“God, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God.” Upon first hearing this, my immediate reaction was complete dismissal. The idea seems to be repulsive to Reformed theology, which is almost obsessed with maintaining the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. Not that this is a bad thing. He is certainly that; moreover, our chief end is to glorify and enjoy him forever. We are his creatures, he is our Creator. The distinction must always be maintained; however, it is possible to emphasize certain truths at the expense of others. It isn’t a simple matter of uncritically accepting apotheosis as truth. Had the quote been taken from an incoherent or heretical context, it could easily be rejected. But it wasn’t. These are the words of Athanasius as he is nearing the conclusion of his De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, a work that ranks among the church’s most important expositions of orthodox Christology. The quote is not a superfluous part of this document. If extracted, the argument is considerably weakened. It may be the case that Athanasius is wrong, that he came to orthodox Christological conclusions through decidedly wrongheaded means. Or he could be right. In any event, it follows that, unless we want to risk compromising the doctrine of Christ, we need to give the idea of apotheosis a fair hearing.
I believe that apotheosis is not only Biblically sound, but also compatible with a Reformed understanding of theology. In previous posts, I have alluded to the idea or used it as a supporting point for another argument. After the latest of these, Chris took up the theme and posted his own ideas on the subject. We agree in many respects, but there are differences. Chief among areas of agreement is the notion that Jesus, in his prayer in John 17, expands the intra-trinitarian perichoresis to include his church. As Chris puts it, “In the cross, we see Christ loving his bride as if she were a fourth member of the trinity.”
What right does Christ have to do this, to include us in that love and union that properly belongs within the confines of the Trinity? God values and loves himself because he is intrinsically valuable and lovely. In fact, nothing can be more so. The chief duty, not only of man, but of all moral beings, is to glorify and enjoy God forever. It isn’t just that Christ loved the church enough to die for her, for even this kind of love could be less than the intra-trinitarian love. The kind of love that God has shown and continues to show to the church can only be explained in terms of our destiny. We will be made partakers of the divine nature.
Now for the chief area of disagreement. Chris follows Edwards in seeing the difference between God and man as an infinite gulf. We will spend eternity becoming more and more like God, but, because the distance will always be infinite, will never actually reach it. God, who can see all of eternity in a moment, regards us according to the end product. I have two problems with this view. The difference between God and man is quantitative. God is, in all respects, bigger than we are and that’s it. There is an infinite continuum, but no change in kind. If this is true, then our infinite progression cannot constitute apotheosis. Instead, it must presuppose that we already share the same nature. There will either be a change in our nature that allows for this eternal progress, or the possibility of such progress is already contained in our creation in the imago dei. If so, however, there isn’t any actual apotheosis. How do beings, who have been made partakers of the divine nature, improve in regard to that nature? I may be able to accept the argument that we will increase in our understanding of God throughout eternity; however, I do not see how such progress, even if it were the case, would serve to increase our moral value. It does not serve to explain why God loves us as much as he does. Furthermore, and this is my second objection, if there is no actual end product, not even God can value us as though there were. If there is an infinite gulf between God and us, no amount of progression can ever bridge it. While God may be able to see our progress at any point in the future, he can never perceive it as being complete, for it will never be complete.
Apotheosis is both instantaneous and complete. I mentioned earlier that it was compatible with a Reformed understanding of theology. This needs to be qualified. If such an understanding is frozen in the 17th century, as though the Westminster Standards were the high point of theology from which any change must necessarily be a regression, then there is no compatibility. Reformed theology was both a reaction to and a product of its time. As a reaction, it was an improvement; as a product, it didn’t go far enough. The WS are an exposition of Covenant theology. This theology was developed by the Reformers, but they did not invent it.
Reformed theology defined justification to eternal life in terms of the imputed righteousness of Christ. Before this, the majority view was that eternal life was merited by individuals. There were two different ways of looking at this. The intellecualist school believed that certain acts were intrinsically meritorious. God noted that they had been performed and was obligated to give the exact reward that was due each act. Gradually, however, the voluntarist school began to take over. In this view, an act was meritorious for no other reason than God wanting it to be. God was completely free to do anything he wanted to short of logical contradictions. Since God decided whether there could be meritorious acts, he also decided what they were and how much he wanted to pay for each one. Under the intellectualist school, God had been a cosmic manager who, himself, bowed to an even higher authority. In the voluntarist school, he actually got to be God; however, he was a bit too transcendent. The only way to bring him under control and provide any connection to how people should behave was by having him freely enter into a covenant. Things were the way they were because he said so.
