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Christianity Today, January, 2008 |

Ongoing Incarnation

Would Christmas have come even if we had not sinned?

Philip Yancey | posted 1/10/2008 08:52AM

More than two centuries before the Reformation, a theological debate broke out that pitted theologian Thomas Aquinas against an upstart from Britain, John Duns Scotus. In essence, the debate circled around ...

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Clarence E. Roberts

Posted: January 22, 2008 9:48 PM

This a very insightful article. God is Father, Son and Spirit, a relational Being. It's a relationship so beautiful and joyous that the couldn't keep it to themselves. From the foundation of the world humans were predestined to be sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus. Through the incarnation of Jesus, all humanity shares intimately in the relationship of God the Trinity. Jesus is our life. We now live in His ascended humanity. Now Jesus, the God/Man, who dwells face to face with the Father in the fellow-ship of the Spirit, shares forever, the beauty and joy and blessedness of His shared life with the Father and the Spirit. God's sole purpose in creating was to adopt us. That eternal purpose has already been accomplished in Christ. Amen!

P.E. Winter

Posted: January 13, 2008 4:04 PM


Why should a protestant/Lutheran be concerned with either Scotus or Aquinas. They are the epitome of Scholasticism, the very group that Martin Luther had fought against to regain the Gospel? Pastor Yancey, do you wish to return to Rome?

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: January 13, 2008 9:37 AM

"Ongoing Incarnation" is a misnomer! A standing, exact reverse of incarnation at the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, as is actually the case, by which all will know God firsthand and personally is beyond comparison. There is much we still do not know because we accept as our authority for sound doctrine anybody else except the knowable Person and teaching of Jesus Christ. Just like Paul did! (1 Tim. 1:11)

Paul Santomauro

Posted: January 12, 2008 10:52 PM


"...in recent years prominent Catholics such as Karl Rahner have taken a closer look at Duns Scotus. Perhaps evangelicals should, too." Of course, Mr. Yancey. and since we are at it, why don't we take a "closer" look at the doctrine of The Immaculate Conception, of which Duns Scotus was a staunch supporter ?

PJ	Posted: January 12, 2008 8:58 PM

This is not about the article ... I'm curious about the train of study you're in, and what subject you will tackle in a next book. Your books are an intelligent and grace imbued lifeline when the church local is more about patronizing legalism and programs, and there seems little hope of finding or influencing it otherwise. Hope that you have fully recovered from your car accident that was some time back, and that you continue to write. Thank you for the books you have already written.

CBob	Posted: January 12, 2008 10:14 AM


Sounds alot like Karl Barth's "Doctrine of Reconciliation": God as already reconciled the world/universe/all creation to himself in Christ (Eph.).

Mike Ross

Posted: January 12, 2008 7:53 AM

It is interesting, as a convert from american baptist evangelicalism that I discovered, in the ancient writings of the Fathers and Saints of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (NO, NOT the Papacy), the stuff that seemingly gets "redicovered" on this site. Amazing that as an 'enlightened' american protestant, that we could learn any thing. We all 'knew' that the Christian church was hijacked by the 2nd century and did not really 'emerge' till the socalled 'reformation'. Now we even have the schismatic and heretical 'emergant church' movement, which, if you ask the really hard questions and search the documents of Church history, is nothing new at all, just another bunch of do-it-yerselfers...trying to 're-invent'...from their own darkened minds, the Church. Tisk tisk, a Blessed Nativity ....Jan 7 n.s./Dec 25 julian , Hristos Razjietsa ....Sliviti Yehoo, mikhail

H. D. Schmidt

Posted: January 11, 2008 10:16 PM

First this question: How can I be guilty of sin when I was born into the world over which I had no control with a weak mind and already with the tendency to sin, while not even beeing capable of knowing truly what is right nor wrong and much less, having the capacity not to sin, completely unlike Jesus himself who evidently was given a perfect brain? Secondly: Why did God in a sense had to "bother" a young girl to give us Jesus, when, could he not have "made" him like he did Adam? So, why a human womb with 9 month to go, with all the dangerous things involved, as was the case, that his parents even had to flee in order to safe Jesus baby life? I am not a Theologian, however I will play one by stating the following: Yes, God chose a human womb to for ever state that, the sanctity of human life begins at conception and that abortion is the likes of murdering a human being and by extension in a way, a crucifying of Jesus over and over. This point is never ever made! Yes the born baby!

