Jn 1:18) took place through human nature, and also that the preservation of the world and world government (Jn 5:17) did not take place outside but inside the flesh, and in this sense also through the flesh. When the

per carnem is restricted to the state of exaltation, it must denote the usus plenarius of the divine majesty or inthronisationem secundum humanam naturam. The same is to be said of the saying that the mere omnipresence which was already due to Christ in the state of humiliation according to human nature became, in the state of exaltation, a reigning or all-effective omnipresence. This omnipresence peculiar to the state of exaltation is then to be taken in the sense that it denotes "totaeml et plenum maiestatis divinae usum in exaltatione" [the whole and full use of the divine majesty in exaltation] (Gerhard). Scripture speaks of the effect and dominion of the exalted Christ in such a way that the effect and dominion of Christ in the state of humiliation is left out of consideration. 8 Christ is King—and not just a titular king—in the state of humiliation *°) and becomes King through the exaltation. °°?) A moment contrary to Scripture only interferes when, in the "reigning or all-effective omnipresence" of the state of exaltation, Joh. 5:17: "My Father works up to now, and I also work" is denied, in other words, when it is denied that all the power effects of the Son of God remained and took place in the state of humiliation within human nature (intra carnem).