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108 - The Gospel of the
Incarnation |
The Gospel of the Incarnation
By George S. Hendry
174 pp. Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1958. $3.75.
In the title of this book, the word "gospel" perhaps deserves special emphasis,
to indicate the dominance of the theme of the work of Christ. Yet to say that
without qualification would be to violate Hendry's fundamental aim, which is to
overcome that pernicious "fragmentation of the gospel" which separates Incarnation
and Atonement, or the saving work of Christ and personal communion with the living
Lord, or Bethlehem Calvary, and Pentecost. In the emphasis on the wholeness of
the gospel of Christ, Hendry gives expression to a growing consensus in contemporary
thought. Christological statement must reflect the real unity of Person and Work,
and not simply in the sense of the oft-repeated claim that Christ must be both
truly God and truly man in order to be our reconciler (this may still be a merely
external relation of Incarnation and Atonement), but in such a way as to show
concretely how Christ's work is actually effected by his being who he is and how
the nature of his person is given in the totality of his work.
The distinctive elements in Hendry's treatment, which make this book of genuine
importance, are, it seems to me, two-fold: the way in which he locates the crucial
problem of atonement doctrine, and the at tempt to hold together Incarnation and
Atonement through the "connect ing link" of "the historical life of the incarnate
Christ" (p. 31). The former is an exciting feature of the book. More clearly than
another recent work I know, Hendry delineates the critical difficulty of the question
"how that which was accomplished by Christ in the historical work, of his incarnate
life can be transmitted, conveyed, actualized in the present and communicated
to men today" (p. 20).
In three perceptive and illuminating chapters of historical survey (chs. 3-5),
the author traces the intensification for Western thought of the appropriation
of Christ's work. This was not such a difficulty for ancient Christology, since
the affirmation of the consubstantiality of Christ with man meant "an ontological
relation with [all] mankind into which Christ entered by his Incarnation and which
forms the presupposition or precondition of his atoning work" (p. 45). The essential
unity of mankid self-evident for both Greek and Hebrew, was buttressed in Christological
doctrine by philosophical realism. Thus the vicarious character of
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Christ's work rested both on the objective ground of the unity of mankind and
on subjective appropriation by the believer; and Incarnation and Atonement were
inseparably united because the humanity of Christ was the crucial point of our
participation in his work.
With the decline of realism in later Western thought, however, these unities broke
down. The solidarity of mankind came to mean, for example, merely descent from
a common parentage or "unity" in a representative or federal head. Christ's humanity
was no longer a real bridge for our appropriation of his work, and the problem
of vicariousness became a stumbling-block. (Is this not perhaps the prime reason
for the burgeoning of specific atonement "theories" from Anselm onward-which reflects
in turn the separation of Person and Work?) Whether Christ's work becomes effective
in us by his vicarious intention and special act of grace, or by unity with Christ
in the Spirit, or by "legal" transfer, there is no longer any "natural" unity
with Christ's humanity and his work is available for us only because of his deity.
The difficulty of the problem is further heightened in modern thought, with the
attack on the penal-substitutionary theory and the growing repudiation of "natural"
and "legal" categories in favor of "ethical" and "personal" concepts. Thus the
Christological thought of the last two centuries becomes a quest for the "universality"
of Christ.
Hendry's proposed solution involves the second of the elements noted earlier:
Incarnation and Atonement can be reintegrated only by grasping firmly the connecting
link between Bethlehem and Calvary, namely, the historical life of the incarnate
Christ. This involves reappropriation of the ancient existence on finding an objective
ground for Christ's relation to men in humanity. Simple revival of the patristic
doctrine with its philosophical presuppositions is not possible for us; neither
can we be content with a Christology which employs merely "ontological" (or natural)
categories or merely "personal" categories (of history and experience; or psychological
and ethical). The Incarnation must be viewed as "coextensive with the whole life
and ministry of Christ" (p. 95). Thus Hendry argues (e.g., in chs. 2, 6, and 7)
that the relation between Christ's humanity and ours is to be found in the concrete
form of the incarnate life; the universal manhood" is to be seen in "the Jesus
of history," in the way in which his life was spent for and utterly open to others
(with which may be correlated our understanding of the interdependence of personality),
in his self-designation as "Son of Man," and in an "exchange" viewed "as something
accomplished by Christ in the whole course of his incarnate life rather than as
something established by his birth alone or his death alone" (p. 109). Forgiveness
was lived, was actual and present in him, in both living and dying. Thus the decisive
event, the
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110 - The Gospel of the Incarnation |
objective ground for our subjective appropriation, is "in the encounter, of the
incarnate Christ with men . . . not in some metaphysical transformation of the
situation beneath the level of existence, but in the establishment of a new relationship
at the level of existence" (p. 134). The essential thing which was expressed in
the Greek Fathers' view that "Christ saves us by his consubstantiality with us"
may be reformulated in terms of "his co-existence with us" (pp. 166 f.).
It is not clear to me that Hendry's restatement is a fully adequate answer to
the problem which he has so acutely delineated. This is surely the direction in
which to move, but something more must be offered in the way of an "ontology"
of personal existence and an explication of "participation" which will show how
"co-existence" can be seen as a really objective ground of our appropriation of
Christ's work. Also, much more needs to be said about the meaning of Incarnation.
Yet certainly as an acute historical analysis, as incisive survey and trenchant
critique of a wide variety of contemporary views, and as an indi. cation of a
promising road for reconstruction, this book is a major work in Christology.
Claude Welch
Yale Divinity School
New Haven, Connecticut