1 38 Some Implications of the Incarnation [CH. 



In the Incarnation, then, the Logos laid aside full 

 Godhead. 



In so fax as we are able to understand what is beyond 

 understanding, since it is not wholly existent in the 

 sphere in which intellect (as we know it, and as opposed 

 to pure knowledge) moves, what meaning do we then 

 attach to the laying aside of Godhead by the Son? 

 Surely we mean at least this. The Son passed from 

 immanence into the complete limitation of humanity. 

 He no longer indwelt the world Himself in His own 

 hypostasis, though He still indwelt it, through the unity 

 of the Godhead, in the hypostases of the Father and the 

 Son. He no longer indwelt the world; He was in the 

 world and the world knew Him not, and His own re- 

 ceived Him not. He was still the Son. He mediated 

 the Will of the Father through the unity of the Holy 

 Spirit in fullest measure, in the complete limitation of 

 Godhead to the measure of the divinity of man; even 

 to being Himself caused. He limited Himself even to 

 the acceptance of the terminus a quo of human nature, 

 in order that humanity might reach its proper terminus 

 ad quern. He who was the Mediating Cause of all, 

 became caused Himself. He accepted the evolutionary 

 stages of childhood, even to its ignorance of the divinity 

 of human nature. To this He gradually won, as men 

 win knowledge. To the full knowledge of His own 

 divine Godhead He only won through death. This must 

 be so, if He became truly man; and unless He became 

 truly man, as far as I can see the atonement could not 

 have been consummated. 



Yet all the while He was the Divine Logos, in the 

 realm of Transcendence. Only, His Incarnate Being 

 was distinguished completely from His Transcendent 1 . 



1 Except, of course, in so far as His human transcendence united 

 Him with the Transcendent God, in the same way that our 

 human transcendence unites us with God. 



