Bavinck (Hypostatic Union)

7/28/2019 Bavinck (Hypostatic Union)

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Bavincks Understanding of Christ the Mediators Hypostatic Union

Byung Ho Moon

1. Introduction

Although Herman Bavinck had a profound knowledge in philosophy

as well as in Scriptural principles and in the history of Christian Doctrines,

he did not attempt to undertake any philosophical apologetics to defend his

own doctrinal systematization. He founded the whole system of his theology

upon, so-called, principles (principia), referred to either as principles of

revelation (principia revelationis) or as principles of theology (principiatheologiae).1)

The principles of revelation consist of the principle of being

(principium essendi), which says that the revealed divine knowledge exists

absolutely and objectively in se or per se, and the principle of knowing

(principium cognoscendi), which says that it is written in the Scripture and

handed over to us as Gods word by the illumination and persuasion of the

Holy Spirit.2) Bavinck regards these principles as rooted in the Trinitarian

being of God, as he concludes, It is the Father who, through the Son as

Logos, imparts himself to his creatures in the Spirit.3)

Gods revelation is mystery, as are the being and economy of the

Triune God. Christ, who came into this world, is Gods mystery revealed

in a bodily form (Col. 2:2). In other words, Gods mystery revealed is the

mystery of Christ (Col. 4:3). Christ Himself is a mystery and revelation.

That is why the Incarnation is the climax, crown, and completion: All

revelation tends toward and groups around the incarnation as the highest,

richest, and most perfect act of self-revelation.4)

The Incarnation is an historical event when the divinity of Jesus

1) Cf. Donald Macleod, Bavincks Prolegomena: Fresh Light on Amsterdam, Old Princeton,

and Cornelius Van Til, Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006), 261-82.

2) Cf. Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, tr. J. Hendrik De Vries (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 341 ff.

3) Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, tr. John Vriend

(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 207-214, quotation from 214.

4) Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt,

tr. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 278. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics,

379-80: The center of that[the] revelation is the person of Christ. And Christ is a

historical person; his incarnation, his suffering and death, its resurrection and ascension

to heaven are not susceptible of repetition. Indeed it is integral to the incarnation thathe enter history and live in the form(s) of time.


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Christ the Mediator who came into the world was united with humanity in

one person. The Son, the second person of the Trinity, as the eternal

Word of God, became man, with His essence unchanged. In such mystery

of the Incarnation lies the mystery of creation, revelation and piety.

Bavinck argues that, from this point of view, Christology is at the center of

all theology.5)

The doctrine of Christ is not the starting point, but it certainly is

the central point of the whole system of dogmatics. All other dogmas

either prepare for it or are inferred from it. In it, as the heart of

dogmatics, pulses the whole of the religious-ethical life of

Christianity. It is the mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:16). From thismystery all Christology has to proceed. If, however, Christ is the

incarnate Word, then the incarnation is the central fact of the entire

history of the world: then, too, it must have been prepared from

before the ages and have its effects throughout eternity.6)

After the order where John Calvin had placed Christology in his

book The Institutes of the Christian Religion,7) Bavinck treated Christology

in such sections as the Covenant of Grace, the Person of Christ, and

the Work of Christ, which again is divided in two sections, Christs

humiliation and Christs exaltation, in his two major works: Reformed

Dogmatics (Gereformeerde Dogmatiek) and Our Reasonable Faith (Magnalia

Dei).8) This order of teaching (ordo docendi) has been inherited to books

on systematic theology in subsequent generations by Francis Turretin,

Heinrich Heppe, and Charles Hodge.9) We can see, from the order, the fact

5) These following theologians, although their views vary, are in agreement to find the

centrality of Christology in the doctrine of the two natures of Christ. Cf. G. C.

Berkouwer, The Person of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 21-56; Donald G.

Bloesch, Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1997), 11-24; Donald

Macleod, The Person of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1997), 181-203; Chirley C.

Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine (Atlanta: John Knox, 1986), 223-225; Bernard L. Ramm, An

Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic (New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers,

1985), 15-27.

6) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.274.

7) Institutio christianae religionis, in libros quatuor nunc primum digesta, certisque distincta

capitibus, ad aptissimam methodum:aucta etiam tam magna accessione ut propemodum

opus novum haberi possit, 1559, 2,6-17.

8) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.193-482; Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, tr.

Henry Zylstra (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 260-385.

9) Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison, tr. GeorgeMusgrave Giger (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1994), 2.169-500.


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that the Reformed Christology dynamically implies the doctrines of

revelation and soteriology.10)

This article will argue that some characteristics of the Reformed

Christology stand out in Bavincks theology by the hypostatic union theory

of the divinity and humanity of Christ the Mediator. Section 2 will discuss

the significance of the Incarnation as the historical event of the hypostatic

union from the perspectives of the Trinity, creation and revelation. Section

3 deals with conception by the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the hypostatic

union and the communication between divinity and humanity. Section 4

argues that mediation according to hypostatic union is the fulfillment of all

prophetic covenants and the mediation of union that opens the door for

Gods children to commune with Him, by examining how mediation is beingunfolded in His Humiliation and Exaltation and what implication it has on

the expiation of our sins. Section 5 summarizes and concludes the

discussion on the hypostatic union that Bavinck is arguing.

2. Three Elements of the Incarnation

2.1. The Trinity

First, Bavinck points out that, in order to be Scriptural and

Christian, we need to hold on to the mystery of the Incarnation, while we

would lose the riches of Scripture and the honor of Christ when we lose

sight of it.11) He thinks that the mystery of the Incarnation is an event that

the eternal decree of the Trinitarian God has been fulfilled historically.

As subject, as I, he did not descend from Adam but was the Son

of the Father, chosen from eternity to be the head of a new

covenant. Not Adam but God was his father. As a person he was

not the product of humankind but himself came to humankind from

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols., rep (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995),

2.354-638. Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Set out and Illustrated from the

Sources, tr. G. T. Thomson, rev. ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1950), 371-509.

10) Cf. Cornelius Van Til, Bavinck the Theologian, Westminster Theological Journal

1961(24/1), 1-17. This is written as a review paper for the following work, R. H.

Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als Dogmaticus (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1961).

11) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.304. Cf. B. B. Warfield, The Two Natures and Recent

Christological Speculation, in Christology and Criticism (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1932), 259: The doctrine of the Incarnation is the hinge on which the Christiansystem turns.


