Incarnation, Repentance, And The Central Aspect Of The Atonement: A Critical Evaluation Of The Development Of Fallen Humanity Christology In Scotland

By James Salem Ritchey Jr.

[James Ritchey is a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, and is pastoral intern at Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tampa, FL.]

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the development of fallen humanity Christology (the teaching that Christ’s human nature was sinful) in Scotland, specifically interacting with the writings of Edward Irving, John McLeod Campbell, Hugh Ross Mackintosh, and Thomas Forsyth Torrance. This study of their teachings also includes other related and aberrant doctrines that sprang forth from this theological concept. After examining their teachings, a critique is offered from the vantage point of Scripture and confessional Reformed theology. The writings of other Scottish theologians who have maintained that the humanity of Christ is unfallen and perfect are also utilized in order to draw a contrast and further the point that fallen humanity Christology should be rejected.

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Reformed theology in Scotland consistently found itself in the midst of controversy. One of the most significant matters of controversy in the Scottish church has been the issue of Christology, in regard to both the Person and work of Christ. While there seemed to be a consistent Reformed orthodox strain in Scottish Christology, there were certain authors who tended to veer beyond Chalcedonian and Westminsterian boundaries. There are several particularly noteworthy figures in this regard, but the progression in christological development seems to culminate in Thomas Forsyth Torrance.[1] The aim of this article is to trace the development of Christology in Scotland from Edward Irving all the way to Torrance himself and to offer a critique from a confessional, Reformed perspective. This survey will focus primarily on the doctrine of Christ’s Person, particularly with regard to the idea of Christ taking upon himself a fallen humanity. The different ways in which this played a role in each theologian’s thought will be examined as well as the implications of their views for Christ’s work. Particular attention must be paid to Edward Irving, John McLeod Campbell, Hugh Ross Mackintosh, and T. F. Torrance.[2] A number of direct quotations from these authors will be set forth in order to present a summary of their teaching, and work from secondary sources will be presented as well. After setting forth their ideas, the critique will begin with fallen humanity Christology generally in Irving and Torrance and will move from there to specifically engage certain variations of this Christology found in Campbell and Mackintosh.

I. Edward Irving

The first figure to be engaged and assessed is Edward Irving (1792–1834). Irving is notable because he was the first to be accused of heresy as a result of his views on the humanity of Christ.[3] He was influenced most heavily in his christological positions by Samuel Coleridge who himself denied the traditional doctrine of Christ’s divinity.[4] The influence of Coleridge on Irving gave rise to a view of the humanity of Christ that was certainly seen as less than orthodox:

In turn, shortly as he began to ‘sit at Coleridge’s feet and drink in every syllable of his conversation,’ Irving began to preach a view of the person of Christ quite different from that of orthodox Christianity and similar to that of Coleridge. This view he inserted in a somewhat veiled fashion in a series of sermons on The Doctrine of the Trinity, and though most of the congregation saw in his statements nothing objectionable, other hearers asserted that throughout these discourses there ran the idea that Christ possessed a sinful nature.[5]

Dallimore notes that Irving was interviewed regarding his beliefs by Henry Cole of the Church of England, and Cole took great offense to the teaching of Irving on this topic.[6] Cole published the views of Irving for all in the church to see, but Irving firmly argued that Cole had grossly misrepresented him.[7] Irving’s own defense, however, was not enough to prove his orthodoxy:

During the next few years he published a score of pages in an attempt to tell mankind what his view actually was, but in no effort of his whole life did he prove himself so unable to think clearly or to use words precisely. Even the most charitable assessment of his writings in this matter must admit his statements are very hard to understand and that he seems constantly to contradict himself. Just as in his conversation with Cole he could say in one breath ‘Christ did not sin’ and in the next could assert ‘His iniquities were more than the hairs of his head’, so throughout his numerous pages on the nature of Christ he repeatedly makes contradictions of this kind.[8]

Dallimore summarizes the Christology of Irving in the following way:

