A. Theory of an incomplete humanity.—Gess and Beecher hold that the immaterial part in Christ's humanity is only contracted and metamorphosed deity.
The advocates of this view maintain that the divine Logos reduced himself to the condition and limits of human nature, and thus literally became a human soul. The theory differs from Apollinarianism, in that it does not necessarily presuppose a trichotomous view of man's nature. While Apollinarianism, however, denied the human origin only of Christ's πνεῦμα, this theory extends the denial to his entire immaterial being,—his body alone being derived from the Virgin. It is held, in slightly varying forms, by the Germans, Hofmann and Ebrard, as well as by Gess; and Henry Ward Beecher was its chief representative in America.
Gess holds that Christ gave up his eternal holiness and divine self-consciousness, to become man, so that he never during his earthly life thought, spoke, or wrought as God, but was at all times destitute of divine attributes. See Gess, Scripture Doctrine of the Person of Christ; and synopsis of his view, by Reubelt, in Bib. Sac., 1870:1-32; Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 1:234-241, and 2:20; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 2:144-151, and in Herzog, Encyclopädie, art.: Jesus Christ, der Gottmensch; also Liebner, Christliche Dogmatik. Henry Ward Beecher, in his Life of Jesus the Christ, chap. 3, emphasizes the word [pg 687] “flesh,” in John 1:14 and declares the passage to mean that the divine Spirit enveloped himself in a human body, and in that condition was subject to the indispensable limitations of material laws. All these advocates of the view hold that Deity was dormant, or paralyzed, in Christ during his earthly life. Its essence is there, but not its efficiency at any time.
Against this theory we urge the following objections:
(a) It rests upon a false interpretation of the passage John 1:14—ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο. The word σάρξ here has its common New Testament meaning. It designates neither soul nor body alone, but human nature in its totality (cf. John 3:6—τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστιν; Rom. 7:18—οὐκ οἰκεῖ ἐν ἐμοί, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου, ἀγαθόν). That ἐγένετο does not imply a transmutation of the λόγος into human nature, or into a human soul, is evident from ἐσκήνωσεν which follows—an allusion to the Shechinah of the Mosaic tabernacle; and from the parallel passage 1 John 4:2—ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα—where we are taught not only the oneness of Christ's person, but the distinctness of the constituent natures.
John 1:14—“the Word became flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] among us, and we behold his glory”; 3:6—“That which is born of the flesh is flesh”; Rom., 7:18—“in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing”; 1 John 4:2—“Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” Since “flesh,” in Scriptural usage, denotes human nature in its entirety, there is as little reason to infer from these passages a change of the Logos into a human body, as a change of the Logos into a human soul. There is no curtailed humanity in Christ. One advantage of the monistic doctrine is that it avoids this error. Omnipresence is the presence of the whole of God in every place. Ps. 85:9—“Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him, That glory may dwell in our land”—was fulfilled when Christ, the true Shekinah, tabernacled in human flesh and men “beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And Paul can say in 2 Cor. 12:9—“Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may spread a tabernacle over me.”
(b) It contradicts the two great classes of Scripture passages already referred to, which assert on the one hand the divine knowledge and power of Christ and his consciousness of oneness with the Father, and on the other hand the completeness of his human nature and its derivation from the stock of Israel and the seed of Abraham (Mat. 1:1-16; Heb. 2:16). Thus it denies both the true humanity, and the true deity, of Christ.
See the Scripture passages cited in proof of the Deity of Christ, pages 305-315. Gess himself acknowledges that, if the passages in which Jesus avers his divine knowledge and power and his consciousness of oneness with the Father refer to his earthly life, his theory is overthrown. “Apollinarianism had a certain sort of grotesque grandeur, in giving to the human body and soul of Christ an infinite, divine πνεῦμα. It maintained at least the divine side of Christ's person. But the theory before us denies both sides.”While it so curtails deity that it is no proper deity, it takes away from humanity all that is valuable in humanity; for a manhood that consists only in body is no proper manhood. Such manhood is like the “half length” portrait which depicted only the lower half of the man. Mat. 1:1-16, the genealogy of Jesus, and Heb. 2:16—“taketh hold of the seed of Abraham”—intimate that Christ took all that belonged to human nature.
(c) It is inconsistent with the Scriptural representations of God's immutability, in maintaining that the Logos gives up the attributes of Godhead, and his place and office as second person of the Trinity, in order to contract himself into the limits of humanity. Since attributes and substance are correlative terms, it is impossible to hold that the substance of God is in Christ, so long as he does not possess divine attributes. As we shall see hereafter, however, the possession of divine attributes by Christ does not necessarily imply his constant exercise of them. His humiliation indeed, consisted in his giving up their independent exercise.
See Dorner, Unveränderlichkeit Gottes, in Jahrbuch für deutsche Theologie, 1:361; 2:440; 3:579; esp. 1:390-412—“Gess holds that, during the thirty-three years of Jesus' earthly life, the Trinity was altered; the Father no more poured his fulness into the Son; the Son no more, with the Father, sent forth the Holy Spirit; the world was upheld and governed by Father and Spirit alone, without the mediation of the Son; the Father ceased to beget the Son. He says the Father alone has aseity; he is the only Monas. The Trinity is a family, whose head is the Father, but whose number and condition is variable. To Gess, it is indifferent whether the Trinity consists of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or (as during Jesus' life) of only one. But this is a Trinity in which two members are accidental. A Trinity that can get along without one of its members is not the Scriptural Trinity. The Father depends on the Son, and the Spirit depends on the Son, as much as the Son depends on the Father. To take away the Son is to take away the Father and the Spirit. This giving up of the actuality of his attributes, even of his holiness, on the part of the Logos, is in order to make it possible for Christ to sin. But can we ascribe the possibility of sin to a being who is really God? The reality of temptation requires us to postulate a veritable human soul.”