“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”
Jn. 3:13
“…two men stood by them in shining garments… they said unto them, ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen…'”
Lk. 24:4-6
.
.
Subsections
Contra Ubiquity & Multi-Presence of Christ’s Human Nature
Not All of Christ’s Operations are Theandric in the Same way
.
.
Order of Contents
Communion of Christ’s Two Natures 2
Extra Calvinisticum 18+
.
On the Communion of Christ’s Two Natures, Divine & Human
Quotes
1600’s
Henry Alting
as quoted in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics ed. Biser, trans. Thomson (Wipf & Stock, 2007), ch. 17, ‘The Mediator…’, p. 434
“The union personalis in Christ was made adiairetos, indivisibly, in respect of place, so that the human nature is nowhere unsupported by the Logos, the Logos nowhere fails to support the human nature, nor is it outside the Logos or the Logos apart from it: akoristos, inseparably in respect of time, because this union is never dissolved but is perpetual, which was also seen in the death and burial…”
.
Anthony Thysius
Disputation 25, ‘On the Incarnation of the Son of God & the Personal Union of the Two Natures in Christ’ in Synopsis Puris Theologiae, Synopsis of Pure Theology: Latin Text & English Translation ed. Henk van den Belt, trans. Riemer A. Faber (1625; Leiden: Brill, 2016), vol. 2, pp. 81-83
“The personal union also occurred ‘without division (adiairetos) and without separation (achoristos)’, in such a way that the one nature is not actually divided or segregated from the other (for at no time or place, not even in death, does He lose what once He had taken up and joined to Himself). But both natures forever remain so united in the person…
From this union there arises a communion (koinonia) of natures, so that the disposition of one nature depends on and corresponds to the other. For just as the two natures and their properties are truly and really united with each other through the person who mediates them, so also does the one nature have communion and fellowship with the other, so that the communion is real also, like the union. To be sure, these are so closely connected that the ancients following the Letter to the Hebrews 2:14, frequnetly put ‘communion’ (metoche) for ‘union’.”
.
On the Extra Calvinisticum
Article
2000’s
DeYoung, Kevin – ‘Theological Primer: The Extra Calvinisticum’ (2017) at The Gospel Coalition
This is a very good, concise summary of the doctrine, giving its significance, in under 500 words.
.
Books
2000’s
Zachariades, Theodore – The Omnipresence of Jesus Christ: A Neglected Aspect of Evangelical Christology in Paternoster Theological Monographs Pre Buy (Paternoster, 2015) An excerpt of the work on God’s omnipresence is here.
“…reassesses the classic Chalcedonian view of Jesus: “one person, two natures”. It carefully rejects all forms of kenotic Christology and affirms that Jesus possessed and used all the divine attributes, in particular, that of omnipresence, arguing that evangelical scholars have abandoned this important truth… It challenges us to read the Scriptures again and to live in the presence of Jesus.”
Gordon, James R. – The Holy One in Our Midst: An Essay on the Flesh of Christ Pre (Fortress Press, 2016) 240 pp.
“…aims to defend the doctrine of the extra Calvinisticum… by arguing that it is logically coherent, biblically warranted, catholically orthodox, and theologically useful. It shows that none of the standard objections are devastating to the extra, that the doctrine is rooted in the claims of Christian Scripture and not merely a remnant of perfect being philosophical theology, and that the doctrine plays an important role in contemporary theological discussion.”
.
Quotes
John Calvin
John in Crossway Classic Commentaries, eds. Alister McGrath & J. I. Packer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), on Jn. 3:13, pp. 74-75
“It may seem absurd to say that he ‘is in heaven’ while he still lives on earth. If it is answered that this is true about his divine nature, then this expression would mean something else—-namely, that while he was man he was ‘in heaven.’ I could point out that no place is mentioned here and that only Christ is distinguished from everybody else as far as his state is concerned, since he is the heir of the kingdom of God, from which the whole human race is banished. However, as very frequently happens, because of the unity of the person of Christ, what correctly applies to one of his natures is applied to another of his natures, and so we need seek no other solution. So Christ, who ‘is in heaven,’ has clothed himself in our flesh, so that by stretching out his brotherly hand to us he may raise us to heaven with himself.”
.
Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.481
“For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, He willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet He continuously filled the world even as He had done from the beginning!”
.
Historical Theology
In All of Church History
Article
Habets, Myk – ‘Putting the ‘extra’ back into Calvinism’ Ref in Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 62, Issue 4 (Nov. 2009), pp. 441-56
“Through an examination of the history of the doctrine and its constituent features the present article advocates the reclamation of the doctrine as a necessary component for a contemporary theology of the atonement… The extra Calvinisticum is then adopted to refute contemporary theologies of a suffering God.”
.
Book
McGinnis, Andrew M. – The Son of God Beyond the Flesh: a Historical & Theological Study of the extra Calvinisticum Pre (Bloomsbury, 2014)
McGinnis furthers the research of Willis and evidences the doctrine in Cyril of Alexandria.
.
On the Early Church
Articles
Hutchinson, E.J.
‘The Extra Calvinisticum in Athanasius’ (2016) An excerpt from On the Incarnation, 17.
‘The Real Absence & the Extra Calvinisticum: The Patristic Roots of the Reformation’ (2017) Provides quotes from Augustine (Tractates on the Gospel of John 50.4) and John Chrysostom (Homily 24 on 1 Cor.).
Drake, K.J. – ‘Behold Something Marvelous: The Chalcedonian Logic of the Extra Calvinisticum‘ (2020) 12 paragraphs
Drake is a published author on the subject.
.
On the Post-Reformation
Article
Muller, Richard A. – ‘extra calvinisticum’ in Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms… (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), p. 111, as quoted in Derek Rishmawy, ‘Luther’s Extra Calvinisticum? (Updated)’ (2015)
The article by Richmawy also includes a significant quote by Luther from Works, vol. 22, Sermons on the Gospel of John, 1-4, pp. 324-325. An appendix to the article includes two possible Lutheran interpretations of this quote, as related by Kyle Drake, a published author on the issue.
.
Book
Drake, K.J. – Etiam extra carnem: The Flesh of the Word: The extra Calvinisticum from Zwingli to Early Orthodoxy Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021)
“This book explores the emergence and development of the extra Calvinisticum in the Reformed tradition by tracing its first exposition from Ulrich Zwingli to early Reformed orthodoxy. Rather than being an ancillary issue, the questions surrounding the extra Calvinisticum were a determinative factor in the differentiation of Magisterial Protestantism into rival confessions.
…Over time, Reformed theologians, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli and Antione de Chandieu, articulated the extra Calvinisticum with increasing rigor by incorporating conciliar christology, the church fathers, and scholastic methodology to address the polemical needs of engagement with Lutheranism.”
.
On Calvin
Articles
Zachariades, Theodore – ch. 4, ‘Reformation Christology: a Look at Calvin’s Extra Calvinisticum’ (2002)
Peters, David G. – ‘The ‘Extra Calvinisticum’ & Calvin’s Eucharistic Theology’ 13 pp.
Peters provides an historical account of the development and meaning of aspects of Calvin’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.
.
Books
Willis, E. David – Calvin’s Catholic Christology: the Function of the so-called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology Pre (Leiden: Brill, 1966) 180 pp.
Willis demonstrates the existence of the doctrine in the writings of Augustine, John of Damascus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Peter Lombard, Gabriel Biel and Jacques LeFevre d’Estaples.
Lee, Daniel Y.K. – The Holy Spirit as Bond in Calvin’s Thought: Its Functions in Connection with the Extra Calvinisticum Ref (Peter Lang, 2011)
.
On the 1500’s
eds. Kirby, Campi & James – p. 342 of A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli (Leiden, Brill, 2009)
Littlejohn, W. Bradford – ch. 3, ‘A Reformed Irenic Christology: Richard Hooker’s Account of Christ’s ‘Personal Presence Everywhere’ in 16th Century Context’ in Beyond Calvin: Essays on the Diversity of the Reformed Tradition Buy (Davenant Press, 2017), pp. 63-107
Lindholm, Stefan – 5.3, ‘Two Reformed Principles Revisited’, pp. 124-39 in pt. 3, ch. 5 of Jerome Zanchi (1516–90) & the Analysis of Reformed Scholastic Christology (V&R, 2016)
.
.
.
Related Pages
On the Mass & Transubstantiation
On the Person of Christ, his Human & Divine Natures & the Hypostatic Union
On the Grace of Union, the Logos Assuming an Impersonal Human Nature, its Manner of Subsisting, Communication & Existence, & of the Personal Sustentation
On the Communication of the Properties of Christ’s Natures
Christ’s Mediatorial Operations, Divine & Human, unto the Same Work
Christ has Two Harmonious Wills, Divine & Human
The Grounds of Christ the Mediator Receiving Divine Worship
Against the Ubiquity & Multi-Presence of Christ’s Human Nature