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The Incarnation is a proper work of the second person of the

Trinity, the Son. Bavinck confirms his position from the statement

produced at the sixth Synod of Toledo (AD 638). Only [the Son] assumes

human nature in the singularity of the person, not in the unity of the

divine nature: in what is peculiar to the Son, not what is common to the

Trinity.17) The Incarnation, however, is the work jointly done by the

persons of the Trinity, as are all other works of God.18) Comments by

Bavinck on the Incarnation as follows, are in compliance with the standard

statement of the economic trinity: Yet though subjectively and as it

pertains to its end, the incarnation is peculiar only to the Son, still with

respect to its origin, beginning, and effectiveness, it is a work of the whole

Trinity.19)

2.2. Creation

Second, Bavinck starts the discussion of the Incarnation by hinting

at the possibility of the creation of human beings from the eternal

begetting of the Son by the Father. Expounding the doctrine of creation,

Bavinck asserts that the inward work (opus ad intra), expressed by

generation (generatio) and procession (processio), reflects the outward work

(opus ad extra) of the work of creation. Particularly, it is the creating of

man, also called the image of the Trinity (imago trinitatis), that best

represents the stamps of the Trinity (vestigia trinitatis).20)

Bavinck sees that the creation of man had been planned under the

presupposition of Gods incarnation, for Adam was already a type of

Christ. If so, is Bavinck on the same page with Andreas Osiander, who

argues that the Incarnation would have still been required, hadnt there

even been the Fall? Was the Incarnation a necessary course of action to

complete the imperfect humanity supernaturally?21)

Such questions may arise when we try to make a tight connection

between the mediation of salvation and creation by Christ. Bavinck thinks


18) This refers to the principle that all the outward works of God are common and

indivisible(opera ad extra communia et indivisa). Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics,

vol. 2, God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, tr. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 318.

19) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.276. Calvin, Inst. 1.13.18 (CO 2.105): patri principium

agendi, rerumque omnium fons et scaturigo attribuitur; filio sapientia, consilium, ipsaque

in rebus agendis dispensatio; at spiritui virtus et efficacia assignatur actionis.

20) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.332-333, 420-423.21) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.277-278.


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that the Incarnation reflects the creation of man and argues for the

mediation of Christ, who accomplished it. Therefore, by citing Scriptural

verses, which says that Christ is the firstborn over all creation (prwtotokoj

pashj ktisewj) (Col. 1:15) and the Beginning of the creation of God (avrch thj

ktisewj tou qeou) (Rev. 3:14), Bavinck underlines the fact that Christ is the

Mediator of re-creation.22) If so, does Bavinck acknowledge that re-creation

is an event that Christ takes the supernatural divine nature regardless of

sin?

Bavincks answer to such a question is decisively negative.23) He

clearly notes the fact that Gods mind during the creation of Adam was to

carry out the covenant of works by making Christ a redeemer,24) while

elucidating the Reformed principle that the finite is not capable of theinfinite (finitum non est capax infiniti) and rejecting the theory of the

Communication of Attributes of Lutherans asserting that humans are

capable of the divine nature (homo divinae naturae capax).25) Bavinck says

that the Incarnation depends on Gods good pleasure to save the fallen

human race, not a necessary event at the time of creation.26)

Basically standing on the side of infralapsarianism and discussing

both the Mediator in creation and in redemption in the same breath,

Bavinck put emphasis on the fact that the church is the mediator of

union (mediator unionis) regardless of the order of mans fall. Bavinck

affirms that the Incarnation has already been engraved in the original

creation of man and in the salvation of man, namely, in the economy of

re-creation.27) Thus, Bavinck observes that, just as man became the image

of the triune God through creation and rested with God, we are able to

fellowship with the Trinity by being united with Christ through re-creation.

Bavinck reckons the Incarnation as creation, the opus ad intra of Christ,

and as re-creation, the eternal decree to His opus ad extra. Therefore,

because of the Incarnation, salvation has not only a personal but also a

universal significance. Such a position was also held by Calvin, who was

basically a supralapsarian.28) In this matter, we can see that Bavinck is


23) On the other hand the following author will give an affirmative answer to this. Since he

regards the knowledge of creation and the incarnation of Christ as precedent to that of

God the Trinity. Colin E. Gunton, Christ and Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992),

71-79.



26) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.279.27) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.332-333.


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taking the position that interfuses both infralapsarianism and

supralapsarianism in order to encompass the economies of creation and

salvation.29) In fact, it is said that a spectrum of diverse opinions on this

point by Reformed theologians are due to differences in emphasis or in

viewpoints.30)

2.3. Revelation

Third, Bavinck adds revelation for presupposition and preparation.

The Lord, who took the form of human flesh to come into this world,

revealed Himself as life and light to people, which was confirmed in the

beginning of the Gospel according to John (John 1:1, 5, 9). Without theIncarnation, neither the revelation of creation nor that of salvation could

stand, for the world was created by the Son, who came into this world

(John 1:4).31)

The incarnation links up with the preceding revelation, both the

general and the special. It stands and falls with them. For if God

was able to reveal himself in the way Scripture testifies with respect

both to the Gentile world and to Israel, then the possibility of the

incarnation is inherently included in that revelation; and if the

incarnation were not possible, then neither could the revelation be

maintained. Revelation, after all, is based on the same idea as the

incarnation: on the communicability of God, both in his being to the

Son(generation) and outside his being to creatures(creation).32)

From this perspective, Bavinck relates the Incarnation with the

entire Biblical revelation. The union of the divinity and the humanity tells

us that creation of the beginning was not by pantheistic emancipation but

from nothing (ex nihilo),33) and that the Mediator of salvation is not a third

being but a true-God-true-man Christ.34) The Incarnation reveals the fact

28) Calvin, Inst. 2.12.4-6.

29) J. Mark Beach, Introductory Essay, in Herman Bavinck, The Holy Spirits Work in

Calling and Regeneration, tr. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage,

2008), xvi-xx.

30) Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Set out and Illustrated from the Sources, 133-149.


32) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.280-281.

33) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.282-286.34) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.284.


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that Christ Himself is the content of Christianity.35)

In arguing about the principle of revelation, Bavinck underlines the

theology of union (theologia unionis) in Christ, that the archetypal

revelation (revelatio archetypa), the internal knowledge of God, which

became accommodated to us, was recorded in Scripture as ectypal

revelation (revelatio ectypa) when we received it by the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit.36) In the same vein he even relates the Incarnation with organic

inspiration of the writers of the Scriptures.37) He also argues for the

sufficiency of Scripture by considering the redemptive work under the

Incarnation as the last and supreme revelation.38)

3. The Hypostatic Union of the Divinity and the Humanity in onePerson

3.1. The Mystery of the Union: the Conception by the Holy Spirit

The Incarnation is the work of the triune God. The Father sent His

Son. The Holy Spirit created the humanity of the Son. Marys impregnation

was from the supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit. That is how the

holy humanity was united with the divinity of the Son. The Incarnation is

also the work of the Son Himself, who became man. He was himself the

acting subject who by the Holy Spirit prepared a body for himself in Marys

body.39) Christ, though sent by the Father, came by his own will and dee

d.40)

Bavinck tries to find the mystery of the hypostatic union in the

property that the supernatural impregnation by the Holy Spirit has. The

Holy Spirit acts not only as the instrumental cause but also as the

efficient cause (causa efficiens).41) When the time had fully come, the

power of the Holy Spirit, who has worked from creation to re-creation,

created the holy humanity of Christ in the body of Maria. His humanity,

35) Cf. Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (New York: Longmans, 1909), 170-202.


37) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1.434-435, 442-443.

38) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1.490-491. The three significances introduced here

illuminate overarching principles of Bavincks Christology. Notably, Charles Hodge does

not mention them at all in dealing with the person of Christ. Hodge, Systematic Theology,

2.378 ff., 610 ff.




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being created by the Holy Spirit, can be united to His person. This special

union, enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit, forms the person of the

Mediator with both divine and human natures. The supernatural

impregnation by the Holy Spirit has enabled union and communion between

God and man in Christ. The work of man in Christ were attributed to

Gods work, which continued throughout the life of Jesus and will continue

the state of exaltation.42)

Here Bavinck, reflecting the ad intra, Trinitarian economy of the

Holy Spirit, is expounding the mystery of the Incarnation that his humanity

is united with the divinity in the Son as the subject. This kind of position

is in the same thread with his emphasis on the personal property of the

Holy Spirit from the perspective of union and communion by discussingabout the doctrine of the Trinity as follows:43)

Without the personality and deity of the Spirit there can be no true

oneness between the Father and the Son. Those who deny the deity

of the Holy Spirit cannot maintain that of the Son. The Trinity only

completes itself in the divine person of the Holy Spirit. Only through

that person does the unity of being in the threeness of the

persons and the threeness of persons in the unity of being, come

into being. The entire dogma of the Trinity, the mystery of

Christianity, the heart of religion, the true and genuine communion

of our souls with Godthey all stand or fall with the deity of the

Holy Spirit.44)

The Incarnation occurred by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Son

by the will of the Father. The Incarnation occurred not only in the Son but

also by the Son. It was the work of the Son, who, as the one that mediated

God and man during creation, carried out the mediating work of

redemption by becoming man himself. The humanity of the Son assumed

the person of Christ when created, and at the same time, was united with

His divinity. Such a mystery is due to a very special activity on the part

of the Holy Spirit.45) The work of the Holy Spirit in the supernatural


43) Concerning our union with Christ grounded on Christs union with us through the

incarnation, Robert Letham, The Work of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1993), 77-87,

184-186.

44) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.312.45) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.292.


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conception cannot be seen only as the extension of the ad extra creation.

It occurred in the midst of the ad intra economy of the Trinity. The Holy

Spirit, who created the humanity, is the Spirit of the eternal Son. The Holy

Spirit was working in the Son during the Incarnation, which is also the

work of the Son. The person of the Son underwent no alteration during

His own work.46) In short, Bavinck reads the mystery of the Incarnation

from the economy of the Trinity.

Conception by the Holy Spirit was not the deepest ground and final

cause of Jesus sinlessness, as many theologians say, but it was the

only way in which he who already existed as a person and was

appointed head of a new covenant could now also in a human wayin the fleshbe and remain who he was: the Christ, Son of God the

Most High.47)

3.2. Christless Christology

Bavinck emphasizes the fact that, if one did not acknowledge the

mediation of the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ, there would be

no Christian faith. There is only human Jesus in the Arian Christology, the

moral Christology of rationalism, the symbolic Christology of Kant, the ideal

Christology of Hegel, the aesthetic Christology of De Wette, and the

anthropological Christology of Feuerbach.48)

There remains only the archetype of humankind to

Schleiermacher, who himself said acknowledged the divinity of Christ but

who identified it with God-consciousness. Schleiermacher mentioned Gods

being in Christ but did not acknowledge that Christ is God. Only the

divinizing of the human (qewsij), not the Incarnation, remains here.49)

All western theologies following Schleiermacher have put more

emphasis on becoming rather than on being in dealing with the person of

46) In this respect Bavincks position should be differentiated from that of Spirit-Christology

that are deployed in these works. Roger Haight S. J. The Case for Spirit Christology

Theological Studies 53(1992), 257-287; Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit:

Spirit-Christology in a Trinitarian Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University, 1994); Jurgen

Moltmann, The Way of Christ (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993).



49) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.262-263. Cf. Byung-Ho Moon, A Criticism of

Schleiermachers Mystical and Pantheistic Christology, Chongshin Theological Journal16/1(2011), 64-69.


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Christ, with slight variations on whether its subject is God or God-man.

This trend is common to Ritschl, Herrmann, Kaftan, and Hring, who

pointed to Christs being an ethical model; Rothe, and Dorner, who argued

that Christs divinity grew at the same time with the humanity; and the

Kenosis doctrine, which says that it occurs, instead of looking similar, with

the divinity being formally present.50)

Such a trend of the time gave birth to an extreme sect, so-called

Quest of the Historical Jesus. Indeed, Jesus on this earth to them was

only a son who introduced the Father to us. As Harnack notes, the Gospel

is not the Son but the news of the Son about the Father. It is not Jesus

Himself who we believe. What is relevant to us is not Jesus Himself but

faith in Jesus. According to Harnack, there is no Jesus but a religiousexperience about Jesus or a view of Him.51) In this respect, to Carlyle he

was a hero, to Strauss a religious genius, to Renan a liberal reformer and

preacher of humanity, to Schopenhauer a herald of the negation of the will

to live, to Proudhon a social reformer.52)

Bavinck views that such a quest of the historical Jesus, which

neglects the person of Jesus Christ with the divine and human natures, will

result in a Christless Christology, for the doctrine of Christ should be

based on and occur within the boundaries of the Chalcedon symbol.53)

The historicity of Jesus can have a Christian meaning when sought after

only in the fact that he is also the eternal God. The uniqueness of

Christianity, distinct from the doctrine of the Trinity, cannot be mentioned

if we neglect the fact that He has become the same man as we are.

Therefore, only the Trinitarianistic Christology is true.

Although Bavinck did use such a language, his standing on this is

firm as can be seen below:

If he[Christ] is going to be not the subject but the object and center

of the Christian religion, and if this Christian religion is to preserve

its uniqueness and not degenerate into an idolatrous Jesus cult, it is

not enough for Christ to be in God(evnqeoj), but he must himself be

50) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.263-266. Cf. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.430-440.



53) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.259. Concerning the fact that orthodox Christology is

based on the Chalcedon creed from Calvin to Calvinists, Robert L. Reymond, A New

Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 606-622; Macleod, The Person of Christ,181-203.


