Did Christ in the incarnation take into union a fallen human nature?

So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin…

—The Chalcedonian Definition

The incarnation of the Son of God is one of the foundational truths of the Christian faith. Yet a question that must be considered biblically and historically is this: Did Christ in the incarnation take into union a fallen human nature?

Those who advocate that Christ assumed a fallen human nature wants to uphold the true humanity of Christ. Proponents of this view include Edward Irving, Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance. Their main points will be presented below followed by an overall summary of this claim. In the next post, I will discuss their claim to demonstrate whether or not it is reasonable to claim that Christ in the incarnation took into union a fallen human nature.

EDWARD IRVING

One of the proponents of the fallen human nature view was a Scottish theologian and minister named Edward Irving. He advocated that Christ assumed a fallen human nature for “there was no other existence to take.” For if Christ had not taken a “mortal and corruptible body” along with a “reasonable soul” his affections, sufferings and deaths were all but imaginations, apparitions and fictions. Christ, while dwelling in corrupted flesh, must deliver the “fallen creature substance” from sin and Satan in order to bring it into God’s presence.

Irving qualified that though Christ’s human nature was fallen, but by virtue of the Holy Spirit, it was preserved from sinning and sinful inclinations. Irving’s argument was based on how he defined what it means to be fallen. He described fallenness as consisting of suffering and death without “positive transgression of [the] will.” Since fallenness, per Irving, does not necessarily include sinning of the will, Christ “was without sin, and saw not corruption, merely because He had become consubstantial with the sinful creatures.” Moreover, he claimed that the “sinful properties and dispositions and inclinations” were ascribed to the human nature apart from Christ, thus “without in the least implicating Him with sin.”

KARL BARTH

Karl Barth, who had a similar position as Irving, was convinced that the New Testament attests to the genuineness of Christ’s solidarity and empathy with sinners. Barth claimed that the New Testament marked out Jesus’ obedience as a “genuine struggle.” He asserted that Jesus could only be “God’s revelation to us, God’s reconciliation with us” by becoming truly man in all aspects. This entailed the necessity of the Word assuming a human nature afflicted by the curse and condemnation of sinners. However, like Irving, Barth qualified that Jesus was “not a sinful man” yet entered into the present state of man (i.e.: damned and lost.) His explanation for this distinction was his view of sinlessness, which does not pertain to the quality and purity of a nature, but rather in the activity of the will. Sinlessness in Barth’s perspective is in Christ’s act of acknowledging his state of humiliation before God and humbly receiving God’s judgment. According to Barth, since Christ assumed a fallen human nature and lived in it, he was “exposed to real inward temptation.” The weight of Barth’s argument is found in his emphasis of the necessity that Christ has a real capacity to sin, which authenticated Christ’s victory over the power of sin.

THOMAS F. TORRANCE

Thomas F. Torrance held to a similar view as Barth in that God the Son took upon himself man’s lost condition and entered man’s “rebellious estate” and “darkness and blindness.” Moreover, he argued that the New Testament shows that the flesh of Jesus was “marked by Adam’s fall.” In his view the incarnation is how God fulfilled his covenant by “condescending to enter into our lost and estranged humanity, taking our lost condition upon himself” to accomplish reconciliation and revelation. He strongly affirmed the necessity that Jesus must take on our fallen flesh for otherwise his redemptive work would not reach us. He related this understanding to Gregory Nazianzen’s statement: “the unassumed is the unredeemed.” Thus, the locus of judgment and condemnation for sin as well as the healing, sanctification and redemption of our human nature is found in the incarnation. This gives the impression that Christ’s saving work is largely through and in the incarnation particularly the life he lived in the flesh.

In summary, the proponents of the view that Christ took into union a fallen human nature have some commendable points. First, their intention was to affirm the language of the New Testament’s description of Christ. Second, to demonstrate that Christ is truly and fully human in all aspects as we are by identifying his human nature with our current state and condition after the Fall. Hence, Christ is brought near to the identity and experience of human beings especially human temptations and sufferings. Since he is in total solidarity with our present human state and condition, he can thus effectively sympathize with us and intercede for us. Moreover, the work of redemption—overcoming sin, death, evil and the flesh—was completed from within the fallen human nature, which began in the incarnation. All of this was accomplished through the efficacious and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in the fallen human nature of Christ. Therefore, the proponents of this claim can qualify their position by affirming that Christ was without sin and did not commit sin even when he assumed a fallen human nature. Moreover, their argument is buttressed by making distinctions and nuances between fallenness and sinlessness as well as nature and person.  

In a future post I will lay out some issues to ponder regarding this view. Is sinlessness and fallenness the same? How can Christ take on a fallen human nature and yet be sinless?

References

Edward Irving, The Collected Writings of Edward Irving, vol. 5.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2.

Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ.

Robert Letham, Systematic Theology.