The voluntarists retained an element of intellectualist thought. The state of justification involved an ontological change. Those who were justified were partakers of the divine nature. The problem was that this didn’t last. The Reformers denied that justification was a temporary ontological change. It was not an infusion of grace, but was the imputed righteousness of Christ. As far as it went, the Reformed concept of soteriology was much more biblically accurate than that which it opposed (I merely state this; it is not my purpose here to defend it). Even so, it didn’t go far enough.
Despite a conscious attempt to rely solely on Scripture, Reformed theology did not leave voluntarism. The question was never whether human merit was an effective means of salvation had God wanted it that way. God was still absolutely free to do whatever he wanted; it’s just that he wanted something other than Catholic theologians had imagined. Reformed theology recognized a problem with making a justification a present ontological reality. There solution was to do something that any voluntarist could have done all along: take away the ontological aspect. After all, if God could decree whatever he wanted to accept, imputation was just as good as reality. This was a mistake. As long as the question was, “What does justification look like right now?” then they were correct in denying any ontological change. The Reformers had a narrow focus. They recognized the value of a covenant in which God declared the terms of salvation. They just weren’t all that concerned with the nature of covenants. To them, the covenant itself was a legal framework imposed on the created order. God was under no obligation to enter any covenant, much less this particular one.
The key doctrine of the Reformation was justification. The connection of justification to merit was rightly retained- in order for the righteousness of Christ to be imputed to us, he still has to merit it. Nevertheless, the Reformers never moved away from the medieval debate on the grounds of merit. They saw the problem with tying justification to a present ontology and chose the one option that did not necessitate this. From this point, however, even though other doctrines that they held were orthodox, this was only because God had so decreed it. There was little, if any, connection among the doctrines themselves. The dubious voluntaristic presuppositions of the Reformation had set the course for Protestantism in general. Either maintain technical orthodoxy by retreating into the anti-intellectual propositions of fundamentalism; or go soft on doctrines the contrary of which do not pose an immediate logical contradiction to salvation.
It would be a case of the genetic fallacy to say that, just because a major presupposition of the Reformation was in error, the individual doctrines must be. There is a more consistently biblical support for Reformed theology than voluntarism. This can be found in the eschatological studies of Geerhardus Vos, which were developed in response to liberal theology within Protestantism, and in the further work of Meredith Kline.
Eschatology is often relegated to the order of certain events right around the return of Christ. Sometimes people can get extremely touchy about their particular sequence; others contend that this doctrine causes a lot more polemics than it is worth for something so relatively minor (read: that does not pose an immediate logical contradiction to salvation). But eschatology does not refer to the tying up of loose ends. It speaks of heaven, of the created order of eternal things, of the dwelling place of God and the final dwelling place of man. It exists alongside the temporal creation and is the goal for which man was created. It is not the case that a covenant was superimposed on this creation. Rather, the covenant reflects the order of the heavenly realm. Man was not created as the highest of all animals, but was created in the Image of God. By doing this, God designed man to be a citizen of Heaven. Once God had made a creature in his Image, justice demanded that a way be provided for man to fulfill all that that Image entailed. The first revelation of this way was in the Covenant of Works, whereby obedience thereto would give Adam and all his posterity the right to eternal life. And this was not to be a mere stretching out of the existence that he already possessed, but a translation into the existence of Heaven.
The concept of justice seen in the eschatological view is unlike both the intellectualist and voluntarist schools. It is neither something apart from God and dictating how he must act, nor is it an arbitrary decision on his part. Rather, justice is an integral part of who God is and this justice is revealed by means of the covenant. Contrary to the WCF VII.1, God did not create man first and then decide to enter a covenant with him. Instead, man was already in a covenantal relation with God by virtue of being created in his Image. By keeping the terms of this covenant, Adam would have merited eternal life.
