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[19] The “classical” trinitarian distinction between theologia and oikonomia posits a continuity and discontinuity between God-in-himself and God-in-his-relation-to-the-world. The first ensures that God’s disclosure in time is a true, though not exhaustive, self-disclosure; the second asserts that only God’s existence is self-grounded, whereas creation and redemption are contingent and arise from the will of God. Thus, Karl Rahner’s Grundaxiom - “the economic trinity is the immanent trinity, and vice versa,” when interpreted in the first sense, holds. But to coalesce the distinctions is to run the risk of importing economic categories back into God’s own life, as necessary “conditions” for His self-existence (whether suffering, temporality, or the like) and, ultimately, blurs the Creator-creature distinction.

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2.1

The Source and Term of our unio mystica - God the Father

Our union with Christ, according to Calvin, has its foundation in the pretemporal electing will of God the Father. This, of course, does not mean that unio mystica is not the common will of the Trinity, but rather, by appropriation, the principle of origin is assigned to God the Father, in virtue of the personal, incommunicable property that distinguishes his personhood from the other Two. Calvin also appropriates the “essential properties” wisdom and power to the Son and Spirit respectively based on their “distinct” modalities of action observed in Scripture - “to the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.”[6] For Calvin, echoing Augustine, the “real distinction” of the Persons are to be found in their personal names - Father, Son, and Spirit, which are represented by “their mutual relationships.”[7]

Thus, our union with Christ, in its temporal fulfillment, has its prior, eternal ground in the covenantal union God made with Himself, which is nothing less than an expression of God’s essential love and mercy[9] - this is the elect’s assurance of salvation.[10] Our union with Christ brings us into relation with God through the Spirit of adoption; the regenerate become, by grace, sons and daughters of the Father because they inexplicably participate in the Son’s eternal relation with the Father, which is by nature.[11]

There are occasions where Calvin refers to Christ as “the bond of our union with God” and, elsewhere, he defines unio mystica as “the only bond of our union with God.”[12] Here, Calvin applies the term “bond” to Christ in a different sense, that is, as intermediary,[13] rather than as unitive power, which more appropriately describes the Spirit, since the latter is the bond of our union with Christ.[14] This is clear from Calvin’s robust concept of the mediation of Christ.[15] Hence, Calvin can assert that “no one is loved by God apart from Christ” since, citing St. Paul, He is “the bond whereby God may be found to us in fatherly faithfulness.”[16] God becomes our Father through Christ, since the Son is “the bond of our adoption.”[17]

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3.

The Double Grace of Justification and Sanctification

Through participatio Christi, Calvin asserts that “we principally receive [the] double grace” of justification and regeneration. Both “our purgation and regeneration” are fundamentally trinitarian “events” wherein one recognizes “in the Father the cause, in the Son the matter, and in the Spirit the effect.”[52] Echoing the Chalcedonian Christological principle, this double grace of justification and sanctification are not to be separated,[53] but united in Christ;[54] and yet, they must be distinguished and not confused.[55] Calvin considers the sun to be a most apposite metaphor in explicating this double grace: “The sun, by its heat, quickens and fructifies the earth [sanctification], by its beams brightens and illumines it [justification by faith].”[56] To pull apart justification and good works is to hold a “Nestorian” soteriology;[57] to make them indistinguishable is to hold on to an “Eutychian” view of salvation, as Osiander did.[58] Union with Christ is, therefore, the soteriological correlate to the Christological notion of the hypostatic union.

Having stated the above, has Calvin reduced the forensic thrust of justification, a notion which Luther so greatly emphasized, by grounding both righteousness and holiness in unio mystica, which is, properly speaking, an “organic” metaphor more akin to sanctification? In other words, in Calvin’s effort to mitigate the Roman criticism that the Protestant notion of justification is no more than legal fiction, with his doctrine of union with Christ and the reverse ordering of sanctification and justification in the Institutes, does he end up confusing the two distinct notions?

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>Prayer, then, is a constant inner movement of the heart: in the Spirit,
>through the Son, to the Father. Realized “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23) –
>that is, in the Holy Spirit and in Christ who is the Truth – authentic
>prayer is a pure gift, bestowed by the Holy Trinity, to illumine and
>transform our life so thoroughly that it “conforms us to the image of the
>Son of God.”

this was especially nice. thanks

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<Prayer as participation in what God has done and is doing... !

It is becoming more what one is.

What do you think?

+++++++++

In the sense of God's restorative work,(restoring us as He intended us to
be), prayer as participation in that is far too much for us to wrap our mind
around, really. It's one of those "fall on your knees" and just do it,
enjoy it, praise Him for it.

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