128. III. Suffering In A Theanthropic Consciousness.
III. Suffering In A Theanthropic Consciousness. In the unique personality of Christ, as accepted in the faith of the Church, there is a theanthropic consciousness; and in the experiences of trial and suffering therein we shall find the real and sufficient law of his sympathy.
1. Concerning a Human Consciousness of the Divine.—Often a leading question in the orthodox treatment of Christology concerns the human consciousness of the divine in Christ. Many facts in his earlier life appear to us as purely and distinctively human, while later there is seemingly a transition into a higher consciousness, the consciousness of a divine nature. Such facts naturally suggest this question. It is one, however, that should be treated guardedly; for, otherwise, it may prove itself misleading. It proceeds on the assumption of a distinctively human personality and consciousness in Christ for a longer or shorter period; with some, reaching the time of his baptism or the beginning of his public ministry. In this view, up to such time the incarnate divine nature must have remained in a latent state, or without any manifestation in the consciousness of Christ. Or, if there was any exception, it was only in some transient instance, such as that of his notable conversation with the doctors in the temple (Luke 2:46-47). Otherwise, up to the time of his baptism or entrance upon his public ministry his consciousness was simply that of a man, without any recognition of either his great mission or his divine nature.
Such a view of Christ simplifies the interpretation of facts in his earlier life. It would equally simplify the interpretation of many facts of his public life which have a like human cast. But the view is closely kindred to the Nestorian, and may easily lead to a perversion of doctrine respecting the person of Christ. If we start with the assumption of a purely human consciousness, and so of a purely human person of Christ, we may carry the same assumption through his whole life, and he shall be to us two persons, after the Nestorian manner. Even with the admission of a deeper consciousness of the divine in the later life of Christ, it might still be denied that this was the result of a personal union of the two natures in him. Indeed, this union is denied so long as we hold a distinct human consciousness of Christ. While this view could readily interpret some facts of his life, it cannot interpret the communion of divine and human facts in his personal oneness. This personal oneness in the union of the two natures lies in the mystery of the incarnation. In personality Christ is God-man. This is the only doctrine which can interpret and harmonize the Christological facts of Scripture. There is no distinctively human Christ, and therefore no distinctively human consciousness of the divine in Christ.
2. Divine Consciousness of the Human.—In the incarnation the divine Son so took the nature of man into personal union with himself as to enter into the consciousness of trials like our own. The facts of the incarnation, as given in the Scriptures and accepted in the faith of the Church, mean such a consciousness. The self-incarnating Son was himself complete in personality, but the human nature which he assumed, while complete as a nature, was without personality. The personality of the Son was not neutralized; nor were his personal attributes compressed into the measure of the human. Wherein, then, lies the reality of the incarnation? Not in a personality of Christ distinct from the personality of the Son. There is no such a personality, and to assume it is to deny the reality of the incarnation. Nor is this reality to be found in the entrance of a human person into such a union with the divine nature as to attain the consciousness of the divine in Christ. There is no such a person in Christ. Such a consciousness would be a purely human consciousness, and therefore could not answer for the reality of the incarnation. The incarnation was a divine act, not a human act; and if we would apprehend its reality we must view it on its divine side. Here is the great truth which we previously considered. In the incarnation the divine Son entered personally into the nature of man in a manner to enter into the consciousness of trials like our own. This is the deepest and most luminous truth of the divine incarnation. The divine consciousness of the human is an intrinsic fact of the theanthropic character of Christ. As we previously pointed out, he is theanthropic in his personality, not in his natures. In his natures he is divine and human, but in the unity of personality he is divine-human, God-man. In the unity of personality there must be a unity of consciousness, but in a theanthropic consciousness there must be both divine and human facts. In the theanthropic consciousness of Christ the divine facts come with the divinity of the Son; the human facts, through the human nature in which he was personally incarnated.
