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Reformed theologians saw in this Lutheran doctrine a species of Eutychianism or of the fusion
of the two natures in Christ. Reformed theology also teaches a communication of attributes,
but conceives of it in a different way. It believes that, after the incarnation, the properties of
both natures can be attributed to the one person of Christ. The person of Christ can be said to
be omniscient, but also, to have but limited knowledge; can be regarded as omnipresent, but
also as being limited at any particular time to a single place. Hence we read in the Second
Helvetic Confession: “We acknowledge, therefore, that there be in one and the same Jesus our
Lord two natures — the divine and the human nature; and we say that these are so conjoined
or united that they are not swallowed up, confounded, or mingled together, but rather united
or joined together in one person (the properties of each being safe and remaining still), so that
we do worship one Christ, our Lord, and not two. . . . Therefore we do not think nor teach that
the divine nature in Christ did suffer, or that Christ, according to His human nature, is yet in the
world, and so in every place.”[Chap. XI.]
2. IN THE NINTEENTH CENTURY.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century a great change
took place in the study of the person of Christ. Up to that time the point of departure had been
prevailingly theological, and the resulting Christology was theocentric; but during the last part
of the eighteenth century there was a growing conviction that better results could be attained
by starting closer at home, namely, with the study of the historical Jesus. Thus the so-called
“second Christological period” was ushered in. The new point of view was anthropological, and
the result was anthropocentric. It proved to be destructive of the faith of the Church. A far-
reaching and pernicious distinction was made between the historical Jesus, delineated by the
writers of the Gospels, and the theological Christ, who was the fruit of the fertile imagination of
theological thinkers, and whose image is now reflected in the creeds of the Church. The
supernatural Christ made way for a human Jesus; and the doctrine of the two natures, for the
doctrine of a divine man.
Schleiermacher stood at the head of the new development. He regarded Christ as a new
creation, in which human nature is elevated to the plane of ideal perfection. Yet his Christ can
hardly be said to rise above the human level. The uniqueness of His person consists in the fact
that He possesses a perfect and unbroken sense of union with the divine, and also realizes to
the full the destiny of man in His character of sinless perfection. His supreme dignity finds its
explanation in a special presence of God in Him, in His unique God-consciousness. Hegel’s
conception of Christ is part and parcel of his pantheistic system of thought. The Word become
flesh means for him God become incarnate in humanity, so that the incarnation really expresses
the oneness of God and man. The incarnation of Christ was, so it seems, merely the culmination
of a racial process. While mankind in general regards Jesus only as a human teacher, faith
recognizes Him as divine and finds that by His coming into the world the transcendence of God