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God(qeoj), the only begotten of the Father.54)

The teaching on the person of Christ the Mediator, which was

established by the Council of Chalcedon, presents the heart of the

Trinitarianistic Christology. Christ is the object of faith, not a subject like

us. He is man as God. Therefore, we must not consider Christ as a purely

man, who is man. All Christian theologians are talking about Christ, but

those who lack the understanding of him that he is the object of faith as

the way and life will only seek after a Christless Christology.55)

3.3. Unity in Union

The Council of Chalcedon professed about the person of Christ as

follows: the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in humanhood,

truly God and truly man ... one and the same Christ, Son, Lord,

Only-begotten, made known in two natures, without confusion (avsugcutoj),

without change (avtreptoj), without division (avdiairetoj), without separation

(avcwristoj).56) Eastern theologians stressed divinization (qewsij), prefering

out of two natures (evn duo fusein) to in two natures (evk duo fusewn).57) By

their influences, John of Damascus, an Eastern theologian, and other

Roman Catholic theologians highlighted permeation (pericwrhsij) of the

divinity into the humanity and divinization (qewsij) of the humanity into the

divinity.58)

The resolution of the Chalcedon Council on one person (una

persona) and two natures (duae naturae) implies the mystery of the

hypostatic union,59) which must not be investigated philosophically,60) but


55) Cf. B. B. Warfield, Christless Christianity, in Christology and Criticism (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1932), 367: A Christianity to which Christ is indifferent is, as a

mere matter of fact, no Christianity at all. For Christianity, in the core of the matter,

consists in just, Jesus Christ and Him as crucified. Can he be of the body who no

longer holds to the Head? What is, after all, the fundamental difference between

Christianity and other positive religions? Does it not turn just on thisthat the founders

of the other religions point out the way to God while Christ presents Himself as that

Way?

56) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.255, 302.



59) Cf. The Westminster Confession of Faith, 8.2: So that two whole, perfect, and distinct

natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably (indissolubili) joined together in

one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion (sine conversione,compositione, aut confusione). Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ,


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stated only negatively (av, in)61) and biblically. The Chalcedon Council

declared that our incarnated Lord is one person, in which case the neutral

en not the masculine eij must be used,62) for Christ did not take the

substance of the Son but His subsistence took our nature. In other words,

the person of the Son, not the divinity of the triune God, became the

subject of the Incarnation, and the Reformed tradition has throughly

maintained this view.63)

Unlike Reformed thinkers, Lutherans argue for the union or fusion

of the divine and human natures without the person being the subject.

Lutherans consider as humiliation, not the Incarnation itself but the fact

that the humanity, which communicated with the divinity, did not use it.

Lutherans distinguish the assumption of flesh from the conception in thewomb. The subject of the former, the Incarnation, is the Son Himself, while

that of the latter, the exinanition, is God-man. Lutherans distinguish these

two not temporally but logically. Thus, the Incarnation to them is an

event that its subject changes from God to God-man.64) It is a Nestorian

mistake to argue for the coexistence of God and man, while its an

Eutychian mistake to mix them together.65) Nestorius replaces a union

(enwsij) with a conjuction (sunafeia),66) and Eutyches forms a third kind

being (tertium genus) through mixture (mixij) or mingling (avnakrasij).67)

As seen above, the hypostatic union of Christ the Mediator is firmly

based on the fact that Christ is the same perfect in humanhood, truly God

the only mediator between God and man. Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom

with a History and Critical Notes, Vol. 3, The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, rev. (Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1983), 619-620.

60) The following author the Chalcedons formula as a product of Aristotelian philosophy.

John McIntyre, The Shape of Christology: Studies in the Doctrine of the Person of Christ

(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 87-89.

61) inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseperabiliter. Cf. Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds ofChristendom with a History and Critical Notes, Vol. 2, The Greek and Latin Creeds with

Translations, rev. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 63.


63) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.259. Here the word substance(substantia) means

literally the underlying reality. On the other hand, the word subsistence(subsistentia)

signifies the particular being.


65) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.301-303. Therefore, not the subject but its economy has

been changed through the Incarnation. Cf. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Set out and

Illustrated from the Sources, 410: Christ is considered here not kata qeologian as the

logoj, but as the qeanqrwpoj.

66) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.301.67) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.254, 303.


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and truly man. The incarnated humanity created in the womb of Maria by

the Holy Spirit became united with the divinity by being assumed as

substance68) in the person while being created, and therefore, the humanity

is only a unionized humanity. It is always the true and perfect human

nature. Therefore, we cannot acknowledge the theories on the mystery of

the hypostatic union by Arius, who, under the influence of the Greek

dualism, argued that the noble divinity cannot assume the lowly humanity,

and, even further, by Apollinaris, who, in pursuit of pantheism, saw that

the Lords humanity was already included in the divinity.69)

They are essentially on the same page with some Gnostics, who

rejected the true humanity of Christ by considering the Lords body either

as a heavenly body or a phantom body.70) They deny the creation of thetriune God and the union and communion between God and man according

to the redemptive economy. However, if the Son could not take on

humanity, there would be no creation of man and re-creation of salvation

because of it: For what is unassumable is incurable.71) Linked with this,

we can see that the theological dimension in which Bavinck states the

hypostatic union is related to the entire Christian revelation and the

redemptive history, which includes the general and special revelations and

encompasses creation and redemption.

The first reason why Bavinck emphasized the centrality of

Christology through the doctrine of the hypostatic union was to criticize

the contemporary liberal theology, which denied that Christ is God(qeoj) and

tried to replace the divinity with a subjective influence, mentioning God in

Christ (evnqeoj), and to defend the Orthodox theology. He refuted R. J.

Campbell, who said that humanity is divinity viewed from below; divinity is

humanity viewed from above, by claiming new theology. Bavinck made

sure that prototypical humanity and ectypical divinity are not the same.72)

The Incarnation does not talk about the revelation or formation of

divinity through an enhancement of humanity, which will idolize either

divinity or humanity. The Incarnation is the culmination of a method that

68) Cf. The Westminster Confession of Faith, 8.2 signifies definitely the conception by the

Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance(in utero eque substantia

Mariae Virginis). Schaff, ed., The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, 619 (bold emphases are

mine).

69) Cf. Aloys Grillmeier, S. J., Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 1, From the Apostolic Age

to Chalcedon (451), tr. John Bowden (Atlanta: John Knox, 1964), 238-245.


71) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.297-298. This is quoted from John of Damascus.72) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.299.


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the creator communicates and fellowships with the creation. The

independence of the creator and the dependence of creation are attributed

to the same personal subject, namely, to the person of the Son. The Word

became flesh (John 1:14), therefore fullness of deity dwells in him bodily

(swmatikwj, Col. 2:9).73) The two words, fully and bodily, do not restrict

each other, for the subject is the eternal son of one God.

