Christ, Offices Of (continued) – Christian

Christ, Offices Of (continued)

Euseb., HE, I,3; Aug., De civ. Dei, x. 6; Catech. Council of Trent; Calvin, Instit., II, 15; Heidelb. Catech. Ans. 31 and Reformed Liturg; Thanksgiving aft. Inft. Bapt.; J. Gerhard, Loci Theolog; Spener, Catechism.; Ernesti, De officio Christi triplici; Knapp, Theology, section 107; Ebrard, Herzog Realencyc., under the word Further discussion is found in the standard theologies, as Pye Smith, First Lines, and Scrip. Teatim. to the Messiah; Hodge, Shedd, Weiss, Biblical Theol. of the New Testament, Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics. See also Higginson, Ecce Messias; Moule's brief but suggestive statement in Outlines of Christian Doctrine; Ritschl, A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, especially Introduction; Dorner, The Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ.

L. D. Bevan

Christ, Person Of

See PERSON OF CHRIST.

Christ, Temptation Of

See TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.

Christ, The Exaltation Of

egz-ol-ta'-shun:

I. THE RESURRECTION

1. Its Glorification of Christ

2. Resurrection Body--Identity, Change, Present Locality

3. The Agent of the Resurrection

II. ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

1. Its Actuality

2. General Doctrine of the Church

3. Lutheran Doctrine

4. Theory of Laying Aside the Existence-Form of God

5. Necessity

III. EXALTATION TO THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD

1. Its Significance

2. Its Essential Necessity

V. THE SECOND ADVENT

1. Reality

2. Judgment

This term is given to that condition of blessedness, glory and dominion into which our Lord entered after the completion of His earthly career of humiliation and suffering, and which is to be regarded as the reward of His meritorious obedience, and the issue of His victorious struggle, and at the same time the means of His prosecution and completion of His work as Redeemer and Saviour of the world. The classic passage of Scripture, rich in suggestion, and the source of much controversy in the development of Christian theology, is Philippians 2:5–11. The word "exalted" of Philippians 2:9, huperupsoo, occurs only in this place in the New Testament and, like its Latin representative, is limited to ecclesiastical use. Compare Romans 14:9; Ephesians 1:19–23; 1 Peter 3:21,1 Peter 3:22.

Christ's Exaltation includes His Resurrection, Ascension, Session at the right hand of God, and Advent as Judge and Consummator of the world's redemption.

I. The Resurrection.

1. Its Glorification of Christ:

The historic place and validity of this event will be found under other heads; our concern is with the event as it relates to the glorification of our Lord.

(1) It revealed His power over death.

(2) It confirms all His claims to Divine Sonship.

(3) It attests His acceptance and that of His work by God.

(4) It crowns the process of the redemption of the world.

(5) It forms the beginning of that new creation which is life eternal, and over which death can have no power.

(6) It is the entrance of the Son of God into the power and glory of the New Kingdom, or the restored Kingdom of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe.

The following Scriptures among many others may be consulted: Revelation 1:18; Acts 2:24; Romans 1:4; 1 Corinthians 15:20; John 5:25; Romans 4:25; Romans 6:4,Romans 6:5; Colossians 2:12; Philippians 3:10; Romans 6:9.

2. Resurrection Body--Identity, Change, Present Locality:

An interesting and important question arises in connection with Christ's exaltation, relating to the nature of the body of the risen Lord. It was clearly identical with that of His natural life. It was recognized by the marks which were upon it: Luke 24:39,Luke 24:40; John 20:24–29. It received food: Luke 24:43 (compare Luke 24:30; John 21:12,John 21:13; Acts 10:41). Nevertheless it was changed. After the resurrection, it was not at once recognized: John 20:15; John 21:7; Luke 24:31. It appeared under apparently new conditions of relation to material substance: John 20:19; Luke 24:36. It suddenly became visible, and as suddenly vanished. These facts suggest what reverently may be surmised as to its exalted condition. The apostle's declaration as to the resurrection-body of the redeemed furnishes some hints: 1 Corinthians 15:35–49; compare Philippians 3:21. We may cautiously, from the history of the resurrection and the Pauline doctrine, conclude, that our Lord still possesses a human body. It is of material substance, with new properties. It occupies space. It was seen by Paul, by Stephen, by the seer of the Apocalypse. It is glorious, incorruptible, spiritual.

