A Review: The Omnipresence of Jesus Christ: A Neglected Aspect of Evangelical Christology, by Dr. Theodore Zachariades

A Review of, The Omnipresence of Jesus Christ:  A Neglected Aspect of Evangelical Christology

The Omnipresence of Jesus Christ:  A Neglected Aspect of Evangelical Christology.  Theodore Zachariades, Ph.D.  Self-published dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012.  314 pages.

Upon seeing the title of this book alarms went off.  But on further investigation it turns out that Dr. Zachariades has done an excellent job of laying out the theological issues involved in hammering out a solid theology of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  Although full agreement with many of his presuppositions might be lacking, the conclusions he draws are points that should be taken seriously.  It would have been more beneficial if he had interacted, for example, with Gordon H. Clark’s book, The Incarnation, (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1988).  Clark’s theological and philosophical exposition of the problems of the incarnation are not to be taken lightly.  Although Clark’s book is listed in the bibliography, it is never mentioned in the text or  alluded to in any way.

The primary thesis of the book is that the theory that the Logos or Second Person of the Trinity somehow emptied Himself of the attributes of deity without becoming less than God or separated from the Godhead is an impossible proposition.  Much of current Evangelical scholarship has in one form or another adopted a theory of kenosis or sub-kenosis in the formulation of the Christological doctrine of the incarnation.  In doing so, according to Zachariades, many Evangelicals have unwittingly given themselves over to one degree or another to what can only be called a downgrading of the Chalcedonian theology of the incarnation.  (See:  Definition of Chalcedon, 451 A.D.).  Zachariades rightly points out that the doctrine of the Trinity precludes any idea of adoptionism (p. 28).  However, his approval of the economic theory of the trinity undermines Calvin’s view that all three persons of the trinity are fully equal in power, authority, and relationship (p. 27).

Particularly interesting is his discussion of Millard Erickson’s sub-kenosis theology of the incarnation.  Erickson’s systematic theology is popular among Arminians and among classical Pentecostals in particular.  According to Erickson, the Logos laid aside the free exercise of the divine attributes so that He could become completely human.  For Erickson the idea that Christ could be different from other humans would undermine His true humanity.  (Zachariades, pp. 265-269).

The problem of the incarnation, however, is not solved by the Definition of Chalcedon.  In fact, the trinity itself remains a controversial doctrine because of a confusion of Greek and Latin terms that meant completely different things in each language.  For example, in the trinity the word for “subsistence” is ὑπόστασις (hupostasis) while the Latin word used to translate the term is “substance.”  In regards to the trinity the word for the divine nature is οὐσία (ousia), which means “essence” or “property.”  The three persons of the divine nature are called “subsistences” in Latin but the Greek word is “hupostasis,” meaning literally to “stand under”.  In regards to the trinity the term “hupostasis” is translated by the western church into Latin as “person.”  Hence, there is one essence or nature in the tri-unity of God and three “persons,” Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  In other words, there is one “ousia” and three “hupostases” in the trinity.  

But where things get complicated is that in the Definition of Chalcedon the union of the divine “nature” and the human “nature” in Christ is called a “hypostatic union.”  The word for nature here is “substance” in Latin.   And the union of the two natures is called a “subsistence” or “hupostasis.”  Of course, the Definition of Chalcedon says that Jesus is one “person” or “hupostasis.”  The problem here is that this is the same word used for the “subsistences” in the trinity.  This is problematic because now one has to explain how the second Person of the Godhead can become a human being without changing.  God cannot change and the Logos possesses all the predicates or attributes of Deity as Deity is defined both theologically and philosophically.   Is Jesus one "person" or one "substance"?  Dr. Clark discusses this more fully in his book, The Incarnation.

Since the Logos is fully God, He cannot cease to be God in order to become human.  Gordon H. Clark’s book, The Incarnation, (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1988), is particularly helpful here.  Clark refuses to accept a kenotic theory of the incarnation and attempts to reconcile the apparently contradictory union of a human person (mind/soul) with the divine person (mind/soul) of the Logos.  The Definition of Chalcedon of 451 A.D. foresees the problem when it says, contra Apollinarianism, that Jesus had a “reasonable human soul.”  To his credit, Zachariades discusses this two minds view on pages 234-242.  Also, the Definition of Chalcedon uses the term φύσις or "phusis" for “nature” instead of “ousia” or “essence”, another term which is not precisely defined, according to Clark.  