The mystery of the Incarnation lies in the fact that the subject is

the Son. Therefore, it sheds light on the being and economy of the triune

God, on which Bavinck says as following:

Scripture ascribes all kinds of and very different predicates to

Christ but always to one and the same subject, the one undividedI who dwells in him speaks out of him. It also specifically says,

not that the Logos dwelt in a human being, but that the Logos

became flesh(John 1:14). A person is what he or she has become. If

the Son of God became a human being, he is himself human. Many

things can be predicated of a person but never another person. A

husband and a wife are one flesh, but the husband is never the

wife or vice-versa. Therefore, if the human subject in Christ was

another than the Logos, Scripture could never have said that the

Logos became, and therefore is, flesh.74)

The subject has diverse natures. The mystery of the Incarnation lies

in the fact that the Son, who has the nature of God, took the nature of

man. Human beings cant assume divinity, but the Son can assume

humanity. It was according to the eternal decree of the triune God before

the beginning of the time that the Son took humanity. By the eternal

decree, the Son took human form. The triune God, who has the same

essence, cannot naturally take humanity. Divinity and humanity can only

and must be united within the Son personally.

In God, there is one nature and three persons: in Christ there is

one person and two natures. The unity of the three persons in the

divine being is in the full sense natural (naturalis), consubstantial

(sunousiwdhj), coessential (coessentialis); the unity of the two natures

73) Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.298-299.74) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.302.


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in Christ is personal (personalis).75)

The door for human beings to have communion with God was made

possible through the union of Christs humanity and divinity in one

hypostasis. Such a mystical union was made possible through the historical

fulfillment of the eternal redemptive covenant. The fulfillment was made

possible when Christ carried out His own duty as Mediator between God

and man.76) The Incarnation is a union of the person of the Son with an

impersonal human nature, and a union of natures in the person of the

Son, not a natural but personal union.77) It is not a union of persons; it

is a personal and substantial union. As with the divinity of Christ, His

humanity is also substantial (substantialis) in that the substratum(suppositum) by which a thing is what is.78) Bavink here confirms that the

human nature is not a concrete but an abstract substance of which the

union with the divine nature constitutes in the eternal person of Christ.79)

The humanity in Christ is with His divinity by being united with its

person. Therefore, the human nature is not in itself an independent self

but from the start personal in the Logos, who as subject lived, thought,

willed, acted, suffered, died, and so on in and through it with all its

constituents, capacities, and energies. The human nature does not

constitute a personality of its own but subordinated to the Logos. In

short, the two natures are united not as avlloj kai avlloj (one person and

another), but as avllo kai avllo (one thing and another). The mystery of the

believers godliness (musthrion euvsebeiaj) lies in the mystery of union.80)

Here Bavinck firmly sustains Chalcedons position of unity in union

the fact that the human nature, like the divine nature, is not person

(avnupostasij) but belongs to it (evnupostasij).81)




78) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.306. Cf. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.387, 391.

79) Even though Bavinck does not pay special attention to such terms as concretum and

abstractum, as Reformed theologians do, he shares the same view with them. Cf. Peter

Martyr Vermigli, Dialogue on the Two in Christ, tr. & ed. John Patrick Donnelly, S. J.,

The Peter Martyr Library Series One (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies,

1995), 50-51, 74-75; Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Set out and Illustrated from the

Sources, 441-445; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.316-317, 322.


81) Also in this case, although Bavinck does not use such terms as enhypostatia and

anhypostatia, as Reformed theologians do, he shares the same view with them. Cf.

Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Set out and Illustrated from the Sources, 416-419, 427-429;Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.328. This issue has been raised significantly


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3.4. Communication of Properties

Humanity has never been an independent self or personality, but

acts personally and substantially by being united with the person of Christ.

The mediation of Christs humanity and divinity in one hypostasis complies

with the effects of the union (effecta unionis): the communication of

proper qualities (communicatio idiomatum), the completion of a work

(apotelesmatum), and the charismata (charismatum).82)

The first type of communion is a mutual communion among all

attributes and qualities of divinity and humanity being attributed to the

one person and the one subject. Firmly standing on this Reformed view,Bavinck criticized both the Lutherans, who say that divinity is directly

transferred to humanity, and the Roman Catholic Church, who says,

although rejecting the Lutheran view, that God in Christ is humanized and

that the human nature is deified because the communication between

divinity and humanity is intrinsic and substantial, calling both sides

docetic.83)

According to the Reformed tradition, divinity and humanity are in

communion with each other only in the respect that they co-exist in the

person of the Son. The attributes of the two natures are ascribed as

predicates to one and the same subject. Such communion is not by the

natures, but by the person. The mystery comes from the person of the

Son itself. As the Son of God, who exists in divinity, He is God-man, who

took humanity, and not God and man in the strictest sense.84) He can be

described by languages that express the attributes of divinity and humanity

simultaneously.

Gods eternal Word, who is God, became flesh (John 1:14). God of

glory was born in the same flesh as ours (Heb. 1:3; 2:14). God took the

form of a slave, made believers clean with His own blood, and bought the

church (Phil. 2:7; Acts 20:28; 1 John 1:7). The creator, who made

with reference to the doctrine of Leontius of Byzantium. Concerning his view, Herbert M.

Relton, A Study in Christology: The Problem of the Relation of the Two Natures in the

Person of Christ (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1917), 226-235.

82) Cf. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Set out and Illustrated from the Sources, 434-447;

Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.392-397; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology,

2.321-332.

83) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.308-309, 426-427, 430-431.

84) Cf. John Murry, The Person of Christ, in Collected Writings of John Murry (Edinburgh:Banner of Truth, 1977), 2.138.


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everything to be, first experienced death and resurrection (Col. 1:13-18). All

the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form (Col. 2:9). Such expressions

use a subject related to divinity and a predicate related to humanity. The

reverse is possible; He came into flesh but is also in the bosom of God

(John 1;18), is in heaven (John 3:13), is before Abraham was born (John

8:58), is the Lord of David in spite of being his descendent (Matt. 22:43),

and is God to be praised forever (Rom. 9:5).85)

The second type of communion is that all the works of the

Mediator, depending on the joint cooperation of divinity and humanity in

one person and a double working (evnergeia), has a divine human

character. Of course, their sole subject is the Son, who is their efficient

cause.86) This part will be discussed in the following section when wediscuss the humiliation and exaltation of Christ.

The third type of communion deals with the spiritual gifts that

humanity united in the person of the Son communicates with divinity

hypostatically.87) The communion of the spiritual gifts is meaningless

according to the Communication of Attributes (communicatio idiomatum),

which the Lutheran and the Kenotic Christology in subsequent years have

been arguing for.88) On this, the Roman Catholic Church, despite avoiding

the extreme of the Lutheran, says, under the influence of pericwrhsij and

qewsij of the Eastern theology, that Jesus, as a pilgrim (viator) on this earth

according to humanity, received all the spiritual gifts all at once and came

to have a blessed vision (comprehensor) because of what He has received

from God. His knowledge and wisdom was perfect from the Incarnation,

with no more growth. He was full of the blessed knowledge (scientia beata)

to have the beatific vision of God (visio Dei). Therefore, his humanity was

deified, making Him the object of praise.89)

Criticizing the Roman Catholic view in detail, Bavinck notes that

only from the Reformed view we can hold a proper opinion on the

communication of gifts, under the premise of the true and genuine

humanity. While mentioning that the humanity that Jesus took had the

abounding world of the mind as well as anger, sadness, pity, and

compassion, which Adam did not have when he was in the state of

85) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.298, 308.




89) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.256-257. 309. Concerning the Roman Catholic Churchsposition on this, Berkouwer, The Person of Christ, 213-223.


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integrity (status integritatis), Bavinck emphasizes the fact that the

Incarnation is a state of humiliation because it is the assumption of a

weak human nature.90)

Bavinck takes notice that the weakness of the Lord is not because

of sin but a way to overcome sin. Holiness by divinity is distinctly different

from holiness by humanity, but there is no possibility of sinning and

falling to Him, who has not only an empirical sinlessness but also a

necessary sinlessness.91) Since His humanity was united with the person,

He did have the beatific knowledge (scientia beata) but not immediately.

The human consciousness in him, though having the same subject

as the divine consciousness, only to a small degree knew thatsubject, that I, indeed knew it as a whole but not exhaustively.

Just as behind our limited consciousness there also lies within us a

world of being, so behind the human consciousness of Christ there

lay the depths of God, which could only very gradually and to a

limited degree shine through that human consciousness. From this,

one may not infer, however, that in various domains Jesus could

err.92)

Bavinck finds the fact that the proper gifts of the Lords humanity

communicate with divinity. From this respect, Jesus performing miracles,

forgiving sins, dispatching the Holy Spirit, rewarding eternal life, and even,

receiving glory all belong not only to divinity but also to humanity. Such

works of Jesus were done according to divinity, but the gifts can also be

attributed to the person, influencing His humanity personally or

hypostatically. In this respect, although the Mediator may be the proper

object of worship, the ground or foundation of mediation lies in the

divinity.93)

Likewise, in stating the communion of gifts, Bavinck stresses the

fact that they are ways of grace to believers by emphasizing the weakness

of Christs humanity, and at the same time, the oneness of the person. The

Lords mediating work of humiliation and exaltation is based on such


91) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.314. Cf. B. B. Warfield, Jesus Alleged Confession of

Sin, in Christology and Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932), 97-145.

92) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.312-313.93) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.317-319.


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communion of spiritual gifts. However, for Bavinck, this kind of

communication is not separated from that of the attributes, as we see

definitely in the following confession of Westminster.

Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures;

by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason

of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is

sometimes, in Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by

the other nature.94)

4. Mediation in Hypostatic Union

4.1. The Mediation of the Union: The Spirit of Christ the Mediator of

the New Covenant

Bavinck considers at the heart of the redemptive history the fact

that believers are mysteriously united with Christ through the work of the

hypostatic union of humanity and divinity and thereby ultimately reach

glorification through communion and communication with God. For there

was the pact of salvation (pactum salutis) between three persons of the

Trinity before the creation of the world. He says that the foundation for

the covenant of grace, which had the vicarious satisfaction (satisfactio

vicaria) of the Son, namely, the obedience of the Son as the material cause

and the faith of saints who believe in the Son as the formal or

instrumental cause, was laid before the creation of the world.95)

Adams obedience was the condition for the first covenant, in which

Adam was the representative of humankind. For the new covenant, which

is the fulfillment of many covenants of grace, agreed upon after the Fall,

Christ is the substitute of humankind.96) The new covenant consists of

two elements. The first element is the obedience of the Son, who carries

out the will of the Father. It must include the obedience of keeping all the

laws (obedientia activa) and of suffering the price of sin (obedientia

passiva). The other element is the love of the Father, who imputes the

righteousness of the Son by grace. Bavinck calls this pact between the

94) The Westminster Confession of Faith, 8.7. Schaff, ed., The Evangelical Protestant

Creeds, 622.



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Father and the Son the covenant of redemption.97)

As the head of the covenant in the person of His own humanity

and divinity, Christ is not only the guarantor but also the key part. He

is the mediator (Heb. 7:22; 8:6; 12:24).98) Christ fulfilled the covenant of

works towards the Father and of the covenant of grace towards us. The

new covenant is a better covenant as well as an evangelical covenant,

including both obedience and imputation. Its superiority and mystery is

the mystical Christ (Christus mysticus), namely, the person of Christs

humanity and divinity.99)

Christ fulfilled the mediatorship of union in the hypostatic union. As

His office is eternal, His kingdom is also eternal. His government is

personally, ecclesiastically, and universally effective by the uniting work ofthe Holy Spirit.100) Bavinck saw that the government of the Holy Spirit lies

in the believers communion with God, namely, in the mystical union.101)

Such a mysterious union is made only by the secret working of the

Holy Spirit. The salvific work of the Holy Spirit is to carry out the mystery

of the union of Christs humanity and divinity. Bavinck does not identify

the Holy Spirit, who came down on Christ, with divinity, or with infusion

into humanity, and incorporates it in the person of the God-man, divine

and human natures. Particularly, this inclination is evident when

interpreting the exalted Lord in Romans 1:3 according to the Spirit of

holiness (kata pneuma avgiwsuvhj). In relation to this, Bavinck also mentions,

not only the fact that the Lord was conceived by the Holy Spirit according

to humanity (Luke 1:36), was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1), and

received Him abundantly (John 3:34), but also the fact that Christ was

designated as Gods Son by the work of the Holy Spirit (Acts 17:31),

received the glory of old (John 17:2), is the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8) and

became the power of God (1 Cor. 1:24).102)

Bavinck notes that the Holy Spirit, who worked from the

Incarnation, had an personal influence over the entire process of the

Lords mediation, not only in the sufferings and obedience, but also in the

resurrection, in the ascension, and on the throne. The fact that the Lords

body became a spiritual body (swma pneumatikon) and that He Himself is a

97) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.

98) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.227-228, 405.

99) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.225, 228




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life-giving Spirit (swma pneumatikon) (1 Cor. 15:45) as the Spirit of life (pneuma

zwhj) (Rom. 8:11) is also discussed in this perspective. Here we can see

that Bavinck is handling the mystery of Christs hypostatic union in the

Trinitarian perspective. The reason why he regards the Holy Spirit as the

Christs spirit or the Lords spirit:

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ because he dwells in Christ

himself and because through him Christ communicates himself to

his own (2 Cor. 3:18). And thus Christ is now he in whom all the

fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9; 1:19). He is the visible

image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). The divine glory is now

manifest in his human nature and radiates from his face (2 Cor.3:18; 4:4, 6).103)

4.2. Double States (Status Duplex): Work in the Hypostatic Union

Bavinck considers the proper meaning of humiliation and exaltation

of Christ the Mediator to be according to the dispensation (kat oivkonomian) of

pactum salutis before the beginning of the world for the hypostatic union.