3. The Agent of the Resurrection:

By whom was the resurrection effected? It is referred by some Scriptures to God. See Psalms 16:10 (compare Acts 2:27,Acts 2:31); and the distinct affirmation by Peter (Acts 2:32). Paul declares that Christ was "raised .... through the glory of the Father" (Romans 6:4). In Ephesians 1:19,Ephesians 1:20, it was the mighty power of God which was wrought in Christ "when he raised him from the dead." Elsewhere it is ascribed to Christ Himself. He declared: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). In John 10:17,John 10:18, our Lord declares: "I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." The efficient agent is said, according to the generally received reading of Romans 8:2, to have been the Spirit of God, and thus the resurrection is referred to each person of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Lutheran church refers the act to the human power of the Lord Himself, which by incarnation had been endowed with attributes of Deity. This view consists with their teaching of the omnipresence of the body of Jesus (see below on the section "Ascension").

II. The Ascension of our Lord.

1. Its Actuality:

The exaltation of Christ consisted further in His ascension. Some have held that the resurrection and ascension of Jesus ought to be regarded as aspects of the same event. But Mary saw the risen Lord, though she was forbidden to touch Him, for "I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend," etc. (John 20:17). This, compared with the invitation to Thomas to touch Him, eight days later, suggests something in the ascension added to that which the resurrection implied, and the general thought of the church has consistently regarded the latter as a further step in the exaltation of the Lord.

2. General Doctrine of the Church:

The fact of ascension is recorded in Mark 16:19, and Luke 24:50,Luke 24:51, and with greater detail in Acts 1:9–11. According to these accounts, the ascension was seen by the disciples, and this suggests that heaven is a locality, where are the angels, who are not ubiquitous, and where Christ's disciples will find the place which He declared He was going to prepare for them (John 14:2). Heaven is also undoubtedly referred to as a state (Ephesians 2:6; Philippians 3:20), but Christ's body must be in some place, and where He is, there is Heaven.

3. Lutheran Doctrine:

This is certainly the doctrine of the church in general, and seems to be consistent with the Scriptural teaching. But the Lutherans have maintained that the ascension of the Lord merely involved a change of state in the human nature of Christ. He possessed during His life on earth the Divine attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, but He voluntarily abstained from their exercise. But at His ascension He returned to the full use of these powers. The ascension is Christ's return to immensity. The community of natures gave these Divine qualities to the humanity of Jesus, which Luther declared involved its ubiquity, and that as He was at the right hand of God, and God was everywhere, so Christ in His human personality was in no specific place but everywhere. This omnipresence is not of the infinite extension of the body of the Lord, but He is present as God is everywhere present in knowledge and power.

4. Theory of Laying Aside the Existence-Form of God:

Another theory of the ascended humanity-of the Lord depends upon the conception of the Son of God laying aside at incarnation the "existence-form of God," and while affirming that Christ's body is now in a definite place, it proceeds to hold that at the ascension the accidental and variable qualities of humanity were laid aside, and that He dwells in heaven as a glorified man. Ebrard says: "He has laid aside forever the existence form of God, and assumed that of man in perpetuity, in which form by His Spirit He governs the church and the world. He is thus dynamically present to all His people." This form of doctrine seems to involve as the result of the incarnation of the Son of God His complete and sole humanity. He is no more than a man. The Logos is no longer God, and as the ascension did not involve the reassumption of the "existence-form of God," Christ in glory is only a glorified man.