While Zachariades’ discussion of the omnipresence of Christ is on target, he simply restates Chalcedon without critically interacting with the problems associated with the definition of terms in the trinitarian creeds and the Definition of Chalcedon.  The ambiguity of the terms in both Greek and Latin is problematic to this day.  Admirably, Zachariades stands against the current tendency among Evangelicals to downplay the full deity of Christ and the inseparable predicates or definitions of that divinity.  Omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are all inseparable from deity as deity is defined in Scripture.  Put succinctly, the predicates of deity are inseparable from deity as deity is defined by propositional truth statements.  The  “attributes” of deity cannot be neatly divided and separated out from deity.  Jesus is one "essence" with the Father in regards to His divine personality as the Logos.  The Greek word here is "homoousios", not "homoiousios" as the Arians contended.

Another problem is that the reasoning behind Arminian and Pentecostal claims to the sub-kenosis theory amount to giving the believer the power to save himself, do miracles, and have the same faith that Jesus had to live a victorious Christian life.  Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of making Jesus Christ less than fully God.  As Dr. Zachariades points out, to do full justice to the biblical doctrine of the incarnation the full teaching of Scripture on both the texts emphasizing his weaknesses and human limitations as well as the passages emphasizing his ability to do and know supernatural things must be taken into account (p.274).

Is a kenotic or sub-kenotic Christology justified by New Testament data or is there another way to account for the texts that seemingly bespeak of say ignorance, weakness, and locality?  The New Testament has not provided a systematic Christology that addresses some of the questions we ordinarily pose to such an undertaking.  To grasp what the total message about Christ in reality is according to the Bible one must synthesize much material.  In the various attempts to do this very necessary task, several competing theories and explanations have emerged.  My main contention in challenging the kenotic approaches to the incarnate Christ is that they appear to do less justice to the teaching concerning Christ’s status as God than is found in reality in the New Testament.  Moreover, I believe that evangelicals, who themselves are committed to Jesus’ deity implicitly undermine that very conviction with their proposals in affirming a kenotic type of Christology.  (Zachariades, p. 274).

This criticism is spot on.  Even the late Dr. D. Broughton Knox, former principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney, Australia fell into this problematic view.  For that reason the Sydney Anglicans are not as strong in their Calvinism as they might otherwise have been.

The strength of Zachariades’ book is that he recognizes the tension between the human nature of Christ and the divine nature of Christ.  For Zachariades the omnipresence of Christ cannot be laid aside and have Christ remain fully God.  However, human beings cannot be omnipresent.  Even after the ascension of Christ into heaven his body remains localized, otherwise he is not fully human.  And this is the problem.  As Gordon H. Clark rightly pointed out, Jesus Christ could not be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient and remain a human “person”.  To say so would be to confuse the creature with the Creator.  Yet, this is precisely the problem of the incarnation.  Many evangelicals have tried to solve the problem by appealing to sub-kenotic theories.  Dr. Gordon H. Clark challenged the idea that the human nature was impersonal, a view which Zachariades seems to hold.  Following the dyothelite lead after Chalcedon, Clark contended that the way forward was to redefine terms more precisely.  Therefore, the reasonable human soul of Christ could only mean that there is a union of two persons who think distinct propositions in accord with both a human person and a divine person respectively.  The Logos is omnipresent while Jesus is not.  Yet the two persons, divine and human, are perfectly united in Jesus Christ without confusion, mixture or separation.  Dr. Clark died prior to finishing his book so it is regrettable that he has been unjustly accused of Nestorianism.  According to the late Dr. Clark, it would be impossible for the human “nature” to be impersonal since a human being has a personality.  Unfortunately, Dr. Zachariades never interacts with Clark’s two person view as that would relate to the two minds view.

Admirably, Dr. Zachariades is concerned with the law of contradiction in this regard:

Those opposed to the idea of two wills in Christ are driven by the desire to uphold the integrity of Jesus’ genuine humanity. (682)  However, it is no more incoherent to affirm two wills as it is to affirm two natures in Christ.  Indeed, it appears that an inconsistency emerges if one tries to hold to a Christ in two natures with only one will.  It must result in Jesus possessing a merely human will, as it is evidenced by the real struggle cited in the anguish at Gethsemane, for clearly Christ is not expressing a sole divine will that he undergo and not undergo the divine wrath, at the same time.  This would through [sic.] confusion into the mind of God.  Indeed, this would be a genuine contradiction, and as such an insurmountable problem for evangelicals.  (Zachariades, pp. 232-233).

