ess the fact of His actual
human existence in the first century of our era be grasped. If He had
but one nature on earth, He has but one nature now in heaven. If the
historic Christ was monophysite, so also is the Christ to whom we pray.
In this consequence consists the seriousness of modern monophysitism.
The present reality of His human nature is to-day even among His
followers doubted, obscured, or forgotten. Christ is to many spiritual
minds merely an ideal personality, a summary of their own ethical
ideals. They perhaps regard Him as a disembodied spirit or mysterious
influence. They rarely attain the catholic standpoint and see the
human nature as a psychic entity actually existent to-day. At any rate
the doctrine is not thought out to its consequences. The "perpetual
intercession" is, it is feared, little more than a phrase. That Christ
as man still intercedes for men is a verity not understood and only
half appreciated. Yet the official doctrine of orthodoxy teaches that
there is a full and true continuity of existence between the Christ of
Galilee and the Christ to whom we pray. The Church teaches that there
is somewhere, in some transcendent form of existence, a being with
perfect human mind, whose will in strength and scope is perfectly
proportioned to His knowledge, whose feelings are in perfect mutual
harmony, whose psychic nature finds outward expression in a glorified
body; that this perfect being once walked this earth, and yet had and
has the ground of His being in a divine personality. Such a Christ the
latent monophysitism of our thinking hides from our view.

THE DOCTRINE OF SUBJECTIVE REDEMPTION DUE TO MONOPHYSITISM

The doctrines of Christ's person and of His work are intimately
associated. What He did depended on what He was. Christology and
Soteriology act and react upon each other. If Christology is crippled,
Soteriology goes lame. Christ takes His stand in the centre of the
cosmic process in virtue of His unique being. In that He unites deity
and humanity in His own person, He brought redemption within the reach
of mankind. His redemption of humanity was as definite a fact as His
assumption of human nature. Both to the Christian are objective
historical facts; if either of them falls to the ground, so does the
other; and with that collapse goes the purpose of creation and
humanity's hope. A docetic interpretation of the human nature entails
a docetic view of redemption.