The old Christological heresies were revived during the
Reformation in debate between Lutherans and Reformed. The Lutherans insisted
that a unity between the divine and human natures in Christ resulted in one
person, the God-man, Jesus Christ. The Reformed stressed the individuality of
the two natures in Christ to such an extent that they almost asserted that
there were in Christ two personalities. The philosophical undergirding of Reformed
Christology was their principle that the finite is not capable of the infinite
(finitum non est capax infinitii). This principle surfaced prominently
in the Reformed denial of the actual bodily presence of Christ in the Sacrament
of the Altar; but the controversy over the Lord’s Supper was only the
reflection and result of a deeper Christological disagreement. The differences
between Lutherans and Reformed first surfaced in Luther’s debate with Zwingli.
The false claim has since been made that Luther and Melanchthon disregarded the
ancient Christological formulations. This view is often supported with an appeal
to Melanchthon’s famous dictum, “To know Christ means to know His benefits.” However,
the rest of the phrase is seldom quoted, “. . . and not as they [the
scholastics] teach, to reflect upon His natures and the modes of His
incarnation.” (Melanchthon, Loci, 19-21). Albrecht Ritschl used this phrase
to post the popular theory in Reformation studies that the doctrine of the two
natures is irrelevant when one knows Christ according to His benefits. The notion
that Luther and Melanchthon were disinterested in the Christology of the
Christian tradition is proven false when the Lutheran debate with the Reformed is
studied. (“There can be no doubt that Ritschl’s interpretation is in error.
Melanchthon’s words must be understood from the perspective of his polemical
posture against the speculative explanations of the scholastics. The point is
that Christology must not be isolated. It must be seen in context which the
work of Christ. It is the preoccupation with how God could become man [modus
incarnationis] which he rejects as leading to useless speculation.” Grane, Augsburg
Confession, 57) The Lutherans saw the old heresy of Nestorianism being
revived in Reformed Christology, in which the divine and human natures of Christ
were understood as incapable of embracing each other. Platonisms’s principle
that the transcendent ideal is incapable of full expression in the material
things of this world was responsible for the aberrant Christology of Arianism
as well as Nestorius and now was seen in the Christology of Calvin and his
followers. (David P. Scaer, Christology [Confessional Lutheran
Dogmatics 6; Fort Wayne, Ind.: The International Foundation for Lutheran Confessional
Research, Inc., 1989], 15-16, emphasis in bold added)
What is distinctively Lutheran is the understanding that
because of this personal union, the man Jesus, whom the Formula calls, “the
Son of man,” always possesses the divine majesty with all of God’s attributes,
a point which the Reformed have continued to oppose. Berkhof claims that the Lutheran
assertion that the divine attributes are communicated to the human nature is tantamount
to its denial. Luther had to face a similar charge; namely that his Christology
was similar to the Eutychian fusion of the divine and human in Christ. The
Reformer’s theology of the cross was strong affirmation of Christ’s humanity. (Ibid.,
30)
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