From A Puritan Theology
Chapter 21
Puritan Christology
If there were infinite worlds made of creatures loving, they would not have so much love in them as was in the heart of that man Christ Jesus.
—THOMAS GOODWIN
Puritan theologians produced outstanding studies in the area of Christology, namely, the person and work of Christ. These men combined their learning with soul-stirring applications to bring Christ home to the mind and soul. John Arrowsmith (1602–1659), in his formidable exposition Theanthropos (“The God-Man”), shows beyond doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was both God and man in one person. On a more pastoral level, Looking unto Jesus, the more than six-hundred-page work of Isaac Ambrose (1604–1664), presents Christ to the believer in both His person and work in a way that highlights the distinctive nature of Reformed Christology. Many more works could be listed, and it is a great mystery why so little secondary literature has been written on Puritan Christology. This chapter will, however, consider the unique contributions of two eminent Puritan theologians, Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) and John Owen (1616–1683).
Puritan Christology unquestionably distinguished itself from other theological traditions regarding Christ’s work. Yet most scholars assume that the aforementioned theologians simply affirmed Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy regarding His person and nothing more distinctive. However, a closer examination shows that while Puritan theology affirmed the basic teaching of Chalcedon, a distinct Puritan Christology with regard to Christ’s person emerged in the seventeenth century, especially in the writings of Goodwin and Owen. The fixed Reformed-Lutheran divide on Christology played a significant role in their thought, as did the rising influence of Socinianism, but neither author was merely polemical; both, in fact, sought to make positive contributions to Reformed orthodoxy. One such contribution was the appreciation of the true humanity of Jesus Christ and the development of a better model for understanding the relation of the two natures in His person in both His earthly and heavenly ministries. In this chapter, the theological contributions of both Owen and Goodwin will be examined in light of a distinctively Reformed Christology that considers the person of Christ in His two states of humiliation and exaltation, and how the Holy Spirit relates to Him in each state. A brief account of the polemical situation will lay a foundation for better appreciation of the genius of Reformed Christology.
Owen’s Contribution to Christology
If we argue that Christ’s divine nature acts through the human nature, thus enabling Him to perform miracles, for example, a serious problem emerges concerning the plethora of texts that speak of the Holy Spirit’s role in the life of Christ. This was the problem that Cyril’s position was unable to overcome. By affirming that the Logos was the sole effective agent working on the human nature, Cyril’s asymmetrical relation between the two natures renders the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of Jesus superfluous. In fact, the Socinian, John Biddle, picks up on this tension by asking a series of questions:
What need was there that the holy Spirit should be given unto Christ, to enable him to do miracles; and an Angel appear from heaven unto him to strengthen him; or why should he so earnestly expostulate with God for forsaking him, if Christ were he, by whom the First Creation was performed, had a Divine Nature and was God himself?… Would it be said of him that had the Divine Nature, that he did miracles because God was with him, and not rather, because he was God?… Would not the Divine nature in Christ, at this rate, be in the mean time idle and useless?
These questions are not without merit and deserve answers. Neither Roman Catholic nor Lutheran theologians can adequately account for any meaningful role of the Spirit in the life of Christ; indeed, their respective Christologies may find Biddle’s questions rather difficult to answer. Bavinck makes the strong assertion that “while Lutheran Christology still speaks of gifts, it actually does not know what to do with them and no longer has room even for Christ’s anointing with the Holy Spirit.” And this is precisely where Owen makes his valuable contribution to understanding the person and work of Christ. Indeed, Owen’s understanding of the Spirit’s work in Christ is the consistent outworking of the Reformed insistence on both the integrity or perfection of the two natures and the unity of the person. He argues that “the only singular immediate act of the person of the Son on the human nature was the assumption of it into subsistence with himself.” Thus, the Holy Spirit is the “immediate operator of all divine acts of the Son himself, even on his own human nature. Whatever the Son of God wrought in, by, or upon the human nature, he did it by the Holy Ghost, who is his Spirit.” Oliver Crisp admits that “it could be argued that it is the Holy Spirit that enables the human nature of Christ to perform miracles, rather than Christ’s divine nature.” However, he is careful to note that “this is not a conventional view of the means by which Christ was able to perform miracles. A conventional view would claim that Christ was able to perform miracles in virtue of the action of his divine nature in and through his human nature in the hypostatic union.” The implication of Crisp’s observation is, of course, that Owen’s Christology is not conventional.
Christ’s Inseparable Companion
Though they expressed it in different ways, the Puritans were keenly aware of the importance of the Holy Spirit’s relation to Christ in connection with both His earthly and His heavenly ministries. As Isaac Ambrose states, in Christ there is a “compound of all the graces of the Spirit.… He received the Spirit out of measure; there was in him as much as possibly could be in a creature, and more than in all other creatures whatsoever.” These comments provide an ideal starting point for discussing the way in which the Holy Spirit relates to Christ.