Humiliation and exaltation do not mean a change in the attributes or

dignity of divinity or humanity itself.104) Humiliation and exaltation are

related to diverse modes in which divinity or humanity communicates in

the same person, and therefore, are not natural but personal. The subject

of humiliation and exaltation is the person of the Son. Therefore, according

to Bavinck, following are those that say that humiliation and exaltation are

just a process of mystification or an ideal conception: Lutherans or the

Roman Catholic Church, which treat humiliation and exaltation as the

abandonment of the divinity and the enhancement of the humanity;

immanent theologians with Schleiermacher as their harbinger, who treat

them as a process of Jesus (evnqeoj) becoming God (qeoj) as a person on

whom God has descended; theologians like Dorner and Rothe, who advocate

progressive incarnation, which says that humiliation and exaltation are the

process of incarnation by which divinity is embodied in humanity; and

Socinians, who say that they are a course of life of Jesus who performed



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divine miracles upon receiving divine revelation.105)

Bavinck regards the Incarnation that received humanity in the

person of the Son as emptying (kenwsij or exinanitio). He thinks that the

Incarnation is just the beginning of his lowering (tapeinwsij or humiliatio).

Humiliation includes this emptying and lowering. In humiliation, the Son

with the same person put aside the divine mode of existence (morfh qeou)

but took the human mode of existence, namely, the form of a servant

(morfh doulou). Such a change in the mode of being is not by the nature

but by the person. The Son assumed a true and perfect humanity.106)

Lutherans have a view that the humanity which the Son assumed

was a humanity containing divine attributes, and that, therefore,

humiliation is not an assumption itself but in His humanity which does notuse the divine attributes. So they distinguish the Incarnation from the

humiliation characterized by emptying and lowering.107)

In the meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church views that the

humanity which the Son assumed was true and perfect, but it could be

glorified from a moment by a special gift, and that the humiliation of the

Incarnation stops at the moment of the union conceptually and Jesus

becomes an object of praise because the person of the Mediator becomes

precious even to the humanity.108)

Bavinck thinks that the humiliation of Christ includes the

Incarnation in which His true and perfect humanity is united with the

person of the Son and all the obedience which Christ has suffered and

carried out in it. The humanity which Jesus assumed complied with several

conditions after the Fall.109) Baptism was a sign and seal that Christ, who

finished everything under the union of His divinity and humanity, tries to

raise us to the place where we can have communion with God, by imputing

His righteousness to us.110)

His descending into the hell can be understood in this sense. If it is

not real, it does not mean the movement of location. It means the extreme

agony of the soul suffered according to the humanity, namely death and

105) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.406-407, 426-433. Cf. Cf. B. B. Warfield, The

Humanitarian Christ, in The Person and Work of Christ, ed. Samuel G. Craig

(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1950), 189-208.


107) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.431. Concerning Luthers and Lutheran views of

communicatio idiomatum, Berkouwer, The Person of Christ, 272-281.


109) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.310-311.110) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.408.


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burial, and the proclamation according to the divinity. In many cases,

reformed theologians would choose only one of two meanings, but Bavinck

emphasized that the two belong to one person simultaneously.111) Erroneous

views of both Roman Catholics and Lutherans on Jesus descending into the

hell are caused by their incorrect understanding on the hypostatic union.

While Catholic theologians regard that the subject who went down to hell

as the soul, while Lutherans the subject as a certain kind of being

enhanced through vivification (reviviscentia, vivificatio) prior to

resurrection.112)

In discussing exaltation of Christ, Bavinck once again emphasizes

the fact that it was the mediation in the hypostatic union of Christs

humanity and divinity. Bavinck criticized Osiander, who insisted only on themediation according to divinity, Stancaro, who only insisted on the

mediation according to humanity, and both the Roman Catholic Church and

the Lutherans, who says that the two natures are the principle that

performed the works of the mediator, although the human nature is the

principle by which the works were accomplished by the Mediator.113)

Bavinck sees that the exaltation of Christ exerts influence on both

divinity and humanity.114) He sheds light of divine glory on the eyes of

each human being by performing the divine power according to His

divinity, and has them to participate in divine glory according to His

humanity only to the extent it was capable of it, which are the

characteristics of the humanity. As this work of divinity and humanity was

hypostatically done, Christ, after having been raised from the dead, became

the spirit who gives life according to His divinity in a spiritual body

according to His humanity.115) Supernatural Christianity can become a sole

historical religion from this perspective of the union of Christs humanity

and divinity.116) Exaltation does not mean to form a divinity by the

111) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.415-417. Cf. Calvin, Inst. 2.16.8-12; Turretin, Institutes

of Elenctic Theology, 356-361; Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.616-621.

112) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.427-428. Lutherans call the resurrection as external

resurrection (resurrectio externa) and distinguish it from the vivification which they call

internal resurrection (resurrectio interna). For them, not the resurrection but the

vivification is the beginning of exaltation. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.414-415.


114) Cf. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.334, 348, 352, 364, 366, 368, 370-372;

Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.629-631.

115) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.432, 434-436.

116) Cf. B. B. Warfield, Jesus Christ, in Christology and Criticism (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1932), 165: Supernaturalistic Christianity is the only historicalChristianity.


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enhanced working of the Holy Spirit.117)

Bavinck considers that the views that he holds are in the Reformed

tradition, giving rise to the advantage that one can understand the entire

course of Christs humiliation and exaltation in the identical person.118) In

this respect he expresses Christs resurrection and ascension in active

mode for His divinity and in passive mode for His humanity.119) He notes

that Christ can be everywhere at the same time according to His divinity,

but at a specific locationor on the right hand of Godaccording to His

humanity.120)

4.3. Vicarious Satisfaction (Satisfactio Vicaria): The Fruit of the

Hypostatic Union

The exaltation of Christ was a reward for His humiliation. The

substance of exaltation is the mediatorial glory manifested in His

resurrection, ascension, reign, and His second coming according to the

meritorious connection between Christs humiliation and exaltation.121)

Christs exaltation is attributed to his person, and therefore discloses the

special grace of salvation of a believer united with God through Him.

Imputing the grace to saints, Christ becomes the life-giving spirit to them.

Therefore, in order to see the quality of salvation of the saints who will be

in communion with God according to the eternal economy of the triune

God, one has to see what kind of merits the work which Christ the

Mediator performed has.122)

In relation to this, Bavinck emphasizes the fact that the mediation

of Christ influences not only the passive obedience (obedientia passiva) and

the active obedience (obedientia activa). For forgiveness of sin (peccatum),

one needs to pay the punishment (poena) that fit the guilt (reatus) and

must require the satisfaction of God-man, for the forgiveness of sin is

117) So this following theory cannot be accepted. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man,

tr. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), 323:

But Jesus as this man, as man in this particular, unique situation, with this particular

historical mission and this particular fateas this man Jesus is not just man, but from

the perspective of his resurrection from the dead(kata pneumaaccording to the Spirit)

he is one with God and thus is himself God.

118) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.431. Cf. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology,

2.379-384.

119) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.436-437, 444-445.


121) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.433-434.122) Cf. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.470-473.


