5.02. Christ's Divinity

Christ’s Divinity The subject of the divinity of Christ has been examined under the head of theology (doctrine of God) (see pp. 257-62). All scriptural texts and data prove the deity of Christ that prove his trinitarian position and relations. The act and process of incarnation makes no essential change in the Logos. The incarnate Word has all the properties of the unincarnate Word. To the God-man are ascribed in Scripture divine names, attributes, works, and adorableness.

There is a class of texts which taken by themselves would imply in Jesus of Nazareth an inferiority to God. They are such as describe his acts and experiences from the side of the humanity in his person and of his estate of mediatorial humiliation. This inferiority may run all the way from the comparatively exalted view of the Semiarian to the low humanitarian view of the Socinian. All of these parties really contemplate Jesus Christ only kata sarka,¹[Note: 1. κατὰ σάρκα = according to the flesh] omitting that aspect of him presented in the other class of passages that describe him kata pneuma hagiōsynēs²[Note: 2. κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης = according to the spirit of holiness] (Romans 1:4), ho ōn epi pantōn³[Note: 3. ὁ ὤν ἐπὶ πάντων = the one who is over all] (9:5), en morphē theou hyparchōn⁴[Note: 4. ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων = existing/being in the form of God] (Php 2:6), and theos⁵[Note: 5. θεός = God] (John 1:1).

Strictly speaking, none of these parties accept the theanthropic personality of Christ. Divine nature is left out in the constitution of his person, so that it is really only anthropic. For although the Semiarian conceded a complex personality in Christ composed of two natures, one of which was immensely higher than the other, and in reference to which he cherished a feeling akin to adoration, yet since there is no true mean between the infinite and finite, the Creator and the creature, this exalted higher nature must fall into the same finite class with the lower one. Such a Christology cannot be harmonized with the scriptural representations except by omitting those passages which attribute to Jesus of Nazareth a nature to which divine titles, attributes, and works are ascribed and which is the object of worship both in heaven and on earth.