1. In coming to earth Christ did not take the human nature possessed by Adam before the fall, but after the fall, and therefore it was fallen, corrupt, depraved human nature. 2. Because of this fallen nature He was subject to the same evil tendencies and the same temptations as other men, and thus His life was a continual battle against sin and Satan. 3. Christ’s battle was a real one—as real as that of any man.… 4. Nevertheless, Christ was always victorious.… 5. Accordingly, Christ is the supreme example to all mankind.… 6. The Holy Spirit, by whom Christ obtained victory, is equally available to all of us, and we may experience the same baptism with the Spirit and be endued with the same power as that which was exercised in Christ. 7. Therefore, Christ, as He came to the close of His activity on earth, was able to present to God a perfect human nature. This perfect human nature God accepted, and He did so not merely as to its effect on behalf of Christ, but concerning its effect also on behalf of all mankind. In turn, this acceptance, this coming together of God with man, Irving terms ‘reconciliation’ and ‘at-one-ment’ and this great work was accomplished by Christ, not in His death, but in His life.[9]

With this said, it is important to look to a few of Irving’s own words. Irving asserts that it must be that Christ takes on a fallen flesh. To say otherwise is to be deluded by fantasy.[10] He will make clear, however, that it is his belief that it was only the human nature that was tainted with fallenness and not the Person of the Son of God himself.[11] He writes:

The human nature of Christ alone suffered; and that is not infinite, but finite. Therefore there is no infinite amount of suffering to balance against the sufferings of the elect through eternity; and so the account will not balance, and the theory falls to the ground … that orthodox and enlarged view which I have given of the Father’s act, as bringing Christ into the conditions of the fallen humanity, doth well and truly appropriate every utterance which the Father hath uttered, and every act which the Father hath done against sinners, to be spoken and done against Christ also: not by substitution merely, but by reality; not by imputation merely, but in very truth. This, indeed, is what they cannot understand who consider imputation as containing the whole mystery of God; whereof it is only a part, though a very important part: and it will prove utterly unintelligible, confusion worse confounded, to all those who consent to the sufficiency of the debtor-and-creditor theology; or have been sucked by Satan into the heresy that Christ had a humanity in some way diverse from ours.[12]

Therefore, Irving holds that at least in some sense, there is a sharp distinction between the Person of Christ and the humanity. Dallimore says of his position, “He clearly thought that it was possible to ascribe sinfulness to Christ’s human nature without implicating Christ’s Person.”[13]

Irving also held that the sinful flesh of Christ motivated a particular dependence upon the Holy Spirit.[14] Dallimore cites Irving speaking of an interaction with a woman who was greatly impacted by his preaching: “She straightaway argued, If Jesus as a man in my nature thus speaks and performed mighty works by the Holy Ghost which he even promised to me, then ought I in the same nature, by the same Spirit, to do likewise ‘the works which he did, and greater works than these.’”[15] The result of his teaching became a form of Pelagianism: “The Christian’s foundation, ‘Christ died for our sins’ was obscured. The substitutionary sufferings of Calvary were not at the centre of his message. It became possible for people to believe that the salvation which Irving preached was salvation by works rather than by grace.”[16] Thus began a trend in which a sinless substitutionary sacrifice of Christ was dismissed by many prominent theologians in the Scottish church.

II. John McLeod Campbell

The next figure to be engaged is John McLeod Campbell (1800–1872). Campbell carries fallen humanity Christology to another level as he proposes the idea of “the Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ.”[17] This culminates in a doctrine of “vicarious penitence”[18] which he believed could be found in the thought of both Calvin and the Marrowmen.[19] For Campbell, the central aspect of the atonement is the humanity of Christ and his repentance on behalf of mankind. Ian Hamilton writes of Campbell’s system, “The atonement is not made by Christ suffering for sinners, but by Christ’s perfect confession and repentance of sin.”[20] This would result in a rejection of penal substitution.[21] This is tied to his affirmation of universal atonement, for Christ’s vicarious humanity was for all mankind.[22] Campbell writes:

It is manifest, if we consider it, that Christ’s own long-suffering love was the revelation to those who should see the Father in the Son, of that forgiving love in God to which Christ’s intercession for men would be addressed; and so also, I believe, does Christ’s own condemnation of our sins, and His holy sorrow because of them, indicate that dealing with the aspect of the divine mind towards sin which prepared the way for intercession. That oneness of mind with the Father, which towards man took the form of condemnation of sin, would, in the Son’s dealing with the Father in relation to our sins, take the form of a perfect confession of our sins. This confession, as to its own nature, must have been a perfect Amen in humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man. Such an Amen was due in the truth of things. He who was the Truth could not be in humanity and not utter it—and it was necessarily a first step in dealing with the Father on our behalf. He who would intercede for us must begin with confessing our sins.[23]

