骆鸿铭翻译
救恩只能在基督里得到,这是肯定的;但是信心是拥有(possess)基督自己(himself),还是只是拥有基督的恩益(benefits)?加尔文对这个问题的立场似乎曾随着时间改变过。在《基督教要义》的早期版本中,加尔文似乎是认为:信徒并没有与基督自己联合,而只是基督拯救的能力的领受者。但是当加尔文一头栽进去哥林多前书和希伯来书的注释书的写作中时,且当围绕着圣餐本质的争论开始升高、他也卷入其中时,加尔文的思想就显明在他开始更愿意说基督徒的确是参与在基督的“本质”(substance)上。基督自己是诸多救赎恩益的本质,因此,那些想要参与到这些救赎恩益中的人,必须参与到祂自己里面。
Salvation
is found in Christ, to be sure; but does faith possess Christ himself, or
simply Christ's benefits? It appears that Calvin’s position on this question
changed over time. Early editions of the Institutes seem to suggest that Calvin
thought the believer was not united with Christ himself, but was simply the
recipient of Christ's saving power. But as Calvin delved deeper into the
writing of his commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Hebrews, and as his
involvement in controversies surrounding the nature of the Eucharist began to
escalate, Calvin began to narrow the conceptual gap between Christ and his
benefits. This development in Calvin's thought is evidenced by his increased
willingness to speak of the Christian's participation in the "substance"
of Christ. Christ himself is the substance of the benefits of redemption, and
therefore those who wish to participate in them must participation in him.
这个转变所带来的影响,首先在加尔文对圣餐的神学上得到证明。J. Todd Billings解释到(下略):
The
impact of this change is witnessed first in Calvin’s theology of the Eucharist.
J. Todd Billings explains:
In
the 1536 edition of the Institutes, the idea of the Supper ‘exhibiting’ Christ
is used negatively, whereas later Calvin uses it positively. He also uses the
idea of Christ being ‘substantially’ present in a negative sense only, another
theme which becomes a hallmark of Calvin’s mature eucharisitic theology . . .
Calvin’s Eucharistic theology eventually moves from a memorialistic conception
to one emphasizing a ‘true participation’ in Christ.
In
other words, whereas the Calvin of 1536 thinks we receive in the Eucharist the
“effective working” of Christ rather than “the very substance of his body,” the
Calvin of 1559 claims that through the Eucharist we become “partakers of his
substance, that we may also feel his power in partaking of all his benefits.”
如此,加尔文对与基督联合的成熟教义是这样宣称的:信心把握基督;不只是基督的恩益,而是基督自己。
Thus,
Calvin’s mature doctrine of union with Christ claims that faith possesses
Christ. Not merely Christ’s benefits, but Christ himself:
我无法明白任何人会有把握,他会拥有十架基督的救赎与公义,与祂的死所带来的生命——除非他所依靠的是真正参与在基督自己里面。因为那些恩益并不会自动跑到我们身上,除非基督让祂自己属于我们(made himself ours)。对加尔文来说,“上帝给我们的礼物不是一件东西,不是一个能力,不是对我们本质的补丁”——“我们不是领受许多恩典的礼物,而是只有一个礼物,就是耶稣基督。”救赎完全是参与在基督里,而与基督联合的恩益,不会是抽象地在祂之外的。这个发展过程在加尔文的圣餐神学里,最能清楚地显明出来,但完全没有受到其限制。Billings证明了这个发展对加尔文的称义,成圣和洗礼之教义的影响。加尔文使用像“参与”(participation)和“移植”(engrafting)到基督里面这样的语言,来解释基督徒如何领受了救赎的恩益。简而言之,既然救恩完全是根植于基督的位格,若我们没有与基督自己联合,我们就无法得到基督的恩益。
I do
not see how anyone can trust that he has redemption and righteousness in the
cross of Christ, and life in his death, unless he relies chiefly upon a true
participation in Christ himself. For those benefits would not come to us unless
Christ first made himself ours.
For
Calvin, “God’s gift to us is not a something, not a power, not an improvement
of our own nature” – “we do not receive gifts of grace but the one gift, Jesus
Christ.” Redemption is so thoroughly a matter of participation in Jesus that
the benefits of union with Christ cannot be abstracted from him.
And
while this development evidences itself most clearly in Calvin's Eucharistic
theology, it is by no means restricted to it. Billings has shown the impact of
this development for Calvin's doctrines of Justification, Sanctification, and
Baptism, as he makes use of the language of “participation” in and “engrafting”
into Christ as ways of explaining how the Christian receives the benefits of
redemption. In short, since salvation is inextricably rooted in Christ's
person, there is no possession of Christ benefits apart from union with Christ
himself.