In all of the major events in the life of Christ, the Holy Spirit took a prominent role. The Father decreed that the Son should assume flesh. The Son voluntarily assumed flesh in obedience to the will of the Father, but it is the Holy Spirit who was the “immediate divine efficiency” of the incarnation (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20). This was a fitting “beginning” for Christ since Isaiah spoke of the Messiah as one endowed with the Spirit (Isa. 42:1; 61:1). The New Testament confirmed Isaiah’s testimony in several places, noting, for example, that He received the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). At Christ’s baptism, the Spirit descended upon Him (Matt. 3:16), and in Luke 4 the Spirit played a significant role in Christ’s temptation (v. 1). In that same chapter, Christ read from Isaiah 61:1–2 (“the Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me”) and announced that He is the fulfillment of that prophecy (Luke 4:18). Moreover, Christ’s performance of miracles is attributed to the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:28; Acts 10:38), for, “on the ascription of his mighty works unto Beelzebub … he lets the Jews know that therein they blasphemed the Holy Spirit, whose works indeed they were” (Matt. 12:31–32). Hebrews 9:14 says that Christ offered Himself up “through the eternal Spirit.” As Sinclair Ferguson notes, “A strong case can be made for understanding the pneuma in which Jesus offered himself as referring to the divine Spirit.” Christ’s resurrection is attributed to the Spirit (Rom. 8:11), and by His resurrection Christ was declared “to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4; see also 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Peter 3:18). Because the Spirit was Christ’s inseparable companion during His earthly ministry, there is little doubt that Christ called out (i.e., prayed) to His Father by the enabling or help of the Spirit, which would impart an implicit christological emphasis to the words of Romans 8:26–27.
To put this point more provocatively, Christ’s obedience in our place had to be real obedience. He did not cheat by relying on His own divine nature while He acted as the second Adam. Rather, by receiving and depending upon the Spirit, Christ was fully dependent upon His Father (John 6:38). The translation of ouch harpagmon hegesato to einai isa Theo (Phil. 2:6) as “he did not regard his equality with God as something to exploit” or “something to take advantage of” fits perfectly with this model. As a result, Christ truly grew in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52). If Christ appeared ignorant (e.g., Matt. 24:36; Luke 8:45), it was because He was; if He appeared to have supernatural knowledge (Luke 9:47), it was because the Father revealed such knowledge to Him by the Spirit. But in a real sense, Christ learned about His messianic calling through reading the Scriptures “morning by morning” (Isa. 50:4–5). Ferguson well remarks that “Jesus’ intimate acquaintance with Scripture did not come de caelo (‘from heaven’) during the period of his public ministry; it was grounded no doubt on his early education, but nourished by long years of personal meditation.” Such an understanding of Christ’s life serves to heighten our appreciation for what He did as the second Adam.
Bavinck summarizes the basic theological concerns set forth so far regarding the intimate relation between the Spirit and Christ:
At this point it is important to note that this activity of the Holy Spirit with respect to Christ’s human nature absolutely does not stand by itself. Though it began with the conception, it did not stop there. It continued throughout his entire life, even right into the state of exaltation. Generally speaking, the necessity of this activity can be inferred already from the fact that the Holy Spirit is the author of all creaturely life and specifically of the religious-ethical life in humans. The true human who bears God’s image is inconceivable even for a moment without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.… If humans in general cannot have communion with God except by the Holy Spirit, then this applies even more powerfully to Christ’s human nature.
That Christ received the Spirit is an ontological necessity of His true humanity; indeed, Christ would not have been Christ, apart from the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Far from being superfluous to Christ, who according to His divine nature is “God in Himself” (autotheos), the Holy Spirit must occupy a central place in any discussion of Christology because of His relation to the human nature of Christ.
The exegetical evidence, however one interprets it, speaks of the importance of the organic relation between the Holy Spirit and the God-man during His ministry on earth, beginning at His conception, and continuing through not only to His resurrection, but also to His heavenly ministry. Reformed Christology emerges precisely at this point as the most satisfying account of Christ’s person and work. If John Owen was the Puritan who most carefully explained the Spirit’s relation to Christ, there is no question that Thomas Goodwin was the Puritan who best explained the ministry of Christ in heaven toward sinners on earth. As J. I. Packer has argued, “John Owen saw into the mind of Paul as clearly as Goodwin—sometimes, on points of detail, more clearly—but not even Owen saw so deep into Paul’s heart.” Packer speaks not a little truth here, but, to be more specific, the brilliance of Goodwin’s Christology is not just that he saw into Paul’s heart, but that he was able to see so penetratingly into the attitude of the heart of Christ in heaven toward sinners on earth. Goodwin’s work on this subject may be the finest practical work on Christology in the Puritan tradition, and therefore it warrants attention if we are to understand why the best theology is the most helpful theology. We will explore this subject fully in chapter 25.
Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life. Reformation Heritage Books.
