arnurnr~tu
m~tnlngtrul mnut~ly
COlltilluing
LEHRE UNO WEHRE
MAGAZIN PUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. VI August, 1.935 No.8
CONTENTS.
Page
The Enhypostasia of Christ's Human Nature. Walter Albrecht 561
Kle.ine Studien aus dem Galaterbrief. L. Fuerbringer • . • • • • •• 580
Der Schriftgrund fuer die Lehre von der satisfactio vicaria.
P. E. Kretzmann • • • • • • • • •• 592
Die kirchlichen Vorgaenge in Deutschland, lutherisch ge·
sehen. w. Oesch. • • • • • . • • • • . • • • • • • . . • • . • • • • • • • • • • • •• 594
Dispositionen ueber die altkirchliche Evangelienrejhe.... 600
Miscellanea ................................ . ........ 609
Theological Observer. - Kirchlich·Zeitge.schichtliches. . . .. 616
Book Review. - Literatur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 631
Ein Prediger muss nleht aUein tDeida>,
also dais er die Schafe lIDterwelse, wie
ole rechte ObrIsten soUen sein, Bondem
aueh daneben den Woe\fen tDBhret>, da ...
ole die Schafe nicht angrelfen und mit
falscher Lehre verfuehren und Irrtum e\n.
fuehren. - Lul"er.
F. 1st kein Ding, daI die Leute mehr
bel der Klrche behae\t denn die gute
P redlgt. - ~pololli., ~r'. 24.
If the trumpet give an uncertain BOund,
who shall pr~are h1m.eelf to the battle t
J Cor. 14, 8.
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, st. Louis, Mo.
Concordia
Theological Monthly
Vol. VI AUGUST, 1935 No.8
The Enhypostasia of Christ's Human Nature.
"Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which
is Ohrist the Lord." The Incarnation is the assumption of a human
nature by the preexistent, eternal Son of God, the addition by the Son
of God of a human nature to His divine nature, the embodiment of
the divine nature of the Son of God in a human nature. It is not
the junction, association, partnership, of a divine and a human person
under one title for some moral end. It is not a combination of two
personalities somehow, but the most intimate union, without conver-
sion, of a divine personality with a complete human nature, so that
the product remains one person, but becomes a divine-hurnan person,
the theanthropic person Jesus Ohrist, Son of God and Son of man.
Accordingly we teach the enhypostasia of the human nature of
Ohrist, i. e.) the taking part of the human nature in the personality of
the divine nature. This we find to be the teaching of Scripture. It
teaches: "The Word was made :flesh," John 1, 14. God became man
not by the conversion of God into a man, but by the Second Person
of the Trinity adding a human nature to His divine person. The
only-begotten Son of God as described by John in the preceding
verses - therefore not exclusive of, but including, His divine na-
ture - became man, entered upon a truly human existence, adopted
a truly human nature, never ceasing to be God nor becoming a plural-
ity of persons. The Word is :flesh. This enabled John and his
fellow"apostles to hear, to see with their eyes, to look upon, to handle
with their hands, the Word of Life, which was from the beginning,
1 John 1, 1. A spirit taught by God, John says, confesses "that Jesus
Ohrist is come in the :flesh," or, as he expresses it in the same chapter,
"that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world," 1 John 4, 2. 9.
The Son of God came into the :flesh, embodied Himself by assuming
a human nature created and developed by the Holy Ghost in the
blessed among women. The fulness of the Godhead, the divine na-
ture, indivisible and inseparable from the divine person, because it
36
562 The Enhypostasia of Christ's Human Nature.
is identical with it, made a human nature its body, Col. 2, 9. "As the
children are partakers of flesh and blood, He [His Son, whom He
hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds,
who, being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His
person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, chap. 1, 2J
also Himself likewise took part of the same" (of flesh and blood),
Heb. 2, 14. He partook in the same; i. e., He, the eternal God and
Oreator and Preserver of all things, added to Himself flesh and blood,
the nature of the children of men. The subject remains, but receives
an addition, though not a partner. "The union of the natures in
Ohrist is not an alliance of two beings who have entered into an
agreement to coexist, say, like the two kernels of an almond in a
co=on shell. The divine and the human nature are not two equal
parts contained in the theanthropic person or the containing and
surrounding medium." (Dau, Notes.) "God sent forth His Son,
made of a woman," Gal. 4, 4. By the miraculous working of the
Holy Ghost the Son of God assumed a full human nature, including
body and soul, from a virgin. The very embryo developing in the
Virgin is the Lord our God according to His human side, Luke 1, 43.