3. A Possibility of the Divine Consciousness.—A great mystery! But the divine consciousness of facts in the form of human experiences is no greater a mystery than the incarnation itself. Indeed, the profoundest mystery of the incarnation lies in the union of the divine and human natures in the personal oneness of Christ. The divine is thus brought into new relations. Through new relations there may be new facts of consciousness. This is often exemplified in human experience. An angel, existing in pure spirituality, or in a corporeity wholly without sensitivity, might still have the consciousness of many facts, but must be without many such as we have. Such an angel might become enshrined in a bodily organism, just in the manner of a human spirit, without any suspension of personal consciousness, but not without many new facts of experience in the form of our own. So in the incarnation the divine Son may have the consciousness of facts in the form of human experiences. We are in possession of no light or principle which can warrant a denial of the possibility of such facts. They must be actual in the very reality of the divine incarnation.
There is a sympathy in God which must witness for the truth which we here maintain. As in our own nature there is a power of sympathy, for the deeper action of which common suffering is a special law, so in the very nature and love of God there is a sympathy with the suffering so true and deep as to manifest the possibility that in the incarnation the divine Son could so enter into the forms of human trial as to appropriate this special law of sympathy with us. God is not the Absolute of speculative agnosticism, impersonal, without knowledge or sensibility. Even our speculative theology has too often removed God so far away from mankind as to deny to them his real compassion, or invested him with an absoluteness of blessedness which could not be affected by either the joys or woes of men. God is not such a being. He is our Father in heaven. He is love. He has pleasure in our happiness and sympathy with us in our suffering. He suffers with us. This is the meaning of his compassion, which the Scriptures so frequently and earnestly express.
If God is such in himself, and such in his sympathy with us, we should not stumble at the doctrine of the sympathy of Christ which we have maintained. The chief objection urged against it is that it is contradictory to the absolute divine blessedness. This objection vanishes before the character of God as revealed in the Scriptures. The gift of the Son for the redemption of the world means a stress of sacrifice in the consciousness of the Father. How else can we interpret the expressions of his love in that gift? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; sent his own Son to be the propitiation for our sins (John 3:16; Romans 8:33; 1 John 4:10). If this gift of the Son was without stress of sacrifice in the consciousness of the Father, what mean these intense expressions of his love? There could be no such love in the gift of the Son without a stress of sacrifice in the giving. In the presence of such a fact of divine sacrifice it must be admitted that the incarnate Son could enter into the consciousness of trials like our own, and so appropriate the deepest law of sympathy with us.
There are facts in the redeeming work of Christ which mean, and must mean, such a law of sympathy with us. It was the Son who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9); who was in the form of God, and equal with him in glory, but parted with that glory and took instead the form of a servant in the likeness of men, and humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross (Php 2:6-8). In these facts we must admit a stress of sacrifice infinitely profound, or assume an utter indifference of the Son as between these states. If the state of poverty was the same to his consciousness as the state of riches which he surrendered, the form of a servant in the likeness of men the same as the glory of the Father in which he dwelt and with which he parted, then there was for him no stress of sacrifice in the profound facts of his redeeming work. If it be so, what can these intense words mean? Nothing; really nothing. Indeed, they can mean nothing less than a profound sacrifice of the Son in the work of redemption—a sacrifice fully apprehended in his divine consciousness.
Mostly, our orthodox theology lays aright the foundation of our soteriology. The Son of God, truly and essentially divine, is the Saviour. The Scriptures emphasize the fact that the Son is the Saviour (John 3:16-17; 1 John 4:9; 1 John 4:14); so that there is no reason, no excuse even, for any halting or divergence at this point. That the Son may save us he incarnates himself in our nature, takes it into personal union with himself. Now, the Son incarnate is the Christ Jesus of the Gospel; a theanthropic person. All this is accepted and maintained. But in the further exposition of our soteriology Christ m his work of redemption begins to appear quite distinct from the person of the Son. It is forgotten that there is no theanthropic Christ except as the incarnate Son enters into the consciousness of experiences like our own. Even the possibility of such a consciousness is denied. Then the human nature of Christ begins to be viewed as a human person, quite distinct from the divine nature, and as the conscious subject, and the only conscious subject, of the vicarious sufferings whereby the world was redeemed. This is a wide departure from the accepted doctrine of the person of Christ, and ends in the notion of the redemption of the world by the sacrifice of a man. It was not a man, but his own Son, that the Father sent to be the Saviour of the world; and the Son was consciously present and operative in all the work of its redemption; consciously participant in the deepest sorrows of Gethsemane and in that bitterest outcry on Calvary. All this is in the accepted doctrine of the person of Christ, in the reality of the divine incarnation, and in the sense of Scripture.