He will continue to note that Christ’s response to God for our sin “has all the elements of a perfect repentance in humanity for all the sin of man … and by that perfect response in Amen to the mind of God in relation to sin is the wrath of God rightly met, and that is accorded to divine justice which is its due, and could alone satisfy it.”[24]

It is important to note, however, that even as Campbell speaks of a vicarious repentance on behalf of the people of God, he does not view it as substitutionary. Campbell actually repudiates the idea of the atonement of repentance being substitutionary.[25] It is shown that Christ is for Campbell the ultimate example of repentance for his people. Campbell does not seem anywhere to explicitly affirm a sinful flesh of Christ, but the seeds of such a doctrine seem implicit in his thought. The doctrine of a vicarious humanity and a vicarious repentance at least in an implicit sense necessitate a certain sort of fallenness in Christ.

III. Hugh Ross Mackintosh

A third figure of some prominence in the development of fallen humanity Christology in Scotland is Hugh Ross Mackintosh (1870–1936). Mackintosh is best known for tying his christological positions to a version of the kenosis theory, though he places a unique spin upon the doctrine.[26] He particularly took issue with the concept of immutability, as he believed that it was abused to the extent that it “put the very idea of divine self-limitation out of court.”[27] He held that Christ did not dispose of his own divine attributes but significantly “modified” them and did not realize his deity until he was well into adulthood.[28] Not only is this the case, but he views Christ’s life in a way as the atonement itself.[29] The act of sin-bearing, for Mackintosh, was an act that lasted throughout the entirety of the life of Christ, and this is seen clearly at his baptism in which he identified with his people.[30] Andrew Purves writes, “Already in his baptism, for example, he made our sins his own as he insisted on being reckoned as one of us. Thus the cross is the culmination of what he lived.”[31] Mackintosh himself writes, “His work is but His person in movement.”[32] The act of sin-bearing seems actually to be united in some sense to the Person himself. Thus the work is the Person. This seems to be Mackintosh’s distinct Christology and a continuation of the foundations laid by Irving and Campbell. He writes much like Campbell when he says:

For us, with us, He there bowed under the Father’s judgment on sin, confessing the sinfulness of wrong and its utter evil in God’s sight. His bowing thus, in perfect love, was his sacrifice.… We take His confession as our own, pronouncing our Amen to His utter acceptance of the righteous will of God.… When He does so, He exhibits the mind and spirit of perfect sonship, which alone is satisfying to the Father’s heart.[33]

He does not hold directly to the vicarious repentance theory of Campbell, but he does view all of humanity as being forgiven in Christ as Christ is in a sense forgiven himself on behalf of his people. This is still not seen in a penal or forensic sense, however.[34]

IV. T. F. Torrance

The figure who merits the largest introduction in this article is Thomas Forsyth Torrance (1913–2007). The reasoning for this is that he is the most recent and certainly the most influential on a more popular level with this type of christological thinking.35 Torrance is also the most systematic and holistic. Kevin Chiarot writes, “His work spans a wide range of fields including the intersection of science and theology, epistemology and the philosophy of language, patristic studies, Calvin and Reformation studies, Barth reception and interpretation, as well as ecumenical theological engagement.”[36] Torrance is the most persuasive figure perhaps because he is in some ways a Renaissance man of theological study. His fallen humanity Christology is the most complete because it is the most comprehensive. He “not only affirms that Christ assumed our fallen humanity, but … it is a pervasive and decisive component of his ‘Christological science.’”[37]

Torrance’s widespread study in historical theology was a major influence on his notion of Christ’s assumption of a fallen humanity. He believed that the doctrine is found throughout the patristics and sees no category for redemption of humanity in the fathers if Christ did not take on even the worst aspect of humanity, namely, a sinful nature.[38] Torrance also believed he saw in Calvin and many Scottish theologians traces of this thought.[39] He was influenced in many regards by the thinking of Edward Irving, John McLeod Campbell, and H. R. Mackintosh. The foundations laid down by these men reach their peak in the theology of Torrance.[40] Torrance certainly embraced Irving’s “great stress upon the role of the Spirit in maintaining Christ’s purity.”[41] Further Torrance was influenced by many aspects of “Campbell’s integration of incarnation and atonement, his focus on the humanity of Christ, and particularly the notion of Christ’s vicarious repentance on our behalf.”[42] The seeds planted by Campbell were harvested by Torrance. Mackintosh taught Torrance at New College, and “it is clear his Christ-centered evangelical theology, his emphasis on the homoousion, his use of ontological categories, not to mention his personal piety, left a substantial impression on Torrance.”[43]