What Zachariades and other evangelicals miss, however, is the implications of the assertion of two wills in Christ.  An impersonal human nature cannot will.  The Definition of Chalcedon asserts that Jesus had “a reasonable human soul.”  That would mean that Jesus had a human personality, not an impersonal human nature.  Therefore, the union in Christ is a union of two persons, not a union of two impersonal “natures”.  The Logos remains divine throughout and this explains how Jesus is both omnipresent and localized in a human person.  He is both God and man, both with their own personalities.  Zachariades comes close to seeing this when he says of Thomas V. Morris two minds theory:

In this way of explaining the incarnation, Christ has two minds that function in an assymetrical accessing fashion.  The divine mind contains the human mind but is not contained by it.  There is no straightforward symmetric reciprocal accessing of the divine and human minds.  The data in the human mind is obvious to the omniscient divine mind, while the knowledge in the divine mind is not immediately comprehended by the human mind.  There is merit to this proposal which no doubt builds on the early patristic proposal of more than one will in Christ.  It best explains how Christ is one person in two natures, than does any kenotic or sub-kenotic rival explanation.  A two minds approach allows that contrasting descriptions of Christ’s knowledge in the Bible can both be true, because it permits full force to both types of data found in the New Testament.  The strength of Morris’s approach is that it diffuses all claims that the incarnation is incoherent.  Morris shows that it is possible to be perfectly rational in advocating the central and classic concepts of the incarnation by use of important, but over-looked, distinctions.  (Zachariades, pp. 234-235).

This book is highly recommended because it raises questions about the immutability of God and how the incarnation could have happened at all.  How can Jesus Christ be both fully divine and fully human at the same time?  While this reviewer does not believe Dr. Zachariades has answered all the problems, it is commendable that he upholds a biblical view of Christ over against the kenotic and sub-kenotic views.  As stated above, however, it would have been more beneficial to his thesis had he interacted with Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s two books, The Trinity, 1985 (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1990), and The Incarnation, (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1988).  The weakness of Dr. Clark’s two person view is that he could have expounded more on how two persons can be united in the man, Jesus Christ.  Clark upheld the essentials of the Definition of Chalcedon while at the same time pointing out the blatant ambiguities inherent in the creed.  One can only hope that future work in the area of Christology will bring further clarification to these issues.  Dr. Theodore Zachariades’ book is certainly one pointing in the right direction precisely because he upholds the doctrine of the omnipresence of Christ through the Logos.  If he had explored the confusion of the terms “nature” and “person” and “hypostatic union” in more detail it would have profited his conclusions greatly.  However, he leaves some ambiguity here by simply upholding the creed of Chalcedon without interacting with the lack of definition of terms and their inherent ambiguity.

However, one has a hard time disagreeing when Dr. Zachariades says:

The heart of the issue appears to be the burning question:  "Can Christ be truly human without being merely human?"  Evangelicals have agreed that Jesus is man and that Jesus is God, yet many have not dealt with this question directly.  Erickson, and Lane, for example have failed to convince me that the authors of the Chalcedonian definition of faith missed the truth in arguing that Jesus was and is both a limited human being and at the same time fully God upholding the universe as the omnipotent and omnipresent creator.  It is within the framework of this very question that the doctrine of Jesus' omnipresence becomes a key in disclosing the the true nature of a person's Christology.  (P. 279).

[To purchase copies of this book you may contact Dr. Theodore Zachariades at his Facebook account or e-mail him at theodorezachariades AT facebook DOT com.  There is a epub version available here.].

Charlie J. Ray, M. Div.

(See:  Definition of Chalcedon in Greek and in English. See also:  Sixth Ecumenical Council:  Against Monothelitism.  See also:  Athanasiasian Creed).

Addendum:  You will need to download the free SBL fonts to see the Greek fonts in this article.


Gordon H. Clark:  Christ Upholds the Universe.

David Engelsma Says Gordon H. Clark Crossed the Line into Nestorianism

As he is about to state his conclusion, that Jesus is a human person, Clark not only wards off the charge of Nestorianism (the heresy that Christ is two persons, condemned by the church at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 and rejected in the orthodox statement of the incarnation by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451), but also ascribes any such criticism of his, Clark's, doctrine to "unfriendly critics": "Some unfriendly critics will instantly brand the following defense of Christ's humanity as the heresy of Nestorianism" (p. 75). I am a friendly critic. But Clark's doctrine is the boldest, most advanced Nestorianism, suffering, fatally, from the weaknesses because of which the church rejected Nestorianism—its failure to unite the two natures of the Savior and its inability to unify the work of redemption.

