Scripture and God in Christianity

consubstantial with the Father.... Surely this doctrine is the objective expression of the same great
paradox which finds its subjective expression in the confession: `Not I, but the grace of God.' " 759
C. Gore in his book "The Incarnation of the Son of God" has already made the Anglican position
very clear. "if Christ was to be worshipped, it could only be because He was God, very God; belonging
to the one eternal nature." He further argued that the doctrine of Christ's divinity did not
involve more than "the first principle of the Theist's creed, that there is only one God, one supreme
object of worship, that Christ is, if God at all, then the very God the Father's substance and
essential nature....He was really man, so also He was really God." 760 He concluded arguing that
"Christ then is God incarnate. In Him the human nature is assumed by the divine Person." 761
This is the old 'Modalist Monarchianism', the theology of God-Man, which was at work at the
bottom of the orthodox theology in the past and is still prevalent in the orthodox circles. As a
matter of fact, observes McGiffert, "the orthodox Christology was built not on the life of the historic
figure Jesus Christ, as reflected in the gospels, but on a theory of redemption framed in
large part independently of him and translated into the terms of prevailing philosophy of the
age." 762 Throughout our discussion of the development of Christology we have seen that for the
sake of salvation, Christ has always been deified, worshipped, and exalted to complete equality
and eternity with God. His humanity, though asserted superficially, has been just a lip service on
the part of orthodoxy. "It is true", writes Paul Badham, "that all orthodox writers pay lip service
to Christ's humanity and describe him as "consubstantial with us" in his human nature. But all
meaning seems evacuated from these claims when Christ is denied any human individuality or
subjectivity." 763 In the case of some Fathers like Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, not only him but ordinary
Christian believers have been deified through Jesus the Christ. It may not be inappropriate
to quote Harnack here who argues, "There is an old story of a man who was in a condition of ignorance,
dirt, and wretchedness and who was one day told by God that he might wish for anything
he liked and that his wish would be granted. And he began to wish for more and more and
to get higher and higher, and he got all he wanted. At last he got presumptuous and wished he
might become like God Himself, when at once he was back again in his dirt and wretchedness.
The history of religion is such a story; but it is in the history of the religion of Greeks and Eastern
that it came true in the strictest sense....They became Christians and desired perfect knowledge
and a supra-moral life. Finally they wished even in this world to be as God in knowledge, bliss,
and life, and then they fell down, not all at once, but with fall that could not be stopped, to the
lowest stage in ignorance, dirt, and barbarity." 764
The thought of incarnation in its developed sense, as we have discussed, is not clearly spelled out
in the New Testament. "Incarnation", observes Maurice Wiles, "in its full and proper sense, is not
something directly presented in scripture. It is a construction built on the variegated evidence to
be found there." 765 But to ensure salvation, the Greek and Alexandrian Fathers made it the sole
theme of their understanding of the person of Christ from the divergent New Testament pictures
of him. They brought the person of the transcendent God of the universe in the universe, in the
material world of flesh and body and crucified him on the cross. Though they have always been
denying this accusation of crucifying God, in reality that is what they did and intended to do for
the sake of salvation. St. Gregory Nazaianzus was honest enough to say it plainly that "We
needed an incarnate God, a God put to death that we might live." 766 The salvation would have
not been possible if the one crucified was not God. Athanasius said it clearly and confessed that
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