Don Lasher

Posted: January 11, 2008 2:03 PM

A very "attention getting" lead-in. Unfortunately the article does nothing to prove the point one way or another. We need less speculation about what the scriptural writers MIGHT have been alluding to and more emphasis on what it DOES say. The Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the scriptures to write what we needed to know so we could have acceptance of Our Savior and faith to follow Him. The Bible is clear that Christ redemed us from sin and has offered us inclusion within the Trinitarian family. Lets wait to hear "the rest of the story" from the authoritative source rather than human speculation.

Mark Clark

Posted: January 11, 2008 10:21 AM

Without sin and the need for atonement and reconciliation why would Jesus have to come? To be Emmanuel, God with us? Genesis states that after their sin, Adam and Eve heard God moving in the Garden--how perfect was the presence/manifestation/relationship/incarnation of God with them for this to happen. If sin had not shattered this relationship how would it have been improved? John 1 highlights the reason for Christ's incarnation--because His creation did not know Him. Why? Because of sin. Please forgive the simple explanation from a simple mind. Question: would we have been adopted into God's family without the Fall? Were we in God's family before the Fall and had to be adopted back into the family because we had lost our birthright through sin?

ANN	Posted: January 11, 2008 10:06 AM

Jesus was born to fulfil what he had promised Abraham and his decendents. Rom 15:8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises [made] unto the fathers: He was to show his chosen people who he was. He spent 3 years performing miracles and teaching but they rejected him. He was a minister to the circumcision which was Israel. We had no part of this promise starting with Abraham until after the cross. Eph 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: We had no hope. Israel was to believe who he was and they were supposed to be our ministers to lead us to Christ. And Paul is not stating his opinion, he is writing what Jesus himself revealed to him after the work of the cross. We are not told in scripture to celebrate Christmas but we are to remember the cross by the Lord's Supper.

F McDonald

Posted: January 11, 2008 8:08 AM

Far too intellectual for me but why should I not comment? < This is what infralapsarianism has cogently answered for centuries. > Why is it that an intellectual theory can work out God's mind when I am baptised with the Holy Spirit and I can't? .....yet..... Can you work out the problems of predestination? God has it all worked out. Can you work out God's mind? Then are you not in danger of calling God a liar? Is Ch 55 v 8 still valid today? and tomorrow? The bible is full of mysteries that God put there knowing wise men even intellectuals even sages will never understand with their own minds. When man digs into God's mind ( predestination ) and dangerously thinks man can think with God's mind salvation suffers and so does water baptism!

freedom from sin not freedom in the abstract

Posted: January 11, 2008 7:56 AM

The problem with Cosmic Christ theory is as Augustine pointed out: It does not emphasize enough that Jesus and the Father did their work our sake: "For our sake" means we need Christ because of our sin. Ignoring this makes us ungrateful and does not emphasize enough that we should stop sinning as a consequence of Christ dying for our sin. Therefore we end up believing that Christ's incarnation frees us in any event because he came anyway even if we did not sin; to free us in the abstract sense. But Jesus came to free us from our sins. It was for that purpose that the Lamb died. Just as John the Baptist said. Yancey is typical of the bright starry-eyed celebrity writers who want us to have plenty of "feelgood" in our religion and plenty of grace but without the necessary emphasis on morality, especially morality which has gone wrong, right from the beginning. Our morality depends on our gratitude for Jesus and the Father's atoning work.c.f. Augustin's "Morality of the Catholic Church"

Barbara

Posted: January 11, 2008 5:35 AM

Jesus Christ was neither incarnated nor born on Dec. 25. “Christmas” is the Christianized version of the Saturnalia during which the Roman Empire celebrated the annual rebirth of the sun god. Yancey is promoting “another Christ”— the “cosmic Christ” of Duns Scotus who also defended the false doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary against Thomas Aquinas, who repudiated it. Scotus devised a systematic theology of the Immaculate Conception based on the false doctrine that Mary was granted redemption before birth and therefore conceived without original sin. This dogma of the Catholic Church elevated Mary to co-mediator along with Jesus Christ. This “deified” Mary is the Roman Catholic analogue of the Mother Goddess, Isis, whose son, Horus, is worshipped throughout the pagan world as the “cosmic Christ” at the Winter Solstice. "Would Christmas have occurred if humanity had not sinned?" Yes, because pagan humanity has always worshipped the sun god as the Cosmic Christ.

