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Christ as Physician and Cure: Gregory Nazianzen and the Salvific Logic of Creedal Christology

An abiding concern of contemporary work in Christology has been the relationship between the person and work of Christ and the desire to avoid artificial separations between the two. As just one example, Daniel Treier, in his recent Lord Jesus Christ, frames his account as the narrating of a “theodramatic ontology” in an explicit acknowledgement of such concerns (see especially pp. 40-47). In this paper, I further engage this question by retrieving Gregory of Nazianzus’ account of Christ as both spiritual physician and cure. I argue that drawing on Gregory’s use of healing imagery allows us to articulate an organic account of the transformative work of Christ that relies upon and reinforces the fundamental unity of Christ’s person and work. Gregory of Nazianzus writes at a pivotal moment amidst the conciliar developments of the fourth and fifth centuries. As a proud defender of Nicene Trinitarianism and a sharp critic of Apollinarianism, Gregory extols the one, fully divine Son of God who assumes complete humanity in a salvific unity. I argue that Gregory’s description of Christ as both doctor and cure helps him to provide a clear account of how the transformative power of the incarnation is worked out and instantiated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The divine Son comes as a doctor to save us and is the restorative life that renews humanity. Christ’s healing power is, for Gregory, deeply connected to Christ’s recapitulatory work. Christ is the new Adam who can overturn Adam’s fall and restore the image within humanity. By attending to these features of Gregory’s account, we can perceive the inextricable union between Christ’s person and Christ’s work. The crux of our salvation is the coming to us of the only one who can save us. The disease of sin must be cured by the divine healer who is the divine medicine. While Gregory focuses upon the transformative aspects of such a cure, the connection between recapitulation and healing, as well as the necessity of a right relationship with God for a healthy human life, additionally gestures towards the importance of the removal of condemnation. In fact, the unity of person and work is brought out by an account that sees Christ’s curative work as restorative of both our relationship with God (removal of condemnation) and spiritual life (removal of depravity). While the metaphor of healing emphasizes the transformative power of Christ, it offers crucial resources for organically uniting the complete blessings of salvation with their source: the life, death, and resurrection of the incarnate Word. In sum, our salvation demands divine visitation and divine action. The medicine required for fallen humanity is beyond the power of any human and must be applied to every aspect of human life. Our spiritual healing is thus the outworking of the mystery of the incarnation in the divine economy.

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Recent Publications

The Spirit and Renewal (Part 1): Definitive & Progressive Sanctification - Sherif Fahim

'New Creation' in Paul - Sherif Fahim

Justification, Sanctification, and Union with Christ: Fresh Insights from Calvin, Westminster, and Walter Marshall - Sherif Fahim

Death in Second-Century Christian Thought The Meaning of Death in Earliest Christianity - Jeremiah Mutie

The Quest for Early Church Historiography From Ferdinand C. Baur to Bart D. Ehrman and Beyond - Jeremiah Mutie

The Book of the Twelve - David Fuller

Early Witnesses to the Syriac Text of Acts 15 with an Investigation into the Text of Acts 15 in the Didascalia Apostolorum and with and Appendix on the Western/Jacobite Peshitta Manuscript Tradition for Acts - Daniel McConaughy

The Star and the Magi in Jacob of Serugh and the Early Syriac Tradition - Daniel McConaughy

Saved by Grace through Faith or Saved by Decree? A Biblical and Theological Critique of Calvinist Soteriology - Geoffrey Robinson

The Rhetoric of Matthean “Small Faith” - Christopher Seglenieks

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