We have no insight into the mystery of such facts. They lie in the depths of the divine incarnation. We attempt no philosophy of the manner in which the divine Son entered into the consciousness of trials like our own. We do not even intimate any form of physical pain, such as we suffer. We simply maintain the deep and manifest truth of Scripture, that in the incarnation the divine Son entered into the consciousness of trials like our own, and through such trials appropriated the deepest law of sympathy with us.
4. Real Ground of the Sympathy of Christ.—We thus reach the very sure ground of the sympathy of Christ as it is revealed in the Scriptures and apprehended in the deepest Christian thought and feeling. This ground does not lie in the experiences of a mere human consciousness, with all the limitations and disabilities of the human. Nor is it subject to the law of time and changing conditions, as the grounds of all human sympathy must be. The trials of Christ which constitute the ground of his sympathy have their place in his theanthropic consciousness. Therein they ever abide, and for all the requirements of his sympathy are living facts still, just as they were in the hours of his trial.
Such a sympathy of Christ is sufficient for its place in the Scriptures and for the exigencies of Christian experience. It is free from all the limitations of a merely human sympathy, and with its grateful ministries can reach all cases of need. Mere human sympathy, even in its deepest intensity, must often consume itself in kindly yearnings while it is powerless for any effective ministry. Many could weep with Martha and Mary, but could not reach the depth of their grief. Jesus wept, and turned .their sorrow into joy. In him an infinite efficiency combines with an infinite depth of sympathy.
5. Light on the Person of Christ.—It should be remembered that we took the sympathy of Christ into our discussion, not only because it is an important truth of Christology, but specially for the reason of its intimate relation to the question of his personality. In the progress of the discussion we have seen that this relation is, indeed, most intimate. We found that his sympathy is grounded in a law of common suffering with us. In his life we found many facts of trial and suffering in the likeness of our own; but a deeper study discovered their insufficiency for the requirements of his sympathy, if they are restricted to a mere human consciousness. In this case his sympathy could be only human, and therefore utterly insufficient for its place in the Scriptures and for the needs of Christian experience. We further found that only as these forms of trial and suffering were apprehended in a divine consciousness could they constitute in Christ a sufficient ground for his sympathy.
It is here that we find in the sympathy of Christ the true doctrine of his personality. He must be a theanthropic person, else he could not have the consciousness of trial and suffering which is necessary to his sympathy. He is a theanthropic person as in personal oneness he unites a human nature with his divine nature and through the human enters into the consciousness of trial and suffering like our own. The theanthropic consciousness of Christ is the central truth of his personality.
Literature.—Pearson: Exposition of the Creed, articles ii, iii; Hooker: Ecclesiastical Polity, book v, secs. 51-54; Waterland: The Athanasian Creed, Works, vol. iii; Owen: The Person of Christ, Works (Goold’s), vol. i; Martensen: Christian Dogmatics, secs. 125-147; Dorner: System of Christian Doctrine, vol. iii;Doctrine of the Person of Christ; Luthardt: The Saving Truths of Christianity, lect. iv; Usher: On the Incarnation; Hovey: God With Us; Wilberforce: On the Incarnation; Pope: The Person of Christ; Gess:The Person of Christ; Goodwin, Henry M.: Christ and Humanity; Goodwin, Thomas: Christ the Mediator; Schmid: Biblical Theology of the New Testament, part i; Ullmann: The Sinlessness of Jesus; Bruce: The Humiliation of Christ; Plumptre: Christ and Christendom, Boyle Lectures, 1867; Medd: The One Mediator, Bampton Lectures, 1882; Du Bose: The Soteriology of the New Testament; Gore: The Incarnation of the Son of God, Bampton Lectures, 1891; Schaff: The Person of Christ; Neander: History of the Church, vol. ii, pp. 424-557; Hefele: History of Church Councils, book xi.