The body and soul miraculously called forth and growing in the womb
of Mary, joined to the body of Mary, are even more intimately joined
from the outset to the Second Person of the Trinity. They are the
body and soul of the Second Person of the Godhead. The human
nature created in the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost came into
existence within the person of the Son of God, because its assump-
tion by the Son of God as His human nature and its creation in the
Virgin occurrcd simultaneously. "When the human nature of Christ
was conceived in the Virgin's womb, it was at once in personal union
with the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. 'The Word was
made flesh' when the Virgin conceived, and the angel does not say,
'Thy son shall be united with the Son of God,' but, 'that Holy Thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' Neither
does St. Paul say, 'God sent His Son to be united with the son of
a woman,' but, 'God sent His Son, made of a woman.' Mary was
not the mother of a human person with whom at some later period
the divine person of the Son of God was to unite Himself, but she
was the mother of God, {hor6xoq, when Elizabeth greeted her as 'the
mother of her Lord' even before the child was born of whom she
said: 'Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.''' (Aug. Graebner, Theol.
Quart., TV, p. 8 f.) dEsist auch entschieden abzulehnen, dass die
goettliche und die menschliche N atur Ohristi erst ALLMAEHLIOH zu
einer Person zus(11nrncngewachsen seien. TT ielrnehr war die TT e1'-
einigung sofort eine VOLLSTAENDIGE; das heisst, die rnenschZiche N (1-
tur .war vorn ersten Augenbliclc ihrel' Existenz an zur PERSON des
Sohnes Gottes gezogen. Die H el'vorbringung (productio) der rnensch-
The Enhypostasia of Christ's Human Nature. 563
lichen Natur und ihre Vereinigung (unitio) mit dem Bohne Gottes
werden nul' BEGRIFFLICH geschieden, fallen a.ber zeitlich und sachZich
zusammen. "A,ua (Jae~, Sp.a Aciyov (Jae~." (Pieper, Ohr. Dogm., II, 89.)
Ohenmitz says: "Tho human nature did not assume the divine, nor
did man assume God, nor did the divine person assume a human
person; but the divine nature of tho Logos, or the person of the Son
of God, subsisting from eternity in the divine nature, assumed in the
fulness of time a certain mass of human nature, so that in Ohrist
there is an assuming nature, viz., the divine, and an assumed nature,
1)iz., the human. In other cases, human nature is always the nature
of a certain individual, whose peculiarity it is to subsist in a oertain
hypostasis, which is distinguished by a characteristic property from
the other hypostases of the same nature. Thus each man has a soul
of his own. But in the incarnate Ohrist the divine nature subsisted
of itself before this union, and indeed from eternity. Yet the mass
of the assumed nature did not thus subsist of itself before this union,
so that before this union there was a body and soul belonging to a
certain and distinct individual, i. e., a peculiar person subsisting in
itself which afterwards the Son of God assumed. But in the very
act of conception the Son of God assumed this mass of human nature
into the unity of His person, to subsist and be sustained therein,
and, by assuming it, made it His own, so that this body is not that
of another individual or another person, but the body is peculiar to
the Son of God Himself, and the soul is the peculiar soul of the
Son of God Himself." (De Duab. Nat., 23; Schmid, 305.) "Die
Formierung de?' menschZichen Natur Jes1~, ihre BeseeZung, ihr Per-
soenZichwerden in del' Person des Logos und die Empfaengnis der
also im Logos pm'soenlich gewordenen menschZichen Natul' sind UN-
TRENNBARE Akte." (Hoenecke, Ev.-Luth. Dogm., III, 76.) "The Word
did not unite Himself with a human being having individual life
and personality, evcn in the most primitive stage, but from the first
moment of the conception the Word assumed the flesh and constructed
that into a temple which He filled with His divine majesty. A nimam
c.l'eando assumpsit et assumendo creavit." (Dau, Notes.) "The flesh
and soul were not first united into one person; but the formation
of the flesh, by the Holy Ghost, from the separated and sanctified
mass, the giving of a soul to this flesh as formed, the talcing up of the
formed and animated flesh into the subsistence of the Logos, and the
conception of the formed, animated, and subsisting flesh in the womb
of the Virgin were simultaneous." (Gerhard; Schmid, Dogne., 301.)
