“The incarnation does not mean that humankind in general, or human nature in general, or human history in general was stamped with God’s approval or transformed by God’s indwelling, but rather that a particular story, the words and work of a particular man, is the key to the very nature of God. That particularity is even more scandalous if we reckon deeply with the fact that the historicity of the incarnation committed God to the particularity of an ongoing history. God entrusted the incarnational disclosure not only to a first generation of witnesses of the man Jesus, but also to the necessarily ensuing chain of specific bodies of tradition-bearing, fallible people who through the centuries would unfold and distort the message. It is not a regrettable mistake of church strategy contrary to the divine plan, when we find ourselves needing to deal with the unfinished quality of the definition of the Christian story.”
~ John Howard Yoder, To Hear the Word, 97-8. (New Edition forthcoming from Cascade Books)
But wouldn’t the CREATION of “human nature in general” speak somewhat to God’s approval of it? That sentence goes on to state that Jesus alone and not human nature is revelatory of GOD’S nature. But it is another thing to say that the man Jesus fully defines human nature or its meaning. Human nature is more and different than just a revelation of God’s nature.
Also, along the lines of Al’s comment on F&T wouldn’t it be accurate to say that God committed himself to the history of the Son and His Spirit (not mentioned here strangely) not just the temporally-limited Jesus of Nazareth and his fallible followers reflections on that limited history. It’s the life of the Son fully told that’s the normative story and it’s His ongoing life as the Spirit to whom the revelation is entrusted.
Yoder’s quite right, but that doesn’t just begin with the Incarnation. I know this was discussed in the singularity discussion, but Israel matters, too. The Incarnation did not begin that story. It broke into it in a definitively fulfilling and transformative way. And Yoder’s right – we continue that story today.
Interesting final sentence in that quote, too. I wonder how he would reconcile it with his understanding of Constantinianism. They’re not necessarily opposed; it would just be interesting to work it out.