5. Necessity:

The ascension was necessary, in conformity with the spiritual character of the kingdom which Christ founded. Its life is that of faith, not sight. A perpetual life of even the resurrected Christ on earth would have been wholly inconsistent with the spiritual nature of the new order. The return of Christ to the special presence of God was also part of His high-priestly service (see CHRIST, OFFICES OF) and His corporal absence from His people was the condition of that gift of the Spirit by which salvation was to be secured to each believer and promulgated throughout the world, as declared by Himself (John 16:7). Finally, the ascension was that physical departure of the Lord to the place which He was to prepare for His people (John 14:2,John 14:3). The resurrection was this completion of the objective conditions of redemption. The ascension was the initial step in the carrying out of redemptive work in the final salvation of mankind.

III. Exaltation Completed at the Right Hand of God.

1. Its Significance:

The term "the right hand of God" is Scriptural (Acts 7:55,Acts 7:56; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22) and expresses the final step in the Lord's exaltation. Care must be taken in the use of the expression. It is a figure to express the association of Christ with God in glory and power. It must not be employed as by Luther to denote the relation of the body of Christ to space, neither must it be limited to the Divine nature of the Logos reinstated in the conditions laid aside in incarnation. Christ thus glorified is the God-man, theanthropic person, Divine and human.

2. Its Essential Necessity:

This exaltation is based upon the essential glory of the Son of God, who "being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person .... sat down on the right hand" (Hebrews 1:3 the King James Version). It is the claim which the Lord makes for Himself in His prayer (John 17:4,John 17:5), and is thus specifically declared in Philippians 2:6–11: "God highly exalted Him." But in His glory Christ received the power universal and Divine. In Ephesians 1:20–22 His supreme dignity and power are affirmed "far above .... every name," "all things .... under His feet" (compare Hebrews 2:8; 1 Corinthians 15:27; 1 Peter 3:22). Christ at the "right hand of God" is the highly suggestive picture of His universal dominion asserted by Himself (Matthew 28:18): "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth." It is vain to speculate upon the relation of Christ's nature in this exalted state. We cannot distinguish between the human and Divine. We can only believe in, and trust and submit to the One Glorified Person who thus administers the kingdom in perfect harmony with its Divine laws in all the ages, and His own revelation of the will of God, as given to man in His own earthly career: pitiful, tender, serving, helping, restoring, saving, triumphant. The exaltation is for His mediatorial and finally saving work. He is the Head of His church; He is the Lord of angels and men; He is the Master of the ages.

IV. The Second Advent.

The exaltation of Christ is to be completed by His coming again at the close of the dispensation, to complete His redemptive work and judge the world, and so to establish the final Kingdom of God. This belief has found a place in all the ecumenical symbols. Theology has ever included it in its eschatology. It is clear that the apostles and the early church expected the second coming of the Lord as an immediate event, the significance of which, and especially the effect of the nonfulfillment of which expectation, does not fall within the province of this article to consider. The various theories of the Parousia, the different ideas as to the time and the form of the second Advent, do not concern its relation to the exaltation of the Lord. Whenever and however He may return; whether He is ever coming to the church and to the world, His visible or His spiritual presence, do not affect the fact that He has been exalted to the position of ultimate Lord and final judge of men. We may therefore define this crowning condition of exaltation as:

1. Reality:

An advent, real, personal and visible. We must guard against the extremes of limiting this advent on the one side to a final particular event, on the other to those critical and catastrophic movements in world history which have led to the extension of God's kingdom and a virtual judgment of men. The Lord is ever coming, and also He will return. See Acts 1:11; Luke 17:24; Matthew 24:30; Matthew 25:31; Luke 19:12; Matthew 13:40,Matthew 13:41,Matthew 13:49; Luke 18:8; John 5:28,John 5:29; John 6:40,John 6:54; John 21:22; Acts 3:20; 2 Thessalonians 1:10; Hebrews 9:28; James 5:8; Jude 1:14; 1 John 2:28; Revelation 1:7. The reality and visibility of the advent depend upon the personal and abiding relation of the Lord to the world-redemption. Christianity is not merely a spiritual dynamic drawn from a series of past events. It is the living relation of the complete humanity of the redeemed to the God man, and must therefore be consummated in a spiritual and material form. The ultimate of Christianity is no more docetic than was its original. A reverent faith will be satisfied with the fact of the glory whenever it shall arrive. The form and time are unrevealed. Preparation and readiness are better than speculation and imaginary description.