Outside of Scotland, Karl Barth was the most important influence on Torrance.[44] While holding that “Christ was personally sinless” he also holds to an assumption of fallenness in Christ’s nature.[45] Chiarot cites Barth as saying, “The Word is not only the eternal Word of God but ‘flesh’ as well, i.e., all that we are and exactly like us even in our opposition to Him.”[46]

Torrance’s own position comes down to what he found in each of these sources. He particularly appeals to Nanzianzen to assert his position. According to Chiarot:

Torrance piles up citations from, among others, Basil, Nyssa, Athanasius, Hilary, and Nanzianzen who “provide the principle with its most enigmatic expression in a trenchant refutation of Apollinarian denial that Christ had a human soul or mind. ‘The unassumed is the unhealed; but what is united to God is saved. If only half Adam fell, then what Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of him who was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.’”[47]

This will lead to another distinctive of Torrance’s position, namely, the sanctification of Christ’s fallen humanity.[48] Torrance holds that Christ is continually sanctified in a fallen flesh throughout his life in order to further identify with his people.[49]

At this point it will be helpful to look to some of Torrance’s own writing on the humanity of Christ. Torrance, like Mackintosh, sees an inseparable connection between the atonement of Christ and the Person, so much so that the work is in a way, the Person. Not only is this the case, but the work of redemption is applied to man through Christ’s incarnation. Torrance explains:

During my first week of office as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland when I presided at the Assembly’s Gaelic Service, a highlander asked me whether I was born again, and when I replied in the affirmative he asked when I had been born again. I still recall his face when I told him that I had been born again when Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the virgin tomb, the first-born from the dead. When he asked me to explain I said: ‘This Tom Torrance you see is full of corruption, but the real Tom Torrance is hid with Christ in God and will be revealed only when Jesus Christ comes again. He took my corrupt humanity in his Incarnation, sanctified, cleansed and redeemed it, giving it new birth, in his death and resurrection.’ In other words, our new birth, our regeneration, our conversion, are what has taken place in Jesus Christ himself, so that when we speak of our conversion or our regeneration we are referring to our sharing in the conversion or regeneration of our humanity brought about by Jesus in and through himself for our sake. In a profound and proper sense, therefore, we must speak of Jesus Christ as constituting in himself the very substance of our conversion, so that we must think of him as taking our place even in our acts of repentance and personal decision, for without him all so-called repentance and conversion are empty. Since a conversion in that truly evangelical sense is a turning away from ourselves to Christ, it calls for a conversion to one which is grounded and sustained in Jesus Christ himself.[50]

In other words, the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his taking the corruption of human nature in its full upon himself was the atonement. The sanctification of Christ was, in a real sense, man’s redemption from sin and reconciliation to God. Not only is this the case, but the only way in which the cross holds for Torrance is if Christ took on a human nature to its fullest extent—including its corruption. This is the way in which the cross can really be a condemning of sin in the flesh. The atonement of Christ’s incarnate life reaches its apex in the cross:

That assumption of our fearful and lost condition reaches its supreme point in the cross where the Son freely assumes our damnation and final judgment, freely assumes our God-forsakenness in the Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani of death on the cross under judgment. And so he achieves our assumption into oneness with himself, and because that assumption is maintained even in the hell into which the Son descended, it achieves its end in the resurrection of man out of hell and the exaltation of man in Christ to the right hand of God. All that took place in Christ, for in him our human nature in and with all its burden of guilt and judgment and corruption has already been assumed, and in such a way through Calvary and Easter that it is actually resurrected out of our estrangement and corruption and exalted to share the eternal life of God himself. That is the meaning of reconciliation, the restoration of men and women in Christ to fellowship with God, and even their exaltation to be partakers of the divine nature, so that they live for ever in the overflow of the eternal life and love of God the Father.[51]

He continues, “It is then in the person of Jesus Christ himself, the mediator, that our reconciliation has already taken place, and as such it remains as enduring and perfected reality available for all in him.”[52] Thus, for Torrance, the incarnation of the Son of God was an incarnation into all the corruption and pollution of man’s fallen flesh, and on the cross that finds its most explicit fulfillment when God rejects him as fallen mankind.[53] Thus, there is a sense in which the atonement can be understood in penal substitutionary terms, as Christ bears God’s wrath on behalf of humanity from within humanity’s fallen nature.[54]