The Covenant of Works is so called because the reward is received only through merit. By actually doing that which is righteous and, thereby, proving that he is righteous, Adam would be declared righteous by God; that is, God would justify him. The promised reward of this verdict of righteousness was eternal life, which would be brought about by changing human nature from a corruptible to an incorruptible condition. As it happened, Adam failed and God entered into a Covenant of Grace. This is not an entirely new covenant but the same Covenant of Works with a different federal head. Since this covenant was made with man created in the Image of God, only such a man would qualify to fulfill its terms. Since the broken covenant brought with it a punishment opposite that of eternal life, no mere man could pay it. The Second Adam had to be both God and man. Not only would he pay the debt of the broken covenant in full, but he would fulfill the terms of that covenant and be declared righteous. Justification is primarily a declaration made of the Federal Head upon his meriting eternal life. Christ had to die in order to pay for sin, but he could not remain dead because he had been justified. Once the promised reward is given, i.e., translation to an incorruptible state, death is impossible.
The medieval church had thought of justification in terms of merit and ontological change. This was correct, they just got the timing wrong. Rather than one future and eternal change, they saw a present change that necessarily reverted to its former state when a person sinned again. The Reformers objected and said that justification was the present imputation of the righteousness of Christ. That is, the merits of Christ are credited to our account. We remain in sin but are declared to be righteous. With this declaration is the guarantee that we will one day be sinless. This is often the furthest that Reformed theology has taken the doctrine of justification and it is inadequate. I am not suggesting that it is wrong as far as it goes, but that there is a deeper level to our justification. Not only did Christ die in our place, but we have been crucified with Christ. Substitutionary atonement is true, but it is also the case that we have died in Christ. Moreover, by virtue of our union with Christ, we have fulfilled the covenant with him. Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection, ours is yet to come; however, it is just as assured. We who have been one with Christ in his merits, must be one with him in his reward. God’s justice demands this and so, while we await the resurrection, God can both be just and our justifier.
In the opening of his post, Chris agrees with Tim Keller who says that the joy set before Christ, which was his motive for enduring the cross, was not fellowship with the Father but love for his bride. I believe that this is a false dichotomy. While it is true that the Logos had fellowship with the Father before the incarnation, the very act of incarnation created a breach in the divine perichoresis. This is not to say that a great degree of fellowship did not still remain, but he could not enjoy the same level of fellowship in his incarnation as he had before. Because the Son of God had to assume all that we are in order to heal us, he who had once been only God was now one with corruptible humanity. And then when Christ became sin for us on the cross, the Father turned his back. That which had been diminished in the incarnation was ruptured altogether. He descended into Hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead. Remember that eternal life is the promised reward for merit in the Covenant of Works. Christ was resurrected because he had been justified. Now, consider what Romans 1:3,4 says about God’s Son. He was “ descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord...” In his The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit, Vos writes, “The reference is not to two coexisting sides in the constitution of the Saviour, but to two successive stages in His life: there was first a genesthai kata sarka, then a horisthenai kata pneuma. The two prepositional phrases have adverbial force: they descibe the mode of the process, yet so as to throw emphasis on the result than on the initial act: Christ came into being as to His sarkic existence, and he was introduced by horismos into his pneumatic existence."
Compare this with what Peter has to say about the resurrection in Acts 13:32.33- “And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’” The Logos is the eternally begotten Son of God. Christ was always this according to his divine nature. However, Peter is not referring to this. Nor is Paul referring to the dual natures of Christ in Romans 1, but to the successive stages of Christ’s life as to his human nature. The incarnate Christ was declared to be the Son of God in power. This was not an empty declaration; it reflected reality. And because it depended on the historical event of the resurrection, it was not a mere declaration of that which was already true regardless of that event. He who was and would always remain the Son of God according to his divine nature merited eternal life and, being granted his reward, was declared to be the Son of God according to his human nature. Full participation in the divine perichoresis was now restored. This time, however, Christ had won a place for his bride.
The incarnate Christ will forever be one person in two natures. His human nature was not so transmuted into the divine nature as to be redundant. Nevertheless, it was elevated to the same “value, worth, and loveliness” as his uncreated nature. Apotheosis will be true of us because it has already been true of Christ.