Russell

Posted: January 10, 2008 11:23 PM

"the church extends the Incarnation through time." It all depends on what one means by "extends". I would hope every Christian and every Christian thinker would uphold the absolute uniqueness of the incarnation and the qualitative chasm between Christ's assumed human nature and the church as the body of Christ. Is there not a temptation to get a certain theological 'kick' out of taking the sacred truths of God and the Incarnation and somehow hijacking them for ourselves, claiming that we are the incarnation, we are God?

Big Al

Posted: January 10, 2008 9:37 PM


Oh, forevermore! Another "what if" so the church can be even more divided that now, if possible.

Dennis Dahl

Posted: January 10, 2008 4:55 PM


I do not think that Jesus' atoned (covered over) our sins, but rather redeemed us (paid the price) for our sins, all of which are forever forgiven. Creation, I think has a transcendent purpus as well, one of which is to once and for all deal with sin, even that which is in the Heavenly Realms. Could that then not mean that our fellowship of sharing in Christs sufferings have profound meaning?

Robert Morris

Posted: January 10, 2008 4:40 PM

Bravo for this reclaiming of Duns Scotus' cosmic perspective. An additional thought: as we grow into the "fullness of the stature of Christ" (Eph. 4:13) we are promised that, in the End, we will become (no less than) "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) — not God, of course, but able to participate as fully as human nature can in God's own light, life, and love. The ultimate goals of the Incarnation are both to remedy the catastrophe of our separation due to sin (Aquinas) and thus to restore us to God's original intention for us, our inclusion in the Incarnation of God as members of Christ (Scotus). They go together. An observation: in this context it's a bit jarring to talk about Jesus "visit to this planet," as if he were not "bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh," fully human as well as fully divine. In Christ, the Eternal Word indwelt fully human life, "lifting manhood (i.e. human nature) into God" (as the Ancient Athanasian Creed puts it.)

gr8fulsteve

Posted: January 10, 2008 3:34 PM


I'm sorry, but I think all of you, including Mr. Yancey, whom I respect and revere, are getting caught up in a "how many angels can dance on the head of a needle" type of discussion. Maybe I'm just not academic enough, but I don't see the value of this discussion. Thank you for your consideration.

Ted Johnston

Posted: January 10, 2008 3:29 PM

This article is an important contribution to an on-going dialogue in evangelicalism concerning the nature of the atonement. For a more detailed analysis, I commend the book, Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness by C. Baxter Kruger and Alan Torrance. They argue that the purpose for incarnation is the adoption of humankind into the love and life of God in and through Jesus, the unique God-man. It can be argued that adoption was God's plan to be worked out through incarnation whether sin entered or not. The plan for adoption thus precedes both creation and the fall. Creation, incarnation as well as justification (the latter necessitated by the fall) are all means to one end: adoption.

The G

Posted: January 10, 2008 3:20 PM


The answer is No. There's no need for Christmas when we are still walking with God in Eden!

Darrell Cosden

Posted: January 10, 2008 1:49 PM

The view of Scotus as presented in this editorial has a much longer history of course.It has been the consistent view of the Eastern Church since Irenaeus. It is the Western Church mired in the paradoxes created by an Augustinian way of approaching creation and redemption (arguably never fully transcending the Gnostic tendencies) that has had to tie itself into knots over this and the lapsarian debates. Evangleicals would do well to reappropriate this Ireanean and Orthodox understanding, for my cursory reading suggests that it is a better more consistent proposal than Scotus'.

bluazul

Posted: January 10, 2008 1:40 PM

Excellent article! I also like the emphasis on the both/and. Looking at what might have been is useful in finding a richer and deeper understanding of God and our relationship to him. It is definitely fascinating that both positions were found to be orthodox, particularly at a time when potentially differing opinions were not looked highly upon. This situation emphasizes that the Gospel has multiple elements. Salvation is important, but there is A LOT more. As evangelicals, though, we tend to under-emphasize these other elements, that would include an inherent Incarnationalism in God. Sometimes looking at something differently can help us appreciate it more. It doesn't mean getting rid of our current beliefs, but making them more well-rounded and richer.

Mike	Posted: January 10, 2008 1:36 PM


Yancey doesn't seem to understand the difference between Creation and Redemption, nor the role of Christ as the Second Adam. The fact that there would have been no need for the eternal Son to be made man had the first Adam not sinned does not make the Incarnation an "afterthought" or "plan B." This is what infralapsarianism has cogently answered for centuries.

Rita Nolan

Posted: January 10, 2008 12:45 PM


A good reminder of Jesus' larger-than-life, cosmic identity...He's so much more than man who lived and died thousands of years ago.

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