Christ's Person, the Holy Spirit, and Apostolic Doctrine

Introduction: The Resurrection and Ascension as Doctrinal Questions

The particulars of the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ, and the prophecy of His Return to Judgment, cannot be interpreted as properly essential parts of the doctrine of His Person.

When we compare these events with the canon for dogmatic statements — on the one hand the propositions concerning the Person of Christ set forth in our own argument, and on the other the statements contained in the oldest creeds expressing these facts (that is, the Resurrection, Ascension, and Judgment) — it becomes clear that the former correspond to both requirements insisted upon, while the latter correspond to neither. If the saving efficacy of Christ depends upon the being of God in Him, and trust in Him is based upon the impression that such a living divine indwelling is present, then it is not possible to prove any immediate connection between these facts and that doctrine. The disciples acknowledged Him as the Son of God without the faintest forewarning of His Resurrection or Ascension; we may say the same of ourselves. Furthermore, neither the spiritual presence He assured nor all that He said about His lasting influence upon those left behind is mediated through either of these two facts (Orlinsky & Bratcher, 1991).

This may well depend upon His sitting at the right hand of God — an expression which, since it may be strictly impossible to take literally, we must understand simply as denoting the peculiar and incomparable dignity of Christ, raised above all conflict. It does not depend, however, upon a visible resurrection or ascension, since Christ could have been raised to glory even without these intermediate steps. If so, it is impossible to see in what relation either of these facts stands to the redeeming efficacy of Christ. It is true that Paul seems to attribute to the resurrection, as much as to the death, a share of its own in redemption; yet the way in which he brings it forward as a guarantee of our own resurrection shows that he does not think of it as having an exclusive connection with the peculiar being of God in Christ. Nor is it ever adduced as evidence of the divine indwelling in Christ; for it is everywhere ascribed, not to Christ Himself, but to God.

No more does John adduce the visible ascension as a proof of the higher dignity of Christ. Hence we may safely credit everyone familiar with dogmatic statements with the recognition that the right impression of Christ can be, and has been, present in its fullness without a knowledge of these facts.

Return to Judgment

So far as the Return to Judgment is concerned, we can treat of its doctrinal significance only at a later point. Here it need only be remarked that although the Judgment, in so far as we regard it as a transferable divine act, is closely bound up with the work of redemption — such that it is not easy to think that God could hand it over to any but the Redeemer — this implies nothing greater in the Person of Christ than we already ascribe to Him apart from this consideration. In any case, it does not really belong to the work of redemption itself, since those who believe do not come into judgment.

Considered as the Return of Christ, however, it is connected with the Ascension as its counterpart. Just as the Ascension is only an accidental form for effecting the sitting at the right hand of God, so also the promise of return is only an accidental form for the satisfaction of the longing to be united with Christ (Bruce & Rupp, 1968). And just as the incomprehensible and miraculous in the Ascension cannot be made dependent on the divine in Christ — which reveals itself as the impulse to all His free actions, the Ascension being nowhere presented as His own act — no more can the miraculous in the Return be made so dependent. The dissimilarity between our propositions above and these assertions must therefore be clear to everyone.

Descent into Hell

The case is somewhat different with Christ's so-called Descent into Hell. According to its dominant idea, this would certainly belong to His redemptive activities — if only we could regard it as a fact. It would then have to be regarded as an exercise of His prophetic and high-priestly office towards those who had died before His appearance. But the only passage that seems to treat of this descent does not clearly include anything of the kind; and furthermore, the transaction, even under this extended interpretation, would not correspond to the task to be accomplished as we are bound to understand it (Denny & Taylor, 1985). For all those who have died since His appearance without having heard the preaching of the Gospel have the same claims as the others. Moreover, the expressions used in that passage by no means compel us to assume such an otherwise unattested fact, nor do they fix the time at which it is supposed to have happened. For these reasons the Descent has been completely omitted from our proposition.

Conclusion

The ancients viewed the State in which all are unconditionally subject to the will of an individual as an enlarged household, where various living tools move at the command of one master; and school for us means a spiritual life in common that entirely depends on the thinking power and art of making disciples possessed by an individual, who puts a common stamp on them all. In this sense, of course, Christ's life in company with His disciples was both a household and a school. But a house is scattered on the master's death, and if its members are not caught up in some new bond, they disperse. So too in a school, if no other common motive comes to replace the original thirst for learning and personal attachment, no further progress takes place after the master's death, and the previous bond of union gradually dissolves. We find the disciples in just such a mood to disperse after Christ's death; and up to the time of His Ascension their life together was so much interrupted and diminished as to become quite formless. Even when Christ was alive, each felt mainly dependent upon Him and sought to receive from Him; none considered himself ready for free spontaneous activity in the Kingdom of God yet to be formed (Bruce & Rupp, 1968).

Taking all these considerations together, we find that the various ideas of how the future life is attached to the present are incapable of being made perfectly definite. As the essential content of the doctrine there remains only this: that the Ascension of the risen Redeemer was possible only if all other human individuals too can look forward to a renovation of organic life which has links of attachment to our present state; and further, that the development of the future state must be posited on the one hand as dependent on Christ's divine power, and on the other as a cosmic event for which arrangements have been made in the universal divine world-order.

Bibliography

Bruce, F. F., and Rupp, E. G., eds. Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. 1968.

Denny, F. M., and Taylor, R. L. The Holy Bible in Comparative Perspective. 1985.

Orlinsky, H. M., and Bratcher, R. M. A History of Bible Translation and the North American Contribution. 1991.