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in the heart, God sees only Christ. “Justification,” according to Osiander, “is the mystical union of man with Christ […]. The believer is so embodied in Christ that in this living concrete unity he is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone” (Baur, p. 338). Phillipp Melancthon responded: “It must be admitted that God dwells in our hearts, not only in such a manner that He there is efficacious, though not present with His own essence, but that he is both present and efficacious. A personal union, however, does not take place in us, but God is present in us in a separable manner as in a separable domicile ” (Bentz, n.d.). So, God is present… but there is no personal union, and He lives in a separate domicile? Other minor prophets of the Reformation echoed Osiander’s search for Christ-in-us. While Osiander focused on the non-corporeal (divine) Christ to more easily conceive His Indwelling, Caspar Schwenckfeld postulated a ubiquitous “celestial body” that is the true object of both communion and union. Hans Denck asserted that Logos should not be equated with Scripture or doctrine. Not only was Logos “made flesh,” but “without him, nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3, 14). Denck thereby challenged the premise that Christ approaches us only “from the outside”—through preaching and teaching. Christ is always the root of our being, beckoning us also from the depths of our souls. For this, Denck was labeled both mystic and humanist and was driven from city to city in search of Christian welcome till he died of bubonic plague (Steinmetz, 2001). Ironically, in Nuremberg, Osiander had been the first to ostracize Denck. Fractures in theology have legacies in psychology. If the body is bankrupt, before and after turning to Christ, then truth is strictly creedal and is measured by correspondence to orthodoxy (right thinking). Epistemologically, truth is whatever corresponds to something external (e.g., historical, scientific, or scriptural “fact”). The true proposition needs to be impressed first on stubborn minds, then on stubborn flesh. We actively mortify ourselves, as the Puritans taught, shunning the idea that our bodies have anything to teach us. If, on the other hand, the body is grounded in Logos (without faith) and becomes flesh of His Flesh (in faith), then Truth is that which gradually “manifest[s] in our body… in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:10-11) as we “present our bodies… holy and acceptable” to God (Romans 12:3). Fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy, Christ removes our heart of stone and gives us His heart of flesh. The measure of Truth, under this new dispensation, is progressive softening, listening, and yielding. “Today, when you hear His voice, do not harden your heart” (Psalm 95, Hebrews 3). Mortification is more like molting—more permissive; the active element is refusal to beat the dead horse. Epistemologically, the condition of our soul is not “true,” but recognizably truer when love, joy, or peace prevail. The cognizable portion of this experience surfaces as insight—the “renewal of our minds” (Romans 12:4). The body keeps a far deeper score, which the mind must follow. So, is there a chasm between me and my body? Fault lines of Marburg remain active, rumbling beneath Christian psychology. The terra firma of Christian counseling seems rather Zwinglian— an application of rational interpretations of a historical and conceptual Christ which we strive (God help us) to take in. We suffer when we believe lies and recover when we believe truths. This approach offers an assurance of orthodoxy, a corralling of self-reflection, and a seamlessness between catechism and counseling. The alternative is a more liquid, even oceanic sense of embodied life in Christ. C.S. Lewis hints at it in chapter 11 of Perelandra —a tale inspired by the notion of floating islands. There, the “unhappy distinction between soul and body that resulted from the fall,” becomes illusory. “Even on earth the sacraments existed as a permanent reminder that the division was neither wholesome nor final. The Incarnation had been the beginning of its disappearance.” On Perelandra, the only act forbidden by God is to dwell on Fixed Land. C

Fractures in theology have legacies in

psychology. If the body is bankrupt, before and after turning to Christ, then truth is strictly creedal and is measured by correspondence to orthodoxy (right thinking).

V. ELLSWORTH LEWIS, PH.D., studied philosophy at Wheaton College under Arthur Holmes ( All Truth is God’s Truth ), and was introduced to Soren Kierkegaard by professor of the philosophy of man course, C. Stephen Evans. He then studied clinical psychology at BYU, where he researched under Allen Bergin, and was supervised by an eclectic faculty including Michael Lambert and Gary Burlingame. Dr. Lewis completed his internship in the U.S. Army Medical Department, and has worked in children’s services, medical centers, prisons, and mental health court.

References Baur, F.C. (1847). History of Christian dogma. Edited by Peter C. Hodgson. (2014). https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/O/osiander andreas-(1).html. Bentz, F. (n.d.). The Osiandrian and Stancarian Controversies. Book of Concord. Retrieved Nov 29, 2024, from https://thebookofconcord.org/introductory-materials/historical-introductions/the-osiandrian-and-stancarian-controversies/ Luther, M. (1959). The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ–Against the Fanatics, 1526, Word and Sacrament II. In Luther’s works, American edition vol 36 . A.R. Wentz and H.T. Lehman (Eds.). Fortress. Steinmetz, D. (2001). Reformers in the wings: From Geiler to Kaysersberg to Theodore Beza. Oxford University Press. Strong, J., & McClintock, J. (1880). The cyclopedia of biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical literature . Haper and Brothers: NY. See https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/O/osiander-andreas-(1).html.

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