V. Critique of Fallen Humanity Christology

Now that each theologian in this study of the progression and development of Scottish incarnational Christology has been examined, it is at this point that a critique and rebuttal are offered. The rebuttal offered will seek to provide a confessional response to the various issues addressed above. In doing so, it will lean upon other Scottish theologians who maintained the sinlessness of Christ’s human nature, using their argumentation as a springboard. Issues to be addressed are fallen humanity Christology in general, then in particular the issues of vicarious repentance and kenoticism.[55]

The innovative theology of fallen humanity theology must first be addressed. The idea that Christ took upon himself a fallen human nature is simply not confessional, nor is it creedal. The whole idea is based upon a flawed assumption that the flesh which Christ took upon himself was a personal human nature.56 It so divides the divine and the human nature that the human nature essentially becomes a separate Person, thus giving way to a form of the Nestorian heresy.[57] This type of thinking is clearly excluded by both Chalcedon and the Westminster Confession.[58]

Not only is this the case with regard to the issue of Nestorianism, but it is also a certain fact that a Christ that is sinful in any way is outside the scope of the Confession. Westminster Confession 8.2 states:

The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.

The idea that Christ is without sin carries the force of Christ being both without personal, actual sin and without any sort of sinful nature. This is built upon the thoroughly biblical idea that Jesus was the “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15).

The theology of Irving which developed in Campbell, Mackintosh, and Torrance in various ways also undercuts the hope of the gospel set forth in Rom 8. Irving’s doctrine does great violence to the first four verses of this grand chapter:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:1–4)

Paul is clear and certain that Christ comes not in sinful flesh, but “the likeness of sinful flesh.” This is consistent with the rest of the corpus of his theology in which he propounds a sinless Savior who stands as a Second Adam, without guilt. This guiltless and sinless Savior bears in his own body the sin of his people at the cross, giving life to those dead in Adam (Rom 5:12–21, 1 Cor 15:31). The whole scheme of Christ’s standing as a perfect sacrifice (Heb 10) and a Second Adam falls apart if Christ loses his sinless nature. Sin cannot be condemned in the flesh if Christ possesses a sinful flesh. As George Smeaton notes:

The great error of Irving, who maintained that our Lord assumed fallen flesh … subverts the very principle of substitution, which takes for granted that a sinless person, with a complete exemption from sin and all its consequences, spontaneously entered into the position and responsibilities of the sinner.… The Lord Jesus never was in Adam’s covenant, but came as the second Adam, the counterpart of the first; and His entrance into humanity by the supernatural conception, was meant to obviate the imputation of Adam’s first sin, as well as the transmission of any of its consequences by necessity of nature. He was personally exempt, both as the incarnate Son and as the second man, from all the guilt, as well as from all the consequences connected with the guilt of the first Adam.… To suppose that sin, or any of its consequences, attached to the person of the Lord by the fact of assuming our humanity or entering into human life, is a lamentable confusion of idea.[59]

In other words, it is a tremendous mistake to assume that Christ took on human sinfulness in his flesh because that would destroy Paul’s entire theology of Christ’s coming as the Second Adam. If Jesus in any way possesses a stain of sin, he cannot be the substitute for humanity. He comes at precisely the right time to redeem that which was lost in the first Adam’s sin. Jesus is free from the fallenness of corrupt human flesh because he stands as the new Adam.

It is also significant to note passages such as 2 Cor 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The passage carries a certain weight that cannot and has not been refuted by fallen humanity Christology. The Son of God in his humanity “knew no sin.” This statement excludes the possibility of Jesus actually sinning or of having imputed sin. The passage also loses a great deal of force if Jesus is not the absolutely sinless and spotless one who is declared to be sin in the stead of his own.[60] For Paul, the whole thrust of a penal substitutionary sacrifice relies upon a Christ who is perfect in his being. The innocent one is reckoned to be sin—bearing the penalty of sin and the shame of sin at the cross so that the people of God may be declared to be righteous. If Jesus is not perfect both in action and in nature, then imputation is reduced to naught. It must not be forgotten that “the end for which Christ was made sin was, THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.”[61]

Sadly, but not surprisingly, fallen humanity Christology sees very little thorough or accurate exegesis. It seems that the whole enterprise is based more upon philosophical speculation than upon God’s revelation in Scripture. The fact is, the type of thinking set forth in these thinkers is more often than not systematic theology divorced from exegetical precision. This is a dangerous place for one to be.[62] Torrance does offer more exegetical insight than does Irving, but it is clear that it is done through a speculative lens, drawing conclusions not warranted by the text itself. Not only is this the case, but his interpretations often provide more questions than answers.[63]

With the above criticism of fallen humanity Christology as a whole entity, it is necessary at this point to offer a critique of vicarious repentance.

