The Impossibility of the Theory
The theory is based on the supposed separability of attributes from nature, substance, when they cannot be separated because they make nature what it is. Take away hardness from a stone, and opaqueness, and it is no longer a stone. Take away absorbency from a sponge and it is no longer a sponge; take away conscience from a man and he is no longer a man.
Since Thomasius maintained that Jesus was still Divine when he was no longer omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent, these attributes, he believed, are not necessary to the Being of God, yet without them no being could be God.
Omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence have no independent existence; they are attributes which alone distinguish the moral attributes of God from those of His moral creatures. They are inseparable from infinite being; without them the greatest of beings is finite, and a finite Christ could not, by His substitutionary suffering reveal infinite love, could not be Gods sacrifice; it could not have infinite merit as a propitiation for the sin of the world.
The theory that omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence are not essential to the Being of God is ludicrous in the extreme for they are all necessary to our trust in Him. A God limited by lack of power, lack of knowledge, and not able to be wherever he is needed is a creation of perverted rationalist imagination. Immutability is inseparable from the connotation God, as orthodox Christian theologians have always maintained. The Son of God, as equal partaker with the Father and the Holy Spirit, of the one Divine life, could not sacrifice anything essential to the nature of God anymore than could the Father or Holy Spirit, and of necessity, God could not possess anything not essential to His being. The idea of non- essentials in the Being of God is the grossest irrationality.
On earth Christ manifested His possession of all these attributes. His omniscience was shown not only by claiming a knowledge of the Father equal to that of His Fathers knowledge of Him (Jn. 10:15; Matt 11:27), but also when He revealed His knowledge of the different way the people of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom would have reacted to His many mighty works, had He done in their cities what He had performed in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and
Capernaum (Matt. 11:2-24). Another example is the matter of the tribute money (Matt. 17:24-27). He revealed His omnipresence in claiming to be in heaven even while on earth (Jn. 3:13). His omnipotence was revealed in stilling the storm on Galilees sea; in feeding the multitudes with a food supply that could only meet the need of one, in the case of the 5,000 (Jn. 6:1-14) and feeding 4,000 shortly afterwards with seven loaves and few little fishes (Matt. 15:32-38); and His raising the dead to prove His right to forgive sins, only possible to God even as incarnate.
Only sheer unbelief makes possible all theories which deny that Christ was Deity incarnate in full possession of every Divine attribute.
The theory of Thomasius was accepted by the great majority of British theologians, as well as those of all the other countries of Christendom, because it seemed to explain, as we have said, Christs statement in Mark 13:32 in which He says that the Son did not know the day or the hour of His second coming. It is asserted, falsely, that whenever Christ called Himself the Son it was always His Divine Sonship to which He referred. Matthew 11:27 is quoted in support of this statement. But this same Scripture refutes their theory completely by asserting His omniscience, for it reads: All things are delivered unto me of my Father; no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. In Jn. 10:15 we read: As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father. As the Fathers knowledge of the Son is infinite, even so the Sons knowledge of the Father is infinite. Hence, as Divine, He could not have known less than the Father concerning the day of His second coming. Only as man could he have said this.
It is the greatest importance to the right understanding of the claims of Christ that we note that just as we ourselves use first personal pronouns with reference only to our physical nature, as when we say, I am hungry, I am thirsty and so on, sometimes to our psychical nature, as when we refer to our love of music, art and so on, and sometimes to our spiritual nature in speaking of love for God and the things of God, so also Christ in using first personal pronouns sometimes spoke with reference to His humanity only, sometimes with reference to His Deity only, and sometimes with reference to Himself as uniting Deity and humanity within Himself.
He spoke with reference to His humanity only when he said: I thirst; My God, why hast thou forsaken me?; Now is my soul exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. He referred to His Deity only when He said: Before Abraham was I Am.; As the Father knoweth me even so I know the Father; I and my Father are one; Father glorify thou me with the glory I had with thee before the world was., and in all other references to His coming into this world. He referred to Himself as uniting Deity and humanity in His one person as the Christ when He said: Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest; He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst .
So also He used the title the Son of Man with these three different references. He used the title with exclusive reference to His Divine Sonship when He said: the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins; the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day; The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity (Mk. 2:10; Matt. 12:8; 13:41; see also Matt. 16:27). He used the title with exclusive reference to His human sonship when He said: The Son of man hath not where to lay his head; the Son of man came eating and drinking and they say, behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber (Matt. 8:20; 11:19). He used the title with reference to Himself as uniting both Divine and human Sonship in His one Person in saying: For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and will recompense every man according to his deeds (Matt. 16:27), because God has said He will not give His glory to another (Isa. 42:8).
He does the same in Matt. 25:31, where He says: When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne, for it will be as MAN that Christ sits on this throne as the promised Son of David (Lk. 1:31; Isa. 9:6,7; !!:1-9; 26:5; Jer. 23:5; 33:14-17). He distinguishes His throne as MAN from the throne of the Father, which is His also as Divine (Ps. 45:6). Revelation 3:21 reads To him that overcometh I will grant to him the right to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne (Rev 3:21).
The fact that Christ some times used personal pronouns and the title the Son of Man with exclusive reference to His Divine Sonship, sometimes with exclusive reference to His human Sonship, and sometimes with reference to both, ought to have furnished the clue to His reference in using the title the Son in Mark 13:32, especially in the light of very many other Scriptures in which He revealed His omnipotence, omniscience and claimed omnipresence. He uses the title the Son also with exclusive reference to His Deity; with reference to Himself as uniting both Divine and human Sonships in Himself; and also with exclusive reference to His human Sonship. He used this title with reference to His Deity, as we have seen, in saying no one knows the Son but the Father , and no one knows the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal Him; He used the title with reference to both His Divine and human Sonships, since both were equally involved in procuring our salvation, when He said, It is the will of Him that sent me , that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise Him up at the last day (Jn. 6:40). But He used the title with exclusive reference to the human side of His Saving Work, when He said, Whosoever committeth sin (as a principle of daily living as all the unregenerate do), is the servant of sin. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed (8:34,36).
For freedom from the dominion of sin was not procured for us by the Divine, substitutionary side of His Saving work, which is only related to delivering us from the penalty of sin, but by its human side, in procuring for us the reward of His perfect obedience to the Law of Love, justifying righteousness, and which secured to us the gift of Eternal life, imparted in the new birth, and which alone makes possible salvation from the power of sin.
So we see how unscriptural this Kenotic theory is which says that whenever Christ uses the title the Son He refers exclusively to His Divine Sonship, and finding He uses it in Mark 13:32 , bases on the supposition that He was referring to His Divine Sonship the theory that it teaches us that He divested Himself of the attributes of Omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence in becoming incarnate. In Jn. 8:36 He uses the title indisputably, according to the demands of Gods Law which He said that He had come to fulfil for us (Matt. 5:17), of His Saving Work on its human side only.
This Kenotic theory did not escape criticism. Criticising the theory of Bishop Gore, Dr. Rashdall said:
According to Bishop Gore, the Word up to the moment of the Incarnation knew everything all history, all modern science, all the undiscovered science that there is to know, the whole future course of history so far as it is known to the Father, but from the moment of the Incarnation He knew all this no more for thirty three years. Now it is surely a difficult doctrine to maintain that such a colossal loss of memory, such a profound change of intellectual outlook, such a complete breach of continuity in the consciousness of the Son, was consistent with what we commonly call personal identity
.Certainly it is ridiculous to say that it is consistent with the Word being unchanged.
Dr. Norman Pittenger said of the Kenotic theory as stated by Bishop Gore:
There are two serious defects in such a position. In the first place it supposes some sort of fancied transaction in the heavenly places by which the Son divested Himself of so called the Metaphysical attributes of Deity, while retaining, for His incarnate life, the Moral attributes. And this leads to the second defect. It is doubtful whether or not a Deity which is thus divided and only one half of which is, so to say, incarnate, can really be said to be Deity at all. In order to solve the genuine problem of the limitation found in the humanity of our Lord, the advocates of the theory create a new set of problems which are actually more serious than the ones that they have set out to solve. The theory will not serve; and it is, I believe, increasingly recognised by more recent and responsible theologians.
Cont'd...