Standard Bearer, Volume 65, Issue 17

Book Reviews

By Prof. David J. Engelsma

THE INCARNATION, by Gordon H. Clark; The Trinity Foundation, 1988; 91 pp. plus appendixes; $8.95 (Reviewed by the Editor) 

This is a disturbing, and even distressing, book. Gordon H. Clark, renowned champion of Presbyterian orthodoxy, challenges the church's traditional and creedal doctrine of the incarnation, that Jesus is one person and that this person is the divine person of the eternal Son of God. Clark argues that Jesus cannot be a real man like us unless He is a human person. Jesus, therefore, is both a divine person and a human person. John W. Robbins accurately expresses Clark's teaching in the concluding paragraph (written by Robbins because Clark died before completing the book), when he states: 

Jesus Christ was and is both God and man, a divine person and a human person. To deny either is to fall into error. (p. 78) 

Clark is quite willing to criticize both the ecumenical and the Presbyterian creeds, which teach that Jesus has two natures in the unity of the one divine person. The manner of his criticism is cavalier. Having charged a "fatal flaw in the Chalcedonian Symbol," Clark tells us that "its bishop-authors did not explain, and probably did not themselves know the meanings of 'rational soul,''consubstantial,' 'nature,' 'subsistence,' and above all 'person'" (p. 15). He treats the Westminster divines in similar fashion. Writing about the Westminster Confession's doctrine of God's infinity (Clark denies that God is infinite: "the Bible definitely says he is not," p. 60), Clark remarks that these "theologians . . . were not mathematicians and did not know what they were talking about" (p. 58). I am not so sure that the fathers at Chalcedon were such dummies regarding the person and natures of Christ, or that the divines of Westminster, mathematicians or not, were such ignoramuses concerning the infinity of the being of God. I am even less sure that the Spirit of Christ failed to lead the church into all the truth of the person and natures of Christ at Chalcedon, or into the truth of the infinity of the being of God at Dordt and Westminster.

A formidable logician, Clark nevertheless permits himself the logical fallacy of "poisoning the well" at the crucial point in his argument. As he is about to state his conclusion, that Jesus is a human person, Clark not only wards off the charge of Nestorianism (the heresy that Christ is two persons, condemned by the church at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 and rejected in the orthodox statement of the incarnation by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451), but also ascribes any such criticism of his, Clark's, doctrine to "unfriendly critics": "Some unfriendly critics will instantly brand the following defense of Christ's humanity as the heresy of Nestorianism" (p. 75). I am a friendly critic. But Clark's doctrine is the boldest, most advanced Nestorianism, suffering, fatally, from the weaknesses because of which the church rejected Nestorianism—its failure to unite the two natures of the Savior and its inability to unify the work of redemption.

As though it clinches his argument that Christ is also a human person, Clark repeatedly raises the question, "Who suffered and died in the suffering and death of Jesus?" "On the cross Jesus said, 'I thirst.' No trinitarian Person could have said this because the Three Persons are pure incorporeal spirits . . . Who then, or what, thirsted on the cross?" (p. 73). "Let us then take it for granted that God cannot die. Now, if Christ be one divine person, no person was crucified and died. What then died on the cross?" (p. 69) Clark supposes that Chalcedonian orthodoxy has no answer to this question. Clark is mistaken. The answer is, "The person of the eternal Son of God suffered and died in the human nature." This is the wonder of the passion of Jesus Christ. This is also the reason why that suffering is of infinite worth and value, as the Canons of Dordt teach in II/3, 4. On the answer of Clark and Nestorius, that it was the human person of Jesus that suffered, the divine person was not involved, in which case the humanity of Jesus could never have endured the suffering of the infinite wrath of God. Also, even if the human person of Jesus did manage the suffering, that suffering does not have the worth that is necessary to satisfy the justice of God.

Clark also proposes his own, novel, and very peculiar definition of the term that is fundamental to trinitarian and incarnational doctrine, the term "person": 

  

we shall define person as a composite of truths. A bit more exactly. . . the definition must be a composite of propositions (p. 54). 

As three persons, God then is three composites of propositions. On this definition, it is not obvious to me that a compound English sentence is not a person. Besides, since the word "composite" has as its basic meaning 'made up of parts,' Clark's definition seems to carry with it a challenge to the doctrine of the simplicity of God (the teaching that God's Being is not made up of parts).

Preachers and teachers in Reformed circles may well be reminded that the doctrine of the incarnation, like the related doctrine of the trinity, is being reexamined today, not only by the liberal left, but also by the conservative right. The point at which the traditional doctrine is being challenged is that of the full, real humanity of Jesus. This challenge calls for vigorous defense of the creedal doctrine of the church, as well as renewed study of the Scripture's teaching concerning the wonder of the Word's becoming flesh.