VI. A Critique Of Vicarious Repentance

The theology of a vicarious repentance is essentially a carrying of fallen humanity Christology to its logical soteriological ends. The idea of Jesus’ atonement entailing an ultimate confession and repentance on behalf of his people is appealing in that it seems to work well with the biblical idea set forth in the book of Hebrews that Christ is able to sympathize with his people in all their weaknesses; however, a vicarious repentance is never set forth in Scripture and is thoroughly speculative. Again, it is the sad result of a lack of exegesis in systematizing doctrine. As noted above, this sort of thinking also led to a denial of substitutionary atonement. The biblical notion of propitiation and Christ bearing the wrath of the Father was replaced with an exemplary and vicarious repenting Christ. The heart of the gospel as set forth in Rom 3:21–26 is cut out:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Paul is seeking to answer the question of how a good and just God can declare a sinful man to be righteous in his sight. His answer is in a real propitiatory sacrifice. This is something for which vicarious repentance as espoused by Campbell cannot account. As Hamilton writes, “Campbell’s theory is beset with numerous difficulties. First, the cross and not the incarnation lies at the heart of the biblical view of the atonement. Secondly, Campbell nowhere spells out how Christ’s repentance avails for others, having rejected all notions of substitution as unworthy.”[64]

In other words, there can be no real substitutionary atonement according to Campbell’s theory—the Bible’s teaching on the cross is rejected. Not only is this the case, but it undercuts the meaning of true intercession entirely. The biblical doctrine is that the Christ who is perfect in nature and in action stands before the Father pleading not his repentance and confession, but rather his perfect obedience and death. When Satan stands to condemn the people of God, what the people of God need is not to be able to look at their obedience and repentance set in motion by the example of Christ, but to look to the Son’s perfect and obedient life on their behalf. This is the obedience in which the High Priest of Zech 3 was clothed. This is the hope and the confidence that can never be shaken for the genuine believer in Christ. Christ is a perfect sacrifice and an indestructible Savior. A true doctrine of the mediatorial intercession of Christ, the Great High Priest and Most Holy Intercessor, is inextricably linked to a doctrine of substitutionary atonement. As 1 John 2:1–2 states, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” The former cannot exist without the latter.[65]

Campbell’s notion of vicarious repentance is not quite as explicit as the fallen humanity Christology set forth by Irving and Torrance, but it is the logical outcome. A Christ who repents of the sin of his people is at least in a sense sharing in their sin and taking part in it. This entails some notion of a sinful humanity on the part of Christ, which, as stated above, ought to be flatly rejected.

VII. A Critique of Mackintosh’s Kenoticism

A criticism of fallen humanity Christology in Scotland is not complete without some criticism of kenoticism. Mackintosh’s kenotic Christology certainly plays an important role in the development of Scottish Christology. It is seen that an emptying or modifying of divine attributes makes way for the sin-bearing Christ to actually possess sin-bearing as part of his nature. Sin-bearing and the nature of Christ become tied together as one. This section of the criticism relies heavily on points set forth by Donald Macleod in his book The Humiliated and Exalted Lord: Studies in Philippians 2 and Christology.[66]

One of the significant problems with Mackintosh’s theology is that the kenotic theory is based upon a destructive and fallacious interpretation of Phil 2. As Donald Macleod notes, Paul does not even seek to ask or to answer the question of what Christ emptied himself when he became man.[67] He writes, “We are transgressing the boundaries of its application when we ask, ‘emptied Himself of what?’ That’s where the kenosis error comes in—when we answer the question by saying that what He emptied Himself of was the form of God.”[68]

The clear and obvious problem with this is that it must either implicitly or explicitly deny the divinity of Christ as a whole. It also obliterates the Reformed and Confessional doctrine of immutability.69 The character of God is denied, and the deity of the Son is either redefined or rejected.