我们之前已经看到,信心是圣灵工作的模式,使基督徒能把握基督——“信心握住基督”(注1。 Institutes, III.iii.1)。但是我们要记得,对加尔文来说,救恩的组成不只是包括罪人与基督的恩益联合,而是包括了罪人与基督自己的联合。所以,问题还在那儿:“信心握住基督”是怎样的过程,其意义是什么?对这个问题的回答,全在于认识加尔文对圣餐的教训。
As we
have seen, faith is the mode of the Spirit’s work that enables the Christian to
possess Christ -- "faith possesses Christ." (1) But it will be
remembered that, for Calvin, salvation consists not simply in a union of the
sinner with Christ’s benefits, but with Christ himself. So the question
remains: How and in what sense does “faith possess Christ?” The answer to this
question lies most exposed within Calvin’s doctrine of the Eucharist.
在加尔的文时代,圣餐和与基督联合不是很容易或很清楚可以切割分开的,因为参加主的圣餐被视为是基督徒参与在基督的身体与血之救恩能力中的一个手段(means)。Christopher Elwood宣称,在中世纪曾有一段时间,“包括神学的定义和一般宗教的习俗,都把圣餐放在宗教生活的最中心,并突出其地位,将它视为基督徒的经验世界中,经历神的能力最显要(最中心)的处所。”(注2。The Body Broken, 4.)他并没有夸大其辞。圣餐的奥秘,就是与基督联合的奥秘。
In
Calvin’s day, the Eucharist was not easily or neatly divisible from union with
Christ because participating in the Lord’s Supper was seen by most as a means
of the Christian’s participation in the saving power of Christ’s body and
blood. Christopher Elwood does not exaggerate it’s importance when he claims
that the late Middle Ages was a time in which, “both theological definitions
and popular religious practices placed the Eucharist at the very center of
religious life and underlined its status as the preeminent locus [central
location] of divine power within the Christian’s world of experience.” (2) The
mystery of the Eucharist was the mystery of union with Christ.
所,当耶稣在祂死前的那夜,与祂的门徒在小楼上擘饼的时候,祂说,“这是我的身体”,祂的意思是指什么呢?第一代的改教家一致反对罗马天主教化质说(transubstantiation)的教训。这个教义教导圣餐中的饼和酒转变成(transformed)了基督的身体和血。改教家的教导是:饼并没有变成(become)基督的身体;它并没有被奥秘地转变成不同的本质(substance)——它仍然是饼。罗马天主教的教义错误地把基督拯救的能力转移到饼和酒上面,当他们这样做的时候,就产生了偶像崇拜的各种形式,包括崇拜诸多圣礼的本身!但是改教家只在这点上取得了共识。加尔文所承继的,是已经在慈运里和路德对圣餐的看法上有很大歧义的宗教改革。这个分歧是这位年轻,满怀希望,属于大公教会的加尔文所想要敉平的。
So,
when Jesus broke bread with his disciples in the upper room on the night before
his death and said, “This is my body,” what did he mean? First generation
Reformers were in unanimous agreement against the Catholic teaching of
transubstantiation which taught that the sacramental bread and wine were
transformed into body and blood. The bread does not become the body of Christ;
it is not miraculously transformed into a different substance – it remains
bread. The Catholic doctrine erroneously transferred the saving power of Christ
to bread and wine and, in so doing, gave birth to every form of idolatry,
including the worship of the Sacraments themselves! But here is where the
agreement ended. Calvin inherited a Reformation already deeply divided between
Zwinglian and Lutheran conceptions of the Eucharist – a divide the young,
hopeful, and ecumenical Calvin would seek to bridge.