2. Judgment:

The Judgment is clearly taught by Scripture. our Lord declares that He is appointed Judge. (John 5:22; John 9:39). Paul teaches that we must "all stand before the judgment- seat of God" (Romans 14:10). Here again there is the suggestion of the judgment which is ever being made by the Lord in His office as Sovereign and Administrator of the kingdom; but there is also the expectation of a definite and final act of separation and discernment. Whatever may be the form of this judgment (and here again a wise and reverent silence as to the unrevealed is a becoming attitude for the believer), we are sure that He who will make it, is the glorified Word incarnate, and it will be the judgment of a wisdom and justice and love that will be the complete glory of the Christ.

See also ASCENSION; JUDGMENT; PAROUSIA; RESURRECTION.

L. D. Bevan

Christian

kris'-chan, kris'-ti-an (Christianos):

1. Historicity of Acts 11:26

2. Of Pagan Origin

3. The Christian Attitude to the Name

4. Was "Christian" the Original Form?

5. The Christians and the Empire

6. Social Standing of the Early Christians

7. Christian Self-Designations

LITERATURE

1. Historicity of Acts 11:26:

The word Christian occurs only three times in the New Testament (Acts 11:26; Acts 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16). The first passage, Acts 11:26, gives the origin of the term, "The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." The older generation of critical scholars disputed the historicity of this statement. It was argued that, had the term originated so early, it must have been found far more frequently in the records of early Christianity; sometimes also that the termination -ianus points to a Latin origin. But there is general agreement now that these objections are groundless. The historicity of the Lukan account is upheld not only by Harnack, but by the more radical Knopf in Die Schriften des New Testament, edited by Johannes Weiss. In early imperial times, the adjectival termination -ianos was widely diffused throughout the whole empire. Originally applied to the slaves belonging to the great households, it had passed into regular use to denote the adherents of an individual or a party. A Christian is thus simply an adherent of Christ. The name belongs, as Ramsay says, to the popular slang, as indeed sect and party names generally do. It is only after a considerable interval, and very often under protest, that such names are accepted as self-designations.

2. Of Pagan Origin:

The name, then, did not originate with the Christians themselves. Nor would the Jews have applied it to the followers of Jesus, whose claim to be the Christ they opposed so passionately. They spoke of the Christians as "the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5); perhaps also as "Galileans," a term which the emperor Julian attempted later vainly to revive. The word must have been coined by the heathen population of Antioch, as the church emerged from the synagogue, and a Christianity predominantly Gentiletook its place among the religions of the world.

3. The Christian Attitude to the Name:

Perhaps the earliest occurrence of Christian as a self-designation is in Didache 12:4. In the Apologists and Ignatius on the other hand the word is in regular use. 1Pe simply takes it over from the anti-Christian judicial procedure of the law courts, without in any way implying that the Christians used it among themselves. There is every probability, however, that it was the danger which thus began at an early date to attach to the name which commended it to the Christians themselves as a title of honor . Deissmann (Licht vom Osten, 286) suggests that Christian means slave of Christ, as Caesarian means slave of Caesar. But the word can scarcely have had that fullness of meaning till the Christians themselves had come to be proud of it.

According to tradition, Luke himself belonged to Antioch. In Acts 11:27,Acts 11:28 Codex Bezae (D) reads "There was much rejoicing, and when we had assembled, there stood up," etc. In view of the greater authority now so frequently accorded to the so-called Western text, we cannot summarily dispose of such a reading as an interpolation. If the historian was not only an Antiochene, but a member of the original GentileChristian church, we have the explanation alike of his interest in the origin of the name Chris tian, and of the detailed precision of his information.

