Incarnate Word

It seems to me perfectly acceptable and potentially very useful to compare the inacrnation of the Lord Jesus Christ in two natures (human and divine) with the inscriptuartion of the Word of God, which is both a human and a divine book.

Now, no doubt this is an analogy. We must avoid an illegitimate totality transfer. We need not think there is a hypostatic union between God and Man in the Bible to make use of it. All analogies break down - they are not totalities! They make points about relevant similarity. They invite us to compare and contrast and run thought experiments. They say something in a maybe new or interesting way. They need not say A is B or even the relationship between A and C is identical to the relationship between D and E in all respects. They might just say: hey, have you thought about this: is this a pattern? The incarnation seems to me to be one of the deep structures or paradigms of relatity. Of course it is unique and special in all sorts of ways, but it is also fundamental not accidental or incidental to everything else.

Further, it is no objection to the analogy as such to say that some people abuse it. For example, some people may want to assign stuff they don't get or like to the humanity of the Bible so as to be able to dismiss it. But here the true analogy can help us: Jesus and the Bible both have a perfect sinless humanity. There is no problem with the analogy here - the fault would be with the theology of the incarnation of those who argue thus.

Scripture and Incarnation

McGowan argues against Peter Enns but along with John Webster and also quoting Thomas F. Torrance, that it is dangerous to use an analogy drawn from the divine and human natures of Christ in the incarnation to speak about the divine and human aspects of Scripture.

McGowan says, “How can the Scriptures have a divine nature, since only God is divine? ... Scripture can share certain divine attributes but it cannot have a divine nature, because it is not God.” (Divine Spiration, pp120-121)

Of course we do not want to say that the Bible is God. The Bible is not a fourth member of the Trinity. Quite right. It’s hard to think that anyone would think that someone would want to say that! What are the names of these bibolators we are all supposed to be concerned about?

But we do want to say the Bible is the Words of God. The Bible is God speaking. Since God also created language and is sovereign over it, God’s words thoroughly reflect his character. God accommodates himself to human beings in his revelation (he speaks baby-language, slowly and loudly) but he does not have a speech impediment. God’s words are true because God is true.

No doubt it is possible to press the analogy between the incarnation and Scripture too far or to do silly things with it, but I still find it helpful.

The incarnation reminds us that something can be fully human and fully divine. We do not have to parcel out the humanity and the divinity of Scripture. Romans can be fully Paul’s words and fully God’s. We don’t need to take 2 different colour highlighter pens to it to mark up God’s bits and the apostle’s bits.

The incarnation also reminds us that humanity does not necessarily imply sin and error since Jesus was a perfect man. Likewise, human language is always subject to limitations (just as Jesus’ humanity was always located in space and not omnipresent) but that does not mean that it is necessary for the Bible to err to be human.

Incarnational Ministry

Could you just remind me what incarnational ministry means and whether or not we believe in it?

In a way incarnational ministry sounds a bit like motherhood and apple pie (who could be against that?) but I think some are agin it, maybe even in a big way?

To my mind "incarnational ministry" suggests two things:

(1) becoming like the people to whom we aim to minister, just as Christ became like us to serve us. As Paul was all things to all men, so should we be, that we might win some.

(2) in a way we are a continuation of the incarnation - we are Christ to people as Jesus lives in us and they see his light in us.

I know some people are nervous about both (1) and (2).

I seem to remember hearing some criticisms at vicar factory of incarnational ministry as advocated by the likes of Pete Ward in relational youth ministry?

Obviously we become like those to whom we minister in some ways but must also remain distinctive. I do not become a prostitute to win the prostitutes. And I also minister to people as they are in the hope that we will both not remain as we are but be transformed into the likeness of Christ. The Christian missionary must not go native in this wicked world.

As far as (2) goes, I can see no problem with viewing the church as in some ways a continuation of the incarnation as long as we remember that Christ is still incarnate in heaven and we are not Jesus in the same way that Jesus is! We are however his body, and he remains the head. Christ and his church are the totus christus, or some equally clever but difficult to remember, spell and understand latin term!

Calvin & Rahner on Supper & Scripture

Calvin is well known for insisting that we really receive the true, whole Christ, body and soul, as we receive the bread and wine in the Supper, though spiritually not physically.

I wonder if we could make a similar claim about receiving Christ as we read the Scriptures. Such a claim would be strengthened by Rahner’s dictum that the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity: it is the true Son, God and Man, who is presented to us in the Scriptures, not Christ only according to his human nature or as some lesser manifestation of God. The incarnate Christ offered us in the Bible does not merely represent, symbolise or signify God to us. The incarnation is not a metaphor and nor is the Supper. In both the true Christ is truly offered.

Incarnation and the possibility of meaning, speaking etc.

By the time you have thought with Paul Ricoeur (Interpretation Theroy, p25) of “… the kind of intentional exteriorization that writing exhibits….” and “… Plato’s critique of writing as a kind of alienation…” you have to say that the incarnation of the Word is the precondition of the possibility of all successful speaking, writing and meaning.

The Son is “the kind of intentional exteriorization” of the Father: he is begotten.

The Son is made even more “external” in his incarnation as he wills to become Man in a meaningful way that speaks to men.

In the inter-Trinitarian relations and the incarnation there is no alienation required or implied. Plato’s “problem” is solved since the Word does not change in becoming: he remains entirely himself. The Father’s eternal begetting of the Son is not a “loss” to him but a gain in meaning as he knows Himself in a new way in the Son.