加尔文对于与基督联合的看法,可以用三个字来总结:信心握住基督(faith possesses
Christ)。(注1。《要义》 3.3.1;3.9.1)和在他之前的路德一样,加尔文强调基督徒的救恩,是完全在他本身之外的(extra nos),也就是说,“救恩的每一个部分都包括在基督里”。(注2。2.16.19)然而,对加尔文来说,基督如果还留在我们外面,就不会对我们有任何效果。“只要基督还在我们以外(extra nos),我们还与祂隔绝,那么基督为人类所受、所作的一切,就仍旧是毫无用处,对我们没有价值的。”(注3。3.1.1)如果基督的生与死能成就我们的救恩,祂必须“成为我们的,并且……住在我们里面(in nobis)”(注4。同上)。基督犹如恩典的泉源(注5。2.15.5; 2.16.19; 3.24; 3.9.9; 1.17.9)。在基督里,在我们之外,“有一个源泉,已经向我们开启,我们可以从那里汲取那原本是隐藏的、无用处的”(注6。3.11.9);但是,那源泉是只有当罪人靠“喝到饱足”,领受到他里面(in nobis),才会有益处的。
Calvin’s
notion of union with Christ can be summarized in three words: “faith possesses
Christ.”[1] Like Luther before him, Calvin emphasizes that the Christian’s
salvation lies outside of himself (extra nos); that is to say, “Salvation and
all its parts are comprehended in Christ.”[2] And yet, for Calvin, Christ
remains ineffective where he remains extra nos: “As long as Christ remains
outside of us (extra nos), and we are separated from him, all that he has
suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and no
value for us.”[3] If Christ’s life and death are to be made effective for our
salvation, he must “become ours and . . . dwell within us (in nobis).” [4]
Christ is like a fountain of grace. [5] In Christ and extra nos lies “a
fountain, open to us, from which we may draw what otherwise would lie
unprofitably hidden” [6]; but, the fountain is profitable only for that sinner
who receives it to himself (in nobis) by “drink[ing] his fill.” [7]
那么,根据加尔文的说法,信心必须把握基督,因为基督的位格与工作是无法分开的。毕竟,基督的工作是代表罪人,献在父神面前的。这是基督所以道成肉身最重要的目的:
Now,
according to Calvin, faith must possess Christ because Christ’s person and work
are inseparable. It is, after all, the work of Christ to present himself before
the Father on the sinner’s behalf. This was the very purpose of Christ becoming
flesh:
我们的主,以一个真的人降生于世;祂取了亚当的位格和名字,在亚当的位置上顺服父神,将肉身献上,以满足神公义的审判;并且,以同一个肉身,偿付了我们所配得的刑罚。简而言之,既然神自己不能经历死亡,而人自己不能胜过死亡,祂就把人的本质和神性本质联合在一起;为了代赎罪,祂以软弱的本质顺服至死,而以另一个本质与死亡的权势争战,好为我们赢得胜利。(注8。2.12.3)
Our
Lord came forth as true man and took the person and the name of Adam in order
to take Adam’s place in obeying the Father, to present our flesh as the price
of satisfaction to God’s righteous judgment, and, in the same flesh, to pay the
penalty that we had deserved. In short, since neither as God alone could he
feel death, nor as man alone could he overcome it, he coupled human nature with
divine that to atone for sin he might submit the weakness of the one to death;
and that, wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, he might win
victory for us. [8]
借着穿上肉身,基督取了这个能分担我们的景况、赢得我们的公义,并将祂的好处分赐给我们的器皿(instrument)。在此意义下,加尔文宣称,“基督的肉体就像一个丰盛、取之不尽的源泉,将神性里涌流出的生命,倾倒在我们里面。”(注9。4.17.9)这点是非常重要的——基督的人性从本质上来说(intrinsically),靠其本身,是不能赐予生命的,它本是会受死亡支配的。反倒是,基督的肉体赐生命的能力,出自它与基督之神性的联合。基于这个理由,它是“充满丰盛的生命”的(注10。同上。详注见后。)
By
taking on flesh, Christ took to himself the instrument by which he shares in
our condition, merits our righteousness, and imparts his benefits to us. In
this sense, Calvin claims that, “the flesh of Christ is like a rich and
inexhaustible fountain that pours into us the life springing forth from the
Godhead into itself.”[9]This point is critical - Christ’s humanity is not
intrinsically life-giving – by itself, it was subject to death. Rather, the
life-giving power of the flesh of Christ issues from its union with Christ's
divinity. For this reason, it is “pervaded with fullness of life.” [10]
若不是神的儿子自己成为人子;若不是祂取了我们的身体,好使我们与神的性情有份,且藉著恩典,使我们获得祂本来就有的性情,否则,谁能成就这事呢?(注11。2.12.2)
Who
could have done this had not the self-same Son of God become the Son of man,
and had not so taken what was ours as to impart what was his to us, and to make
what was his by nature ours by grace? [11]
从加尔文的观点,基督作为救赎中保的职事,取决于基督两个本性的联合:祂的人性提供基督的,是直面罪所需要的景况,而祂的神性则提供了必能胜过罪的权能。因此,信心必须把握基督,因为“我们整个救恩的每一个部分都包括在基督里”(注12。2.16.19)
From
Calvin’s perspective, Christ’s office as the Mediator of redemption hangs on
the union of Christ's two natures: humanity provides Christ with the condition
necessary to confront sin, and deity with power certain to overcome it.
