THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
his submission to the dispensations of God. Christ as the Word of God realizes in himself, that is in a human person, his vocation, which is the establishment of the universal ethical kingdom of God. This kingdom is the supreme self-end of God in the world, so that the complete revelation of God is present in Christ, " in whom the word of God is a human person" (p. 451). The origin of the Person of Christ is not a proper subject of inquiry, for the problem transcends all investigation (p. 451). What ecclesiastical tradition offers in this respect is obscure in itself and is not fitted to make anything clear. Christ, as the instrument of the perfect revelation, is given that we may believe on him, and believing on him we find him to be the revealer of God. But the determination of the personal relation of Christ to God the Father is not a matter of scientific inquiry. Straining after explanations will prove fruitless. It will result only in obscuring the recognition of Christ as the perfect revelation of God (p. 452). The specific and complete revelation of God in Christ is " the grace and truth " which dwelt in him. These are his divinity, and divinity does not reside in the will (p. 467). In the discharge of his vocation the essential will of God is revealed, which is love (p. 454). The only tests of the revelation of God in a human personality are " grace and truth." In Christ the divine attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are not to be sought. To be sure, to Christ is ascribed power over the world (Matt. xi. 27; etc.), but this power manifests itself chiefly as patience under suffering (p. 460). Christ's divinity is in his world-conquering power, in his own patience, and in the Christian commiuiity. It rests not in his physical origin, which has never yet been reconciled with his historic appearance and never can be (p. 467). In virtue of the love which inspired him and in view of the lordship which in his own estimate of him- Iself and by his patience he exercised over the world, he is equal with God (p. 483).
It is Ritschl's merit that he emphasized the ethical element of Christianity and insisted upon human experience as a test of the great principles 2 of the Gospel. He can preserve the
Merit and "equahty with the Father"
Limi- '^^'^ " preexistence " by exalting the
tation. love which moved Christ and by exalting Christ's vocation, which was to advance the imiversal kingdom of God. In doing this he can not avoid metaphysical subtlety and he must leave out, or explain away, utterances of Christ which on their face refer to what he calls " his physical origin " and which he says the older theologies in vain attempted to solve. Theology will not be satisfied with formulas bearing on the ethical and religious relationship of Christ and God while so much is said in the New Testament about the "physical (essential) relationship," especially as this " physical relationship " seems to be the basis of the ethical and religious unity of the Son of God and the Father.
6. The Theory of a Gradual or Progressive Incarnation is the last to be mentioned as promoting .T solution of the problem. It carried the divine
Kenosis, or the motion of God's love to men, through the whole earthly life of Christ, instead of confining it to an instantaneous act when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Virgin. When John says that the " Logos became flesh," he spoke as one of those who " beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father," as it manifested itself in his whole public life. The impossible idea of an essential self-limitation of the Logos is discarded, and in itsj
1. The place is assumed the rational idea of Theory, a limitation of the self-communication
of the Logos to hmnanity. There are' various degrees in this self-communication. The being and actuality of the Logos remained metaphysically and morally imchanged; but Jesus of Nazareth possessed the Logos merely so far as was compatible with the truth of human growth and the capacity of his expanding consciousness. In other words, the eternal personality of the divine- Logos entered into the humanity of Jesus, meas-' ure by measure as it grew, and became capable', and worthy of receiving it. There were two corre- ' sponding movements in the life of Christ — a descent of the divine consciousness, and an ascent of the human consciousness. There was a pro- ^ gressive self -communication of the divine Logos I to Jesus, and a moral growth of Jesus in holiness/ keeping step with the former. The process of union \ began with the supernatural conception, and was completed with the ascension. The first act of the incarnation of the Logos was the beginning of the man Jesus, and both constituted one undivided personality. There was a personal imity and iden-^ tity throughout the whole period, the same life of( the divine-human personality, but in actual growth, and development from germ to full organization, | from infancy to ripe manhood. Christ became 'conscious of his Godhead as he became conscious ol his manhood; but the divine life always was the j basis of his human life. The twelfth year of Jesus in the temple, and the baptism in the Jordan, mark two important epochs in the development of this divine-human consciousness. There fwas in connection with the gradual incorporation of the divine Logos into the humanity of Jesus an actual elevation of his humanity into personal union with the Godhead, as he grew in moral perfection: hence his exaltation is spoken of by Paul as a reward for his humiliation and obedience (Phil. ii. 9; cf. Heb. v. 7-10).
This theory escapes the difficulties of the Kenotic theory, and is even better reconcilable with the orthodox christology of the creeds,
2. Its as far as the result is concerned. Merits. Nearly all christologists admit now
the genuine growth and development of Christ's humanity, to which the Kenoticists add the impossible growth of the divine Logos from unconsciousness and impotence to omniscience and omnipotence. This view teaches the former without the latter, and saves the continued integrity of the Logos. There still remains the speculative problem perceived by the Reformed divines — how the infinite consciousness of the eternal Logos can ever become absolutely coincident with the