JESUS, HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY nature found in the Trinity, though they have an identity of shape. Unlike the case of the Trinity, here co-inherence of functions and indivisibility of action follow from unity on the level of hypostasis, rather than the reverse: because the humanity of Jesus exists in the very mode of the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus' acts have a unity of operation and purpose despite the diversity of human and divine functions displayed in them.+3 The assumption of humanity by the Son produces a co-inherence of divinity and humanity that better imitates the co-inherence enjoyed by members of the Trinity than does God's containing and pervading creation generally. With the so-called communication of idioms in "Christ, the way God contains and pervades creation is deepened and the relation becomes more mutual without jeopardizing the inequality between them." Humanity is in the Son or second Person of the Trinity, communicated to it, in that the Son assumes it as its own proper instrument for the distribution of benefits to the world. Without gaining anything itself through this communication of humanity to it this is one way the relation of co-inherence is not mutual if God remains God the Son shares in the operations of the humanity of Christ as that humanity is moved for saving ends according to God's free purposes. And because of that assumption by the Son, divinity is in or communicated to the humanity of Christ. Humanity's being in the Son has as its immediate effect the Son's being in the humanity of Christ the priority of the former is another mark of non-mutuality appropriate to the difference between humanity and God. Divinity is communicated to humanity in that divinity provides the power by which humanity is (1) purified and securely perfected in its humanity, (2) elevated beyond its own created qualities to immortality - and (3) given effects beyond what human beings are capable of (saving effects). In short, Jesus' humanity shares in divinity in the sense that particular characteristics and effects of its operations are supplied by God. It shares in divinity, moreover, not simply as moved by God - - -- See John of Damascus, 'Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,' Book 3, chapters 15 and 19; also Karl Barth, Church Dugmatics IV/2, trans. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 114–16. For the following account of the communication of idioms, see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, Q. 19, A. 1. THE THEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THINGS like a naturally immobile axe might be swung by a bench maker and thereby share dumbly in the bench maker's purposes. It shares in the operations of God as it moves according to its own natural operations -like fire might be used by a smithy to heat iron. In other words, the operations proper to Jesus' humanity are the very ones in which God saves. As a living display of this indwelling of divinity in humanity that follows from the assumption, divinity and humanity are united in Jesus' acts. They are clearly not united in act as the members of the Trinity are in virtue of an identity of nature. The acts of Jesus are not divine and human at once because the operations proper to humanity and divinity are identical. The acts of Jesus are, instead, genuinely two- fold in character, displaying both divinity and humanity as distinct features of the very same acts. Jesus' acts are one though twofold - not sometimes divine and sometimes human - and show a consistency of purpose and effect, because they are directed and shaped by the same one who is both divine and human, because in him human functions take on the divine shape or mode of Sonship 45 If human and divine are not united in the acts of Jesus with the sort of substantial or essential unity in action achieved by members of the Trinity, neither do the acts of Jesus unite humanity with divinity simply in the way the acts of creatures everywhere do: the purely human plane of action being held up into existence over its course by the power of God's creative will, from which it is inseparable. No, once, again, Jesus' acts are genuinely twofold in and of themselves, and that signals a level of unity between divinity and humanity in act greater here than elsewhere. A greater level of unity is achieved here because, as we have said, the human character of these acts is God's own: Jesus' acts are not just God's own in virtue of the divine powers and functions they display; their human features are also God's own in virtue of their assumption by the Son of God. But, moreover, a greater level of unity between human and divine is achieved here because the powers of God are humanity's own - in two senses. First, in the sense that Jesus' humanity itself achieves human perfections, for example, sinlessness, in a +3 Sce n. +3 above. 19 10. complete and secure form that only divine power enables. These perfections, empowered as they are by God, are humanity's own in that they become characteristic of Jesus' humanity in and of itself - its own empirical or metaphysical attributes. A second set of perfections is, however, Jesus' humanity's own only in a weaker sense. When Jesus' humanity receives what is beyond human capacities say, immortality and is given the grace of participating in the very saving works of God, bringing about thereby what only God can bring about for others, this set of gifts does not, indeed cannot, become the properties of Jesus' humanity per se. These gifts are therefore not evident in created versions of divine qualities and powers - there are no created versions of these powers and qualities. This second set of gifts is Jesus' humanity's own only in relation to divinity; they are attributable to the human works of Jesus only in so far as Jesus' works are united to the Word through the Word's assumption of his humanity.th Besides being in these ways a higher form of unity with God than creation generally enjoys, the incarnation is a higher form of unity than fellowship with God, and thereby the closest approximation to the triune life that is possible for a creature. . Here there is no externality between the human life of Jesus and the Word; Jesus does not enjoy fellowship with the Word; Jesus simply is the Word incarnate. The human will of Jesus does not conform itself to the Word as God's own will by way of deliberation; from the first it is nothing other than the will of the Son in the very shape or mode that distinguishes the Son from Father and Spirit in their dynamic interactions. Here, the relation between God and humanity does not simply imitate the triune life of God, because, here, that very triune life "See John of Damascus, 'Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,' Book 3, chapters 17-18. *I am disagreeing here with Karl Barth, who, to my mind, often assimilates the incarnation itself and the communication of idioms, which establishes the character of Jesus' person and acts in and of themselves, too closely to the idea of covenant or fellowship - for example, by using the categories of confrontation and address to talk about them. See Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/2, 84-8. The man Jesus who is the Word incarnate does (as we see below) exhibit a perfect human form of fellowship with Father and Spirit, but that is a logically distinct matter. See Maximus the Confessor, 'Difficulty 5,' 'Oposcule 7,' and 'Oposcule 3,' trans. A. Louth, in Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 171–97. 50 assumes humanity to itself. The result is the triune life in a human. form: the Word becomes incarnate from the first, in Jesus' birth, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as sent by the Father The man Jesus over the course of his life is, consequently, the Son of God following the will of the Father through the power of the Spirit, in order to distribute the goods of God to the world-healing, for- giving, directing the course of human lives in imitation of his own.50 Whatever Jesus does for us, he does as the Word incarnate sent by God the Father through the power of the Spirit. The humanity of Jesus himself is the first beneficiary of the new relation of humanity to divinity that is the incarnation: 'as Word, He gives from the Father, for all things which the Father does and gives, He does and supplies through Him; and as the Son of Man, He Himself is said after the manner of men to receive what proceeds from Him, because His Body is none other than His, and is a natural recipient of grace. 351 Assumed by the Word, Jesus' humanity receives everything for its good directly from the source of goodness that is the Father through the power of the Spirit. This human being as the Word is the one whom God the Father favors with gifts through the working of the Holy Spirit at Jesus' baptism, over the course of his struggles, and on the cross. Favored with these gifts, Jesus in working for our salvation exhibits a perfect form of human partnership with the Father and Spirit, a human version of the Son's own action in common with the other members of the Trinity. As a human mode of the Son's own relations to Father and Spirit, this is covenant fellowship with God raised to a level otherwise impossible for creatures: this covenant fellowship is the indivisible co-action-of the members of the Trinity. 52 But it is the life of the Trinity extending its gifts to us with decisive differences that reflect the assumption of the human into it. Trinitarian relations, in other words, take on here the characteristics of fellowship or partnership just to the extent the Word takes humanity to itself in See Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity, trans. A. Gythiel (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999), 86-8. Ibid., 88-93. Athanasius, 'Four Discourses against the Arians,' 333. See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3, trans. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1962), 235–6. 51

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