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not possible without covenantal imputation of righteousness through the

mediation of Christs divinity and humanity.123) Such an economy was

decreed before the beginning of the world.124) The reason why Christs

death becomes the consummation of his obedience is because He became

man as the Son of eternal God.125)

Christs obedience is the price of vicarious satisfaction (satisfactio

vicaria),126) which not only forgives sins and iniquities but also imputes the

righteousness of eternal life so that saints can have non posse peccare

(the not-being-able to sin) and non posse mori (the not-being-able to

die) in faith. Such righteousness is possible because Christ fulfilled both

the obedience of suffering pains and of keeping the laws. The obedience of

acting is not distinguished from the obedience of suffering, for there wouldbe no obedience of suffering without the obedience of acting and Christ,

who prepared Himself without blemishes and spots, died as a prepared

lamb.127) Therefore, acting obedience is not an excess but a suitable merit.

We have to find the price of the work of vicarious redemption in the

person of Christ. The cause of redemption cannot be numbered by a

quantitative calculation.128)

Therefore, Bavinck claims that Christs entire life and work, from

his conception to his death, was substitutionary in nature. Christs

vicarious redemption does not stop at paying the price for sin, but includes

the obedience of keeping all the law, which is the condition for the

covenant of works. Acting obedience is one with suffering obedience, for

they altogether fulfill Gods will in one person and at the same time, all the

righteousness of salvation, which pleases God.129)

By such mediation of Christs humanity and divinity, believers can

have peace with God through the mysterious union with Him. Christ has

fulfilled the mediation of union. As a sacrifice (irasmoj, irasthrion), He

became the reconciliation (katallagh) between God and us. The subject that

gives offering (iraskesqai) is the Son, but the one who makes us at peace

with Him (katallassein) is God. Atonement (Vershnung) is required for us to

have peace with God (Vershnung). But since God has made His Son to be




126) Cf. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 426-433.





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the sacrifice of the atonement, although God is the one who makes us at

peace with Him, the Lord of peace is the Son, for the Son mediates

between the Father and us according to the covenant among three triune

Persons. Therefore, when we deny the doctrine of the hypostatic union, the

doctrine of substitutionary atonement will be in vain and all the gains for

redemption presented in the Bible will come to nothing.130)

5. Conclusion

In this paper, we have considered the fact that the reason why

Bavinck placed the centrality of his theology in Christology was to follow

the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ the Mediator. By the way itis evident that Bavincks theology is a product of his time. Against the

liberal theology of his day, he tried to defend two doctrines: one is the fact

that Scripture is Gods word and the other the fact that we can be saved

only by the work of Christ. So he positioned his theology epistemologically

in the principle of revelation sought after by the Reformed theologians

after Calvin, and emphasized that salvation is possible only by the merit of

the works done in the hypostatic union of humanity and the divinity of God

the Mediator, who came into the world.

Unlike Turretin, Heppe or Charles Hodge, Bavinck does not devote

himself to articulating sophisticated theological jargon in treating the

doctrine of the hypostatic union. For example, Bavinck does not pay special

attention to such languages as enhypostatia, anhypostatia, abstratum, or

concretum, in relation to the being of His divinity and humanity in one

person. Neither does Bavinck try to describe the union of the divine and

human natures by using a metaphor of the relation between the soul and

the flesh in human body.131) He rather tries to defend the doctrine of

Christology, following the orthodox revelatory principle. The only thing is

that by analyzing in depth diverse doctrines developed since the Early

Church he discusses their merits and demerits, and tries to succinctly

summarize his own position as a conclusion. This aspect can be said to be

the uniqueness of his theology. His theology may sound philosophical or

ethical, but what he ultimately pursues is a Biblical theology.132)


131) On the contrary, Charles Hodge frequently uses this metaphorical analogy. Systematic

Theology, 2.378, 380, 389, 390, 392, 394, 397, 409 etc.132) Cf. John Bolt, Christ and the Law in the Ethics of Herman Bavinck, Calvin Theological


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Bavinck regarded the doctrine of the hypostatic union as the loop

that connects the entire theology. We can summarize what we have been

talking about with a few sentences as follows:

First, Bavinck states the doctrine of the hypostatic union from the

Trinitarian perspective. Most of all, he emphasizes the fact that the

covenant established historically according to the eternal counsel (pactum

salutis) of the Trinity before the beginning of the world was fulfilled by the

Incarnation and the work of Christ. Bavinck finds the necessity of Christs

works according to the person of the Son as God-man (qeanqrwpoj) in the

economy of the Trinity.

Second, Bavinck emphasizes the fact that the mystery of the

Incarnation does not remain in the conception but reaches the Mediatorsentire life from His humiliation to His exaltation, attributing it to the work

of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, he closely connects the communication of

works with the communication of gifts in dealing with the communication

of Christs attributes.

Third, Bavinck emphasizes the fact that according to the doctrine of

the hypostatic union, Christs redemptive work opened the door for our

communion with God through the mysterious union with Him. He seeks this

from the mystery of the Trinitarian union. He discusses the hypostatic

mystery of the God-man from the relationship between the Father and the

Son, and also the mystery of uniting with God. The mystery can be only

possible by the person of Christ the Mediator Himself.

Fourth, on this account Bavinck places the vicarious satisfaction

(satiafactio vicaria) in the person of the Mediator. Christs humanity is even

richer than that of Adam prior to the Fall, so is the grace of

substitutionary atonement. He came into the world to remove our sins,

forgive us, and make peace between God and us. Soteriology treats the

order or the economy of applying the righteousness of such substitutionary

atonement to believers.133)

Fifth, overall, Bavinck, in treating the doctrine of the hypostatic

union, emphasizes the fact that Christ the Mediator is an eternal God (qeoj).

The mystery of this doctrine lies in the person of the Son itself. Therefore,

he altogether rejects the liberalism, which pursues internalism or ethicalism

that rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ, who came into the world, and

Journal 28 (1993), 45-73.133) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.504-506, 522-528.


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argues that only God exists in Christ (evnqeoj).

The paragraph below gives a good account for the distinctive marks

that the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ the Mediator, which

Bavinck pursues.

It is one single work that the Father assigned to him and that he

finished in his death (John 4:34; 17:4; 19:30). His ministry was

completed in the giving of his life as a ransom for many (Matt.

20:28). Even Paul, who powerfully emphasizes the cross of Christ,

regards his death, not as the whole, but as the consummation of

his obedience. He was born under the law(Gal. 4:4), in the likeness

of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), did not live to please himself (Rom. 15:3);at his incarnation he already emptied himself and assumed the form

of a servant; he continually humbled himself and became obedient

even to death (Phil. 2:7-8; 2 Cor. 8:9). So it is one single ministry

and one obedience, which gives life-giving justification (dikaiwsij

zwhj) to many (Rom. 5:18-19).134)

Soli Deo Gloria in Aeterum!


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Bavinck (Hypostatic Union)