It is true the human nature miraculously created by the Holy Ghost
in the Virgin Mary, a true and complete human nature, consisting of
body and soul with every essential attribute of both, would have been
able to subsist by itself, that is, to form a person. But it did not
form a person, subsist by itself, because its creation and union with
564 The Erihypostasia of Christ's Human Nature.
1he person of the Son of God perfectly synchronized. There was an
individuality, a personality, an ego preexistent, that would assume
humanity and thus qualify for the divinely appointed mode of salva-
tion of mankind, namely, perfect obedience to the Law applying to
man and suffering and death in the stead of man. This Person joined
a truly human nature to His divine nature as the body is joined to
the soul in man. "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so
God and man is one Christ." (Athan. Oreed, Trigl., 35, § 35.) The
personality of the Son of God became the personality of the human
nature He assumed. "Die goettliche Natur ist bei der Mensch-
werdung die personbildende." (Hoenecke, op. cit., 76.) Lindberg
(Ohristian Dogm., p.198) states it thus: "'Ayvnoamaia. By this is
meant that the human nature did not exist per se as a special per-
sonality which was assumed in the act of incarnation, since in that
case there would have been two persons and two mediators and not
two natures in one person. The human nature, therefore, lacked
personality, but became personal by being made partaker in the per-
sonality of the Son of God, which is called lyvnoa,aata. There was
no separation in time, so that the human nature of Ohrist should
have lacked the elements of personality even for a moment. At
exactly the same moment that the human nature through the divine
activity came into existence, it was made partaker in the most real
and perfect way in the personality of the Son of God." "The Word,
which was personality from everlasting, supplies its own personality
also to the human nature of Christ. Aayov {maama,. Ct/k'P0dewY rpva8WY
vnoaoaat.. However with this difference, that the personality of the
God-man is and always remains the personality of the Son of God
in the strict sense and in a sovereign manner (uvetw. uat neonw.) and
is the personality of the human nature in a secondary and subordinate
sense (c'J8vdew. ua! ua,' aHo)." (Dau, Notes.) This thought is ex-
pressed by Hollaz in this wise: "The divine and human natures exist-
ing in the one united person of the Son of God have one and the same
hypostasis, yet have it in a diverse mode. For the divine nature has
this primarily, of itself, and independently; but the human nature
has this secondarily, because of the personal union, and therefore by
partaking of it from another" (Latin, participative). (Schmid,
p.303.)
Bear in mind we are here dealing with the incarnation of the
Son of God, His assuming our flesh and blood as a means of obtaining
our salvation. Granting to the human nature of Christ a human
personality would cancel the incarnation; for then the man Jesus
would be another than the Son of God, and we would in fact be
assuming two mediators between God and men. The man Ohrist
Jesus (1 Tim. 2, 5) is the one Mediator between God and men only
because His ego, His subsistence, His personality is the Son of God.
The Enhypostasia of Christ's Human Nature. 565
"Die Schritt zeigt Christum steis als EIN Ieh." (Iloenecke, Op'. cit., 76.)
It is mem 1Jf31'ba, pr!keierea nihil to speak of an incarnation of the Son
of God as long as one teaches that the man Jesus was a separate
subsistence, that is, was a person distinct from the Son of God. No
amount of rhetoric can change this situation, not even the assurance
that God unfolded a most extraordinary activity in the man Jesus,
that the man Christ, not having innate sin to hinder Him, gave
expression to the will of God most perfectly. The incarnation of the
Son of God does not, according to the Bible, consist in the imma-
nence of God in a self-subsisting human personality, in the absolute
realization of the will of God in a perfect man, but in this, that the
pierson of the Son of God, in distinction from the person of the
Father and the Spirit, received a human nature into His person.
Accordingly the doctrine of incarnation is surrendered when the
doctrine of the impersonality of the human nature of Christ, con-
sidered by itself, is given up. Hollaz says: "If the human nature of
Christ had retained its peculiar subsistence," rather, had received its
peculiar subsistence, "there would have been in Christ two persons
and therefore two mediators, contrary to 1 Tim. 2, 5. The reason is
that a person is formally constituted in his being by a subsistence
altogether complete and therefore ullity of person is to be determined
from unity of subsistence. Therefore one or the other nature of
those which unite in one person must be without its own peculiar
subsistence; and since the divine nature, which is actually the same
as its subsistence, cannot really be without the same, it is evident
that the absence of a peculiar subsistence must be ascribed to the
human nature." (Schmid, p. 300.) "Die Anhypostasie odeI' vielmehr
Enhypostasie der mensehliehen N atur Christi gehoert somit zum
WESEN der Menschwerdung des Sohnes Gottes." (Pieper, op. cit., 86.)
Gerhard: "The tonnale, the essence, of the union consists in this
that the personality of the Logos has become the personality of the
:flesh." (De Persona, § 115.) Adopting the words of John of Damas-
cus, Gerhard says: The human nature "is not aln'}vn6a-ra7:0C; >