4. Was "Christian" the Original Form?:

In all three New Testament passages the uncorrected Codex Sinaiticus reads "Chrestian." We know from many sources that this variant was widely current in the 2nd century. Blass in his edition of Ac not only consistently reads "Chrestian," but conjectures that "Chrestian" is the correct reading in Tacitus (Annals, xv.44), the earliest extra- Biblical testimony to the word. The Tacitus manuscript has since been published in facsimile. This has shown, according to Harnack (Mission and Expansion (English translation), I, 413, 414), that "Chrestian" actually was the original reading, though the name "Christ" is correctly given. Harnack accordingly thinks that the Latin historian intended to correct the popular appellation of circa 64 AD, in the light of his own more accurate knowledge. "The common people used to call them `Chrestians,' but the real name of their founder was Christ." Be this as it may, a confusion between "Christos" (Christos) and the familiar Greek slave name "Chrestos" (chrestos is more intelligible at an early date than late r, when Christianity was better known). There must have been a strong tendency to conform the earlier witnesses to the later, familiar, and etymologically correct, usage. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that the original scribe of Codex Sinaiticus retains "Chrestian." On the whole it seems probable that this designation, though bestowed in error, was the original one.

5. The Christians and the Empire:

The fuller discussion of this subject more appropriately falls under the articles dealing with the relation of the church and empire. Suffice it here to say that Paul apparently hoped that by his acquittal the legal position of Christianity as a religio licita would be established throughout the empire, and that 1 Peter belongs to a time when the mere profession of Christianity was a crime in the eyes of the state, but that in all probability this was a new position of affairs.

6. Social Standing of the Early Christians:

That early Christianity was essentially a movement among the lower non-literary classes has been rightly emphasized--above all by Deissmann. This is a circumstance of the utmost importance for the correct understanding of the early history of our faith, though probably Deissmann in some degree exaggerates and misplaces the significance. Is it correct to say, for example, that "primitive Christianity was relatively indifferent to politics, not as Christianity, but as a movement of the humbler folks, whose lot on the whole had certainly been lightened by the Empire" (Licht vom Osten, 254)? Very probably however the difficulties of the Pauline Gentilemission were appreciably increased by the fact that he touched a lower social stratum than that of the original Jewish Christianity of Palestine. No class more resents being associated in any way with the "submerged masses" than the self-respecting peasant or artisan, who seems to have formed the backbone of the Palestine church. The apostle had conseq uently to fight against social, no less than racial and religious, prejudices.

7. Christian Self-Designations:

The Christians originally called themselves "Disciples," a term afterward restricted to personal hearers of the Lord, and regarded as a title of high distinction. The ordinary self-designations of the apostolic age are "believers" (Acts 5:14; 1 Timothy 4:12), "saints" (Acts 9:13,Acts 9:12,Acts 9:41; Romans 1:7), "brethren" (Acts 6:3; Acts 10:23, etc.), "the elect" (Colossians 3:12; 2 Timothy 2:10), "the church of God" (Acts 20:28 margin), "servants (slaves) to God" (Romans 6:22; 1 Peter 2:16). The apostolic authors refer to themselves as "servants (slaves) of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:1). Other expressions are occasionally met with, of which perhaps the most significant is: Those "that call upon the name of the Lord" (Acts 9:14; Romans 10:12,Romans 10:13; 1 Corinthians 1:2). Compare Pliny's report to Trajan (Epistles, X, 97): "They affirmed that .... they had been wont to assemble and address a hymn to Christ as to a god."

LITERATURE.

The most recent discussion of the names of Christian believers, including "Christian," is in Harnack's Mission and Expansion of Christianity, English translation (2nd edition, 1908), I, 399 ff. See also EB, HDB, DCG, with the lit. there cited. On the social status of the early Christians, compare Orr's Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity; on the religious significance of the name, see CHRISTIANITY.

John Dickie