A Personal Union: Reformed Christology and the Question of the Communicatio Idiomatum

Abstract

Abstract Any consideration of the development of Christology in Reformation and post-Reformation thought would ultimately seek to situate itself in the steady stream of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century confessions and dogmatics. This article therefore pursues a reflection on the advent of the particular brand of Reformed Christology and its subsequent codifications by tracing three movements. First, this study shall examine the emergence of the Reformed notion of Christology against the backdrop of the Lutheran–Zwinglian Eucharistic debate. Second, there will be a gesture toward the use of the communicatio idiomatum in the dogmatic work of John Calvin and Zacharias Ursinus. Third, this article will outline the classic seventeenth-century Reformed orthodox doctrine, which builds on the sixteenth-century notion, with the addition of the idea that the person of the union indirectly mediates between the natures. This study therefore concludes with several affirmations of the mature seventeenth-century Reformed notion regarding God as the one who accomplishes creaturely redemption.