R. C. Sproul and the Hypostatic union

[Wilhelmus à Broccoli]

Would it be right to say Sproul's non-confessional view of the 2nd Commandment stems from his being very very slightly semi-Nestorian? I think I read something of his once that said he had pictures of Jesus in his church because a picture could only depict the human nature of Christ, and therefore it is not a picture of God - which seems again to miss the person/nature distinction and the all-important principle that Jesus is one Divine Person.

 

[MW]

I’m with you. But this doesn’t account for his assertion that the human nature of Jesus (acquired from Mary) was capable of sin regardless of his faithfulness. Sproul suggests that the bigger picture at hand is the decree of God, much the same as our own will not being violated in the fulfillment of any divine purpose. Yet one would scarcely argue that our wills don’t have the ability to sin even as the decree of God is carried out.

The decree of God concerns all things, good and evil. All necessities and contingencies are purposed by God. The covenant of grace concerns our salvation. Sproul has conflated them as one in the clip you provided. As I noted, the covenant of grace has secured all contingencies. It is ordered in all things and sure, as David affirms. This is why he could say it is all my salvation and all my desire. If Sproul were correct the covenant of grace could fail and our salvation would be suspended on a contingency. Praise God that is not the case.

 

[EvanF]

I cannot recollect it. Sorry.

The human will, as part of the human nature, subsists in the Person of the Logos. It has no independent personality of its own. As it was the Person of the Logos who acted through His human nature, including His human will, He was not able to sin because that Person is not able to sin.

Perhaps Geerhardus Vos could assist in thinking about this: "The person works through, in, and behind the fully human nature of the Mediator. The unity of the person is not merely verbal but answers to a reality. The human nature, though it has self-consciousness and will and feeling, does not operate of itself but is at every moment the instrument of the person who bears it. It does have substance but no subsistence in itself... It is the Logos who makes use of the human nature existing in Him as its organ... the Logos is the person for the human nature, the starting point for all its thoughts and emotions. Here for us lies the mystery in the doctrine of the Mediator as God-man. We cannot explain how human understanding, human will, and human feeling were joined to and united with the person of the Son of God."

There is also the consideration that to the human nature was given the plenitude of the Spirit both in gifts and graces to equip Christ to do the work of the Mediator for us. At every moment He acted under the sanctifying operation of the Spirit in which He was conceived and separated from sin.

Saying that the person acts through an instrumental nature and will seems to suggest that the person has some inherent agency apart from the will, which is hard to imagine. Or is it only the created human nature and will that are instrumental while the pre-existent natural and willing divine person maintained agency?

Isn't the idea that his human nature is entirely instrumental similar to Eutychianism in that it suggests the human nature is overcome by the divine and that the god-man effectively had a will unlike any other man?

 

[MW]

Saying that the person acts through an instrumental nature and will seems to suggest that the person has some inherent agency apart from the will, which is hard to imagine. Or is it only the created human nature and will that are instrumental while the pre-existent natural and willing divine person maintained agency?

Isn't the idea that his human nature is entirely instrumental similar to Eutychianism in that it suggests the human nature is overcome by the divine and that the god-man effectively had a will unlike any other man?

I sense we are starting to hit up against the mystery but there are a few things we can say at this point to avoid wrong conceptions. Basically we are asking the question, How can the human will be authentic while it is "instrumental?" How isn't it absorbed into the Person so as to become one will?

We distinguish our experience from Christ's. In our common way of thinking about it we begin with a divine will and we add a human will. From this point we conceive of them as functioning as two separate things. But our experience betrays us. Our "self" and our "will" function together as a part of our single human personality. If we were to use the word "instrumental" of ourselves it would clearly indicate something external to our person because we haven't assumed something additional. The Logos is a unique case. He assumed the human nature and took it up into His Person so that the nature subsists in the Person. The use of the word "instrumental" is therefore personal. He does not "use" His human abilities like a pilot uses a plane. The act of the human will is His own personal act. He lives and acts humanly. The divine Person is the sole acting subject.

Raising Eutychianism is useful here as a contrast. We must avoid any language that suggests the divine nature absorbed the human. The orthodox response is that the human nature remains fully and authentically human, but its "mode of existence" is unique. The substance of the human nature remains entirely intact and authentic. It has a real human will. However, it lacks its own subsistence. It does not stand alone. This means the God-Man has a will like every other man so far as the faculty is concerned. But in relation to its governance or exercise it is directed by a holy, divine Person. Thus it was a human will that was always freely and willingly in perfect alignment with the divine will.

This is why the temptation was not a "sham." The human will of Christ felt the full force of the temptation. It had to actively will against the temptation. The divine Person did not bypass the human will; He empowered it, directed it, and acted through it to achieve a victory that was both fully human and divinely guaranteed.

 

[No Other Name]

Is there any insight to the fact that it must be true that Christ genuinely prayed and sang the Psalms - particularly say psalms of confession and penitence like Psalm 38 and Psalm 51 et al?

 

[MW]

Is there any insight to the fact that it must be true that Christ genuinely prayed and sang the Psalms - particularly say psalms of confession and penitence like Psalm 38 and Psalm 51 et al?

As the Anointed, the Head of the covenant people, with whom God had made an everlasting covenant, and of whom David was the type.

 

[No Other Name]

As the Anointed, the Head of the covenant people, with whom God had made an everlasting covenant, and of whom David was the type.

Yes, I meant that I remembered that He read the Psalms in His human nature and his human will identified with His fellow man in sin while having none of His own.

 

[MW]

Yes, I meant that I remembered that He read the Psalms in His human nature and his human will identified with His fellow man in sin while having none of His own.

Ah yes; the Messianic consciousness, growing in wisdom in His self-understanding through the devotional use of the Psalms. A wonderful line of enquiry. His identifying, though, in connection with sin is in accord with His position as the Head of the covenant people. In no way is it personal sin for Him. Always imputed or reckoned guilt as a part of fulfilling His office as the Anointed. At this point the type falls short of the Antitype. What is real for the type is only federal for the Antitype; and at the same time He leads the covenant people to a proper confession of sin in the true spirit of penitence.