It is also the case that the Reformed doctrine of the extra Calvinisticum is called into question if not totally repudiated. Macleod calls to mind certain biblical passages to which this teaching does violence:

What became of the cosmic functions of Christ during those moments of humiliation and abasement? We find in the NT that “in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). What is, is “life in Him” (John 1:17). He “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). During these moments of the incompetence of the logos … due to the contraction of the kenosis who was performing the functions of the logos? Who was upholding all things? In whom did all things consist? In whom did all things have their being during these moments of His humiliation and His exclusively human life?[70]

There is no way to account for the fact that Christ sustains all things while living a human life. There is no way to do justice to the passages of Scripture that maintain a divine Christ at all points. For kenosis, Christ simply cannot be God because he is man.[71] Both Chalcedonian and Westminsterian orthodoxy have no place for the kenosis theory.

Continuing in Macleod’s argument against this aberrant form of Christology, it is important to note that the theory espouses a “temporary incarnation.”[72] In other words, if Christ cannot be God if he is man, the inverse is also necessarily the case. Jesus ceases to be man at his ascension if this view is followed to its logical conclusion.[73] This is a denial of biblical teaching that Christ is everlasting God and everlasting Man (see Heb 1–2). This implicit denial destroys the confidence of Christian believers that Christ is able to identify with them in the midst of trial, temptation, and weakness.

Another point highlighted by Macleod is that the Gospels simply do not present “a depotentiated Logos.”[74] Both Christ and the authors of the Gospels present Jesus to be the eternal God. His uniting to a human nature does not in any way diminish his divinity. Christ himself is very aware that he is divine and does not in any place articulate that that divinity is lessened or set aside. We need only to look to passages of Holy Scripture such as John 10:30 to see that on the basis of the Gospels themselves, the kenotic theory is bankrupt.[75]

Finally, the passage of Philippians is explicit that Christ “emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7).[76] The passage in no way asserts that in emptying himself Jesus “cease[d] to be what He was.”[77] The Jesus who offers himself on behalf of sinners and to sinners freely is the Christ who retains his divinity while taking humanity upon himself.[78]

Again, this kenotic position is what opens the door for Mackintosh to hold to a fallen humanity and to make statements such as “His work is but His person in movement.”[79] Unfortunately, as was seen in the theology of Irving, Campbell, and Torrance, Mackintosh’s positions rely more heavily upon speculative thought than upon thorough exegetical work.

Conclusion

This article is set forth in order to trace the development of the theology of the fallen humanity of Christ in Scottish theology and to provide something of a critique. In so doing, direct quotations from authors have been presented as well as work from secondary writers.

It is shown above that the theology of Irving is the seed that brought to bear many and varied errors. The theology of a fallen humanity of Christ presents a Jesus who lives perfectly within a sinful nature. This gives rise to non-Reformed notions of soteriology in which a substitutionary sacrifice of Christ is rejected. The perfect and sinless Christ of Scripture is replaced with a tainted Christ who is marred by sin. In the thought of Campbell, substitution is denied in favor of perfect and vicarious repentance from Christ on the behalf of humanity. This “peculiar reworking of the very nature of the atonement”[80] coincides well with the thought of Mackintosh who affirms the very same on the basis of the kenotic theory. Finally, in both Torrance and Mackintosh, sin-bearing is seen as united to Christ’s Person, and the cross is the apex and culmination of his humanity.

As stated in many places in this article, the “fallen humanity of Christ” theology is neither biblical nor confessional. It cannot stand in the tradition of Reformed orthodoxy. This sort of aberrant theology regarding both the Person and the work of Christ is seen to be a major force in the Scottish confessional drift.[81] The Scriptures and the theology of the Confession present a Christ who is sinless and perfect in both nature and action. This Christ is the one who bears the sins of each one of his people at the cross as well as the wrath and curse that those belonging to him deserve. Thankfully, many Scottish authors saw the error of fallen humanity theology and remained faithful to both Chalcedon and the Confession in this regard. May the work of theology always seek to bring honor to the God who “has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3).