Therefore, faith must possess Christ because “our whole salvation and all its
parts are comprehended in Christ” – that is, in his whole person. [12]
注:
[1]Institutes,
III.iii.1 and III.xi.1; Calvin regards this phrase as a summary of his
exposition of the nature of faith in III.ii.
[2]Institutes,
II.xvi.19, emphasis mine.
[3]Institutes,
III.i.1
[4]Ibid.
[5]Institutes,
II.xv.5; II.xvi.19; III.xxiv.5; III.xi.9; IV.xvii.9
[6]Institutes,
III.xi.9
[7]Ibid
[8]Institutes,
II.xii.3
[9]Institutes,
IV.xvii.9
Thomos
J. Davis最近提出了一个解释基督的人性如何作为救恩工具的解释。Davis 论证到,根据加尔文对约翰福音6:51的注解,既然神自己是公义的源头,基督在十字架受死之后,基督的义就被“从祂的神性,转移到祂的身体,也就是公义从本质来说的从属之地。”(Thomas J. Davis,
This is My Body: The Presence of Christ in Reformation Thought [Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 2008],85页。)如果我们能明白,对加尔文来说,基督的身体乃是神所预旨的救恩的途径,也是上帝救恩的义的所在,我们就能理解,在整个关于圣餐的争论中,加尔文之所以坚持基督复活和升天时的人性本质了。加尔文热烈地反对路德的观点,就是说在复活之后,基督的身体,如同灵一样,就成为无所不在了。加尔文相信,这个教导是“把基督的人性本质从祂的身体剥除”,而其结果,就是“使上帝的救恩失效,因为它否定了上帝所拣选,要将救恩赐给信徒的途径。”Davis强调,加尔文相信基督徒在一个特殊的意义上,参与了基督的肉体;加尔文把这点视为神把生命赐给基督徒的媒介(《要义》,4.17.11,33)。他无疑是对的。然而,除了这对加尔文来说,似乎有点太抽象之外,说到公义由基督的神性“转移”到祂的人性,也会泯除了对永远的位格的合一(the persistence of
the hypostatic union)的必要性了。如果这真是加尔文的立场,他的确就是聂斯托流派的人。然而,这段文字所要表达的,只是基督的肉体使我们能得到基督的神性所具有的赐生命的能力,而且,更重要的,加尔文一再坚持说,基督在其双重本质上,继续地作我们的中保。(《要义》,2.14.1-8;Joseph N. Tylenda, “Christ the Mediator: Calvin versus Stancaro”, Calvin Theological Journal 8/1 [1973], 5-16)
[10]Ibid;
Thomas J. Davis has recently offered an interpretation of how Christ’s humanity
functions as an instrument of salvation. Davis argues, on the basis of Calvin’s
commentary on John 6:51, that since God alone is the source of righteousness,
following Christ’s crucifixion the righteousness of Christ was “transferred
from his divinity, where righteousness intrinsically belongs, to his body.”
(Thomas J. Davis, This is My Body: The Presence of Christ in Reformation
Thought [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008], 85). Calvin’s insistence on the
nature of Christ’s humanity in the resurrection and ascension throughout the
Eucharistic debates become understandable when one realizes that, for Calvin,
Christ’s body was the ordained means of salvation and the locus of the saving
righteousness of God. Calvin vehemently opposed the Lutheran notion that,
following the resurrection, the body of Jesus was made omnipresent, like a
spirit. He believed this teaching "to strip Christ’s body of its human
nature”, and consequently “to make nil God’s salvation, for it denies the instrument
God has chosen to give salvation to believers” (86).
Davis
is no doubt right to emphasize that Calvin believed Christians participate in a
special sense with Christ’s flesh; Calvin views it as the means by which life
is mediated to the Christian (Institutes, IV.xvii.11, 33). However, aside from
seeming a bit too metaphysically specific for Calvin, speaking of a “transfer”
of righteousness from Christ’s deity to his humanity would obviate the need for
the persistence of the hypostatic union. If this were Calvin’s position, he
would indeed be Nestorian. However, the passage requires only that the flesh of
Christ makes available for us the life-giving power of Christ’s divinity and,
furthermore, Calvin repeatedly insists that Christ continues to be Mediator
with regard to both natures (Institutes, II.xiv.1-8; Joseph N. Tylenda, “Christ
the Mediator: Calvin versus Stancaro”, Calvin Theological Journal 8/1 [1973],
5-16).
[11]Institutes,
II.xii.2
[12]Institutes,
II.xvi.19