Episode 38: 2 Kings 6:1-7: Elisha’s Little Miracle Teaches the Communication of Attributes

2 Kings 6:1-7.

• Elisha puts a stick in the water and the iron axe head floats, taking on the qualities of the wood while remaining iron. This teaches us about the Communication of Attributes within the Personal Union of Christ. (cyclopedia.lcms.org)
  • Communication of Attributes. Though in the person of Jesus Christ each nature retains its essential attributes unchanged and undiminished in kind and number, yet each nature also communicates its attributes to the other in the personal union, so that the divine nature participates in properties of the human nature and vice versa. The Formula of Concord and most Lutheran dogmaticians distinguish 3 kinds (genera) of Scripture statements teaching the communication of attributes (communicatio idiomatum): genus idiomaticum, genus maiestaticum, and genus apotelesmaticum.
    • Gensus Idiomaticum: Scripture passages classified as statements or the genus idiomaticum, the genus of appropriation, are those whereby attributes of either nature are ascribed to the entire person of Christ. (Jn 8:58 and Lk 3:23; Jn 21:17 and Lk 2:52; Cl 1:16 and Jn 18:12)
    • Genus Maiestaticum: Propositions of the genus maiestaticum, the genus of glory, deal with the divine attributes showing forth the glory of the only begotten of the Father. Though the human nature of the person of Christ remains truly human, yet all divine properties and perfections and the honor and glory pertaining to this divine nature are communicated to His human nature; the divine perfections, which the divine nature has as essential attributes, the human nature has as communicated attributes. In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Cl 2:9; Heb 1:3). By virtue of the personal union the Son of Man, while on earth and in conversation with Nicodemus, was also in heaven (Jn 3:13); and now, though ascended into heaven, He, the Son of Man, is also with His church on earth to the end of the world (Mt 28:20). By communication of attributes Jesus was an omnipotent man; in Him there dwelt eternal life, infinite wisdom, immutable holiness and righteousness, boundless power, love indivisible and everlasting as God Himself. Although Christ, according to His human nature, was exposed to temptation, this human nature, by communicated holiness, was not only sinless, but absolutely impeccable.
    • Genus Apotelesmaticum: The term genus apotelesmaticum is derived from the Greek word for the performance of a task. Scripture texts under this head assert a union by which, in official acts, each nature performs what is peculiar to itself with the participation of the other. Not only did the entire person, Christ, die for our sins (1 Co 15:3), but we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son (Ro 5:10). The obedience of the child Jesus was a fulfillment of the 4th Commandment rendered by the Son of God. He suffered and died; this passion and death was endured by His human nature in communion with His divine nature.
  • From the Formula of Concord VIII: ⁶⁴ We, therefore, hold and teach, in conformity with the ancient orthodox Church, as it has explained this doctrine from the Scriptures, that the human nature in Christ has received this majesty according to the manner of the personal union, namely, because the entire fulness of the divinity dwells in Christ, not as in other holy men or angels, but bodily, as in its own body, so that it shines forth with all its majesty, power, glory, and efficacy in the assumed human nature, voluntarily when and as He [Christ] wills, and in, with, and through the same manifests, exercises, and executes His divine power, glory, and efficacy, as the soul does in the body and fire in glowing iron (for by means of these illustrations, as was also mentioned above, the entire ancient Church has explained this doctrine). … ⁶⁶ Thus there is and remains in Christ only one divine omnipotence, power, majesty, and glory, which is peculiar to the divine nature alone; but it shines, manifests, and exercises itself fully, yet voluntarily, in, with, and through the assumed, exalted human nature in Christ. Just as in glowing iron there are not two kinds of power to shine and burn [as though the fire had a peculiar, and the iron also a peculiar and separate power of shining and burning], but the power to shine and to burn is a property of the fire; but since the fire is united with the iron, it manifests and exercises this its power to shine and to burn in, with, and through the glowing iron, so that thence and from this union also the glowing iron has the power to shine and to burn without conversion of the essence and of the natural properties of fire and iron.”