Notes

1. See Kevin Chiarot, The Unassumed Is the Unhealed: The Humanity of Christ in the Christology of T. F. Torrance (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013).
2. Donald Macleod has done similar work on this topic; see Donald Macleod, Jesus Is Lord: Christology Yesterday and Today (Ross-Shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2000), 107–43.
3. Arnold Dallimore, The Life of Edward Irving: The Fore-Runner of the Charismatic Movement (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1983), 77–82.
4. Ibid., 77.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 77–79.
7. Ibid., 79.
8. Ibid
9. Ibid., 79–80.
10. Edward Irving, “The Body and Soul of Christ,” in Miscellanies from the Collected Writings of Edward Irving (London: Alexander Strahan, 1865), 196.
11. Edward Irving, “Effects of Christ’s Incarnation,” in Miscellanies, 200–203.
12. Ibid., 201–2.
13. Dallimore, Life of Edward Irving, 81.
14. See Edward Irving, “Christ’s Life the Realization of the Spirit’s Work,” in Miscellanies, 207–9.
15. Dallimore, Life of Edward Irving, 82.
16. Ibid.
17. James B. Torrance, introduction to The Nature of the Atonement, by J. McLeod Campbell (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 11.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 12.
20. Ian Hamilton, “Campbell, John Macleod” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1988), 126.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 117–18.
24. Ibid., 118.
25. Hamilton, “Campbell, John Macleod,” 127.
26. Macleod, Jesus Is Lord: Christology Yesterday and Today, 111.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 112–13.
29. Andrew Purves, Exploring Christology and Atonement: Conversations with John McLeod Campbell, H. R. Mackintosh and T. F. Torrance (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 183.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1972), 326.
33. H. R. Mackintosh, “The Christian Experience of Forgiveness,” 224–25; quoted in Purves, Exploring Christology and Atonement, 188.
34. Purves, Exploring Christology and Atonement, 189.
35. One only needs to look to the myriad of secondary sources published on Torrance compared to the secondary literature on the other theologians.
36. Chiarot, Unassumed Is the Unhealed, 1.
37. Ibid., 2; see Thomas F. Torrance, Theological Science (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1969).
38. Chiarot, Unassumed Is the Unhealed, 4–5.
39. Ibid., 6–8. Worthwhile in this regard is Thomas F. Torrance, Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John McLeod Campbell (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996).
40. Chiarot, Unassumed Is the Unhealed, 9–11.
41. Ibid., 9.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., 9–10.
44. Ibid., 10.
45. Ibid., 10–11.
46. Ibid., 10; see Karl Barth, CD I/2, 151.
47. Chiarot, Unassumed Is the Unhealed, 6; citing Thomas F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation: Essays towards Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 154.
48. For a fuller discussion, see W. Duncan Rankin, “Carnal Union with Christ in the Theology of T. F. Torrance” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1997), 87–117.
49. Ibid., 112–13.
50. Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1983), 86.
51. Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 150.
52. Ibid.
53. Chiarot, Unassumed Is the Unhealed, 208–10.
54. Ibid., 209–10.
55. It is worth noting again that Donald Macleod has done similar work of comparing and contrasting older orthodox Scottish theologians with erring Scottish theologians; see Jesus is Lord: Christology Yesterday and Today, 107–43.
56. Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1998), 199–203.
57. Ibid., 181–82.
58. See WCF 8.2.
59. George Smeaton, The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 171–72.
60. For an expositional discussion of this passage, see ibid., 221–29.
61. Ibid., 229.
62. In the words of Richard Gaffin, “Systematic theology ought to be radically nonspeculative in the sense that its very existence depends upon sound biblical interpretation. Exegesis is its lifeblood, so that the method of systematic theology is fundamentally exegetical” (Richard B. Gaffin Jr., By Faith, Not By Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008], 17).
63. See, for example, Chiarot, Unassumed Is the Unhealed, 199, for a discussion of Torrance’s exegesis of 2 Cor 5:21.
64. Hamilton, “Campbell, John McLeod,” 127.
65. Hugh Martin, The Atonement in Its Relations to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of our LORD (Edinburgh: James Gemmell, 1882), 112–13.
66. Donald Macleod, The Humiliated and Exalted Lord: A Study of Philippians 2 and Christology (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 1994), 20.
67. Ibid., 20.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.; see also WCF 2.1.
70. Macleod, Humiliated and Exalted Lord, 21.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid., 21–22.
74. Ibid., 22.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid., 24.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid., 24–25.
79. Mackintosh, Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, 326.
80. Sinclair B. Ferguson, “Blessèd Assurance, Jesus is Mine: Definite Atonement and the Cure of Souls,” in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 620.
81. To read more on this subject in detail, see Ian Hamilton, The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy: Drifting from the Truth in Confessional Scottish Churches (Ross-Shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2000). Campbell is specifically addressed in ch. 3, “The Atonement Controversy (1841–1845).”