I have known Edith Humphrey and her work for quite some time and have also had the opportunity to be a coworker with her. I always appreciate her scholarship and am delighted to respond to this significant book. I will make some very general comments, then consider each chapter, and then offer a very brief concluding reflection.

General Comments, with Special Reference to the Preface and the Introduction

Here is the endorsement I provided for this book at the invitation of the publisher:

With eloquent (indeed poetic) prose, Edith Humphrey guides us into the realities and mysteries of mediation: especially that of the God-Man Jesus and of Christians as those who are privileged, particularly in intercessory prayer, to participate in the generous divine work of mediation. This book will inspire and challenge those who may start, or even end, with different perspectives (about prayer for and by the “dead,” or about angels or Mary) on this important but neglected topic for Christian theology and spirituality.

Those who are accustomed to reading (or writing) book blurbs will perhaps note the subgenre of this one: it is in the “much-to-affirm-but-significant-differences-too” category. I will begin with six general appreciative comments about the book.

First of all, to repeat: this book—like everything Edith writes—is elegant and eloquent. She is a rare academic writer in our day and especially in our peculiar profession. In other words, this is a lovely book. We can and should all learn from her. (One of my favorite phrases in the book, which only works in Orthodox idiom: “the pyrotechnics of Pascha” [135]—what the Western Church might call, also alliteratively, “the electronics of Easter”).

Second, the topic she considers is highly important for biblical theology and for ecumenical theology and relations. The eloquence and accessibility of the writing should not be allowed to mask the theological significance of the topic or the theological sophistication of the argument. And yes, it is a topic about which there are some “misgivings,” as the title of the Introduction indicates. Edith freely admits that the questions associated with the topic cause “sharp disagreement” and “nearly intractable” misunderstandings (3). She seeks to clarify these questions and varied answers, and to do so in a way that “will also lift up the one perfect Mediator, the God-Man Jesus, while honoring those who are now in His direct presence, and see Him face to face” (3). I am grateful for that Christological focus.

Third, I also appreciate Edith’s balanced approach to the immediacy of God and our encounter with him, on the one hand, and both the need for and benefits of human mediation. The book’s title is significant: Mediation and the Immediate God: Scriptures, the Church, and Knowing God. The title captures the beautiful theological paradox the book addresses, and the subtitle suggests the critical role that not only Scripture but also the Church plays in mediating the knowledge of God. As the