Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Incarnation as Social Protest 105
man Christ is God, therefore the man Christ created the world and is almighty. The
reason for this is that since God and man have become one person, it follows that
this person bears the idiomata of both natures. 26
Though space does not permit, John Calvin’s and Richard Hooker’s statements regarding
this doctrine are in complete agreement with Luther’s, 27 but I have chosen to quote from
Luther because his statements regarding the ‘communication of attributes’ is as explicit as
Lanyer’s. The importance of this doctrine for Lanyer and her writings can easily be seen
in the fact that when the ‘communication of attributes’ is ascribed to Jesus, then all of the
actions taken for or against him by humans also become actions taken for or against God.
Returning to Luther, he joyously celebrates this doctrine and its importance when he writes
O Lord God! We should always rejoice in true faith, free of dispute and doubt,
over such a blessed, comforting doctrine, to sing, praise, and thank God the Father
for such inexpressible mercy that he let his dear Son become like us, a man and our
brother! Yet the loathsome devil instigates such great annoyance through proud,
ambitious, incorrigible people that our cherished and precious joy is hindered and
spoiled for us. May God have pity! We Christians should know that if God is not
in the scale to give it weight, we, on our side, sink to the ground. I mean it this
way: if it cannot be said that God died for us, but only a man, we are lost; but if
God’s death and a dead God lie in the balance, his side goes down and ours goes up
like a light and empty scale. Yet he can also readily go up again, or leap out of the
26 On the Councils and the Church, in Robert H. Fischer (ed.), Luther’s Works, Volume 41: Church and
Ministry III (Philadelphia, 1966), p. 103.
27 John Calvin’s discussion is stated in John T. McNeill (ed.), Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1,
(Philadelphia, 1960), p. 482, and Richard Hookers is in W. Speed Hill (ed.), Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity: Book V, in The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, vol. 3, (London, 1977), pp.
216-34. Both views agree with Luther’s, but are not as succinctly stated.