Communicatio idiomatum and John 20:19

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SebastianClinciuJJ

Puritan Board Freshman
Grace and peace!

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
‭‭John‬ ‭20:19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

How can this passage be interpreted without going into the Lutheran understanding of Communicatio Idiomatum (or even worse: Docetism)?




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Ontology is open-ended. Jesus walked through a door. That refutes Lockean atomism and Newtonian gnosticism, but it doesn't lead to Lutheranism.

Jesus walked through a door. It doesn't say that his human DNA atoms were everywhere.
 
Ontology is open-ended. Jesus walked through a door. That refutes Lockean atomism and Newtonian gnosticism, but it doesn't lead to Lutheranism.

Jesus walked through a door. It doesn't say that his human DNA atoms were everywhere.

It seems strange to me that Calvin finds “Jesus walking through a door” not a possible interpretation:

“and yet I am far from admitting the truth of what the Papists assert, that the body of Christ passed through the shut doors. Their reason for maintaining this is, for the purpose of proving not only that the glorious body of Christ resembled a spirit, but that it was infinite, and could not be confined to any one place. But the words convey no such meaning; for the Evangelist does not say that he entered through the shut doors, but that he suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples, though the doors had been shut, and had not been opened to him by the hand of man.”

Commentary on the Gospel of John 20:19, Calvin.


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Grace and peace!

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
‭‭John‬ ‭20:19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

How can this passage be interpreted without going into the Lutheran understanding of Communicatio Idiomatum (or even worse: Docetism)?




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It ought not to be interpreted any differently than any other of Jesus' miracles, all of which are suspensions of physical laws. It also betrays not even a hint of Lutheranism because there's no suggestion or implication that his human nature is omnipresent here. On the contrary, there is only Jesus' local presence here, which, while appearing in his place miraculously, is implied to have not been with the disciples initially and then appears with them. If this was teaching communicatio then his human presence would have been with them continuously.
 
“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
‭‭John‬ ‭20:19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

How can this passage be interpreted without going into the Lutheran understanding of Communicatio Idiomatum (or even worse: Docetism)?

Greetings,

This definition is for people like me that do not know Latin. It is also a question about any portion of Muller's definition that is to your point, or, that you think misses the point.

Thanks.

communicatio idiomatum/communicatio proprietatum: communication of proper qualities; a term used in Christology to describe the way in which the properties, or idiomata, of each nature are communicated to or interchanged in the unity of the person. The communicatio can be characterized as either in concreto or in abstracto (q.v.). The former qualification, in concreto, refers to the concretion of Christ’s person in the incarnation and personal union; the two natures are here considered as joined in the person, and the interchange of attributes is understood as taking place at the level of the person and not between the natures. This view was typical of the Antiochene Christology and of the Reformed Christology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The latter qualification, in abstracto, refers to the abstractive consideration of the relation of the two natures to each other distinct from their union in the person and to the exchange of properties between the natures, specifically, a communication of divine properties to the human nature. This view was typical of Alexandrian and Cappadocian Christology in the early church. Both views raise doctrinal problems: the Antiochene position, taken to an extreme by Nestorius, threatens the unity of Christ’s person; the Alexandrian doctrine, taken to an extreme by Eutyches, threatens the integrity of the natures. In addition, the logic of predication argues the illegitimacy of the use of abstractions as predicates. When the Reformed scholastics accuse the Lutheran orthodox of teaching communicatio idiomatum in abstracto, i.e., of using abstracta, or abstractions, as predicates, they not only argue a Eutychian tendency but also a logical error in the Lutheran view

Muller, R. A. (1985). Dictionary of Latin and Greek theological terms : drawn principally from Protestant scholastic theology (pp. 72–73). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House.
 
If I wasn't about to get on the road for travels, I would go check out my commentaries on this verse. I have quick access to John Gill. This is what he has to say about it,
"came Jesus and stood in the midst of them; on a sudden, at once, and when they had no thought or fear of anyone's coming upon them, without some previous notice; but he being the Almighty God, did, by his omnipotent power, cause the bars and bolts, and doors, in the most secret and unobserved manner, to give way to him, and let him in at once among them: when as a presage and pledge of the accomplishment of his promise to be with, and in the midst of his, when met together, either in private or public, he stood and presented himself in the midst of them: and to let them know at once he was no enemy, "
 
but he being the Almighty God, did, by his omnipotent power, cause the bars and bolts, and doors, in the most secret and unobserved manner, to give way to him, and let him in at once among them:

Are we to take it that John Gill thinks that Jesus somehow walked through the miraculously opened door? If that is so than in Emmaus did Jesus exit by a door in like manner when it says, "And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight"? Or did I misunderstand Gill?
 
That is how I understood what he was saying. I am sneaking my John commentaries, on top of my mountain of books, on our trip. I'll consult them this evening at the hotel and report back.
 
Matthew Henry - This does not at all weaken the evidence of his having a real human body after his resurrection; though the doors were shut, he knew how to open them without any noise, and come in so that they might not hear him, as formerly he had walked on the water, and yet had a true body. It is a comfort to Christ's disciples, when their solemn assemblies are reduced to privacy, that no doors can shut out Christ's presence from them.
 
It seems strange to me that Calvin finds “Jesus walking through a door” not a possible interpretation:

“and yet I am far from admitting the truth of what the Papists assert, that the body of Christ passed through the shut doors. Their reason for maintaining this is, for the purpose of proving not only that the glorious body of Christ resembled a spirit, but that it was infinite, and could not be confined to any one place. But the words convey no such meaning; for the Evangelist does not say that he entered through the shut doors, but that he suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples, though the doors had been shut, and had not been opened to him by the hand of man.”

Commentary on the Gospel of John 20:19, Calvin.


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It does not strike me that he is arguing that the resurrected Jesus is some super ninja with WD40. He does go on to say it is a miracle so I take this more to mean he does not consider the resurrected body to be incorporeal.

"...We know that Peter (Acts 10:10) went out of a prison which was locked; and must we, therefore, say that he passed through the midst of the iron and of the planks? Away, then, with that childish trifling, which contains nothing solid, and brings along with it many absurdities! Let us be satisfied with knowing that Christ intended, by a remarkable miracle, to confirm his disciples in their belief of his resurrection."
 
It seems strange to me that Calvin finds “Jesus walking through a door” not a possible interpretation:

“and yet I am far from admitting the truth of what the Papists assert, that the body of Christ passed through the shut doors. Their reason for maintaining this is, for the purpose of proving not only that the glorious body of Christ resembled a spirit, but that it was infinite, and could not be confined to any one place. But the words convey no such meaning; for the Evangelist does not say that he entered through the shut doors, but that he suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples, though the doors had been shut, and had not been opened to him by the hand of man.”

Commentary on the Gospel of John 20:19, Calvin.


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I disagree with Calvin here. Jesus' walking through a door has nothing to do with whether his body is omnipresent. Quite the opposite.
 
It seems strange to me that Calvin finds “Jesus walking through a door” not a possible interpretation:

“and yet I am far from admitting the truth of what the Papists assert, that the body of Christ passed through the shut doors. Their reason for maintaining this is, for the purpose of proving not only that the glorious body of Christ resembled a spirit, but that it was infinite, and could not be confined to any one place. But the words convey no such meaning; for the Evangelist does not say that he entered through the shut doors, but that he suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples, though the doors had been shut, and had not been opened to him by the hand of man.”

Commentary on the Gospel of John 20:19, Calvin.


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Jack must have had a bad cigar before writing this passage. John pointedly tells us that the doors were locked, yet Jesus was in the room "and stood among them." Obviously, because He is God, He was able to pass through the physical doors to enter the room. It's amazing that some commentators will say that Jesus unlocked the doors first so that He could enter the room, thus taking away the whole point of John's passage. Why deny the miracle?
 
When Philip was "whisked away" from the Ethiopian eunuch, and was "found at Azotus," we are not obligated in the least to believe that the Spirit moved him bodily through space--at some velocity, but still as a whole person at some definable trajectory or vector--from one place to another. It was a miraculous relocation, perhaps at one moment he was near the city of Gaza, and the next instant he was walking in the gate of Azotus.

Take this absurd thought experiment: that a hapless bird was passing through the same space east to west that Philip was being rocketed through going south to north. It is the same "problem" as the locked windows and doors of the upper room, that some people wish to "solve" by Ninja-Jesus, or Spectral-Jesus.

In the case of Philip: being in his body, at one time he was near Gaza, and then he wasn't there anymore. He was somewhere else. That is it: a human body-spirit unity has locality, something less than "every-conceivable-three-or-more-dimensional-where at once." It is a property of a human body; and if we can take texts like Dan.9:21-23 and Dan.10:12-13 at face value, it is also the case that even a spirit-being like an angel is a local creature, not a universal presence. The latter is a divine property, fit for a divine nature.

But apparently, God can take a human in his body from one place , and (without "being careful" not to HIT anything on the way over) have him relocated to the other side of the universe in the blink of an eye. No dematerialization required. But the man, body included, is not going to be in two places on either end of the universe at the same time.

A simple miraculous relocation, without recourse to a solid body passing through a solid wall, is the plainest interpretation of Jesus appearing in the Upper Room behind locked doors and closed windows. I have a perverse inclination to a C.S.Lewis inspired version--in which Jesus' resurrection body is "more real" than the walls--but that's again subject to the Occam's Razor rebuttal.
 

Greetings,

This definition is for people like me that do not know Latin. It is also a question about any portion of Muller's definition that is to your point, or, that you think misses the point.

Thanks.

communicatio idiomatum/communicatio proprietatum: communication of proper qualities; a term used in Christology to describe the way in which the properties, or idiomata, of each nature are communicated to or interchanged in the unity of the person. The communicatio can be characterized as either in concreto or in abstracto (q.v.). The former qualification, in concreto, refers to the concretion of Christ’s person in the incarnation and personal union; the two natures are here considered as joined in the person, and the interchange of attributes is understood as taking place at the level of the person and not between the natures. This view was typical of the Antiochene Christology and of the Reformed Christology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The latter qualification, in abstracto, refers to the abstractive consideration of the relation of the two natures to each other distinct from their union in the person and to the exchange of properties between the natures, specifically, a communication of divine properties to the human nature. This view was typical of Alexandrian and Cappadocian Christology in the early church. Both views raise doctrinal problems: the Antiochene position, taken to an extreme by Nestorius, threatens the unity of Christ’s person; the Alexandrian doctrine, taken to an extreme by Eutyches, threatens the integrity of the natures. In addition, the logic of predication argues the illegitimacy of the use of abstractions as predicates. When the Reformed scholastics accuse the Lutheran orthodox of teaching communicatio idiomatum in abstracto, i.e., of using abstracta, or abstractions, as predicates, they not only argue a Eutychian tendency but also a logical error in the Lutheran view

Muller, R. A. (1985). Dictionary of Latin and Greek theological terms : drawn principally from Protestant scholastic theology (pp. 72–73). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House.

I named the thread "Communicatio idiomatum and John 20:19" because I anticipated that this passage can be used in the following way: The Divine Nature of Jesus transferred the attribute of immateriality to the Human Nature, so that his body could walk through the door. Of course, I don't subscribe to this interpretation, but I wondered what a more Reformed interpretation would look like, excluding the "Ninja-Jesus" one, which misses the point of St. John.
It's very intersting that John mentioned the locked door (an event that could be used in favor of their doctrine -wrongly- by the proto-Gnostics/Docetists) because afterwards he stresses the fact that Christ's body is real, material.
 
It does seem likely that both John 20:19, 26 and Luke 24:36 describe a miracle of some sort (either one involving doors and locks or one involving human travel). But this does not mean we must figure out exactly how God adjusted the normal operations of the world in the case of these miracles.

When we read that five loaves and two fish became enough to feed five thousand, do we feel a need to explain how this happened on an elemental level? More to the point, does this miracle change what we believe about what it means to be a fish?

No, because that is not the point of the miracle.

Both John and Luke emphasize that when Jesus appeared to his disciples he had a physical, fully human body. Far from emphasizing any differences between his resurrected body and the one he had formerly, their main thrust is to emphasize sameness. John tells of Thomas inspecting the wounds made at the cross. Luke tells of Jesus having the disciples inspect and touch is hands and feet, and of him eating fish specifically to show that he is not some sort of ghost.

Yes, resurrected bodies will be changed, according to passages like 1 Corinthians 15:51-53. But this does not seem to be what either John or Luke are getting at when they tell of Jesus' appearance to his disciples. Nor is it good interpretation to suggest that John and Luke are making a statement about the interaction between Jesus' human and divine natures. Nowhere in those passages do they write anything to suggest this is their point.

So then, how do we explain the fact that the post-resurrection Jesus only seems to show up sporadically and suddenly, sometimes by use of miracles, when this was not his normal pattern before his resurrection? Most likely, it is because his purpose and mission have changed. He is preparing to ascend to the Father (John 20:17), and with his death he has already begun the process of leaving them, bodily, for a time (John 13:36).
 
It was certainly possible for Jesus' physical but glorified body to pass through a door. Is anything too hard for the Lord (Genesis 18.14)?
 
When Philip was "whisked away" from the Ethiopian eunuch, and was "found at Azotus," we are not obligated in the least to believe that the Spirit moved him bodily through space--at some velocity, but still as a whole person at some definable trajectory or vector--from one place to another. It was a miraculous relocation, perhaps at one moment he was near the city of Gaza, and the next instant he was walking in the gate of Azotus.

Take this absurd thought experiment: that a hapless bird was passing through the same space east to west that Philip was being rocketed through going south to north. It is the same "problem" as the locked windows and doors of the upper room, that some people wish to "solve" by Ninja-Jesus, or Spectral-Jesus.

In the case of Philip: being in his body, at one time he was near Gaza, and then he wasn't [you]there[/you] anymore. He was somewhere else. That is it: a human body-spirit unity has locality, something less than "every-conceivable-three-or-more-dimensional-where at once." It is a property of a human body; and if we can take texts like Dan.9:21-23 and Dan.10:12-13 at face value, it is also the case that even a spirit-being like an angel is a local creature, not a universal presence. The latter is a divine property, fit for a divine nature.

But apparently, God can take a human in his body from one place , and (without "being careful" not to HIT anything on the way over) have him relocated to the other side of the universe in the blink of an eye. No dematerialization required. But the man, body included, is not going to be in two places on either end of the universe at the same time.

A simple miraculous relocation, without recourse to a solid body passing through a solid wall, is the plainest interpretation of Jesus appearing in the Upper Room behind locked doors and closed windows. I have a perverse inclination to a C.S.Lewis inspired version--in which Jesus' resurrection body is "more real" than the walls--but that's again subject to the Occam's Razor rebuttal.
I agree. When one comes to the text to insist that the divine nature's omnipresence is communicated to the human nature then that is not exegesis. Jesus has ascended to heaven. Where is the human body? We don't know and we don't need to have it figured out.
 
It's very intersting that John mentioned the locked door (an event that could be used in favor of their doctrine -wrongly- by the proto-Gnostics/Docetists) because afterwards he stresses the fact that Christ's body is real, material.

Someone will probably tell me that this is off the subject. If it is too far afield can anyone point me to a PB thread that addresses my idea?

I had thought that the body of the resurrected Jesus, before His ascension, was pretty much the same as it was before he died. I am not saying that Jesus body could have been killed if something fatal to other humans happened to him. But I wonder, if that was the case, is more because death had no more claim on him since the resurrection and that God would overrule any possible harm to his still quite human body. I doubt that Jesus looks the same now in heaven as he did the 40 days on earth following the resurrection. I even wonder if he will have his scars at all throughout infinity future. Consider the transfiguration where he, "was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." For the eternal glory of the Son was masked during the days of his humility. Someone likened his time on earth to an oil lamp with the wick turned very low. And in the transfiguration, as surprising as it was, was like turning up the lamp a bit for a time. While the full eternal glory will be as is the Father's; same in substance, equal in power and glory.

Could someone pick apart what I have tried to say and help me to better understand the God-man Jesus? Does anything I have spoken have any merit?

Thanks

 
It is an odd thing for us mortals to try to figure out the mechanics of a miracle. It seems it ought to be enough that the one who "upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3) would be able to place his body wherever and whenever he will.
 
Solid body? Solid door?

You can look this up. If the nucleus of a hydrogen atom was the sun, the electron would roughly be six times farther than Pluto. Heavier atoms size in proportion is vastly more than that. Solids are almost entirely empty space. Or the aether, but I digress.

God made the atomic mass bits just go past each other in all that space. It looks impossible to us, but not to the designer.
 
It is an odd thing for us mortals to try to figure out the mechanics of a miracle. It seems it ought to be enough that the one who "upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3) would be able to place his body wherever and whenever he will.

This is a good word. I have often said that Creation simply does not reveal itself to scientific investigation. It was a miracle. How much more does The Creator Himself elude our explanation?
  • Psalms 77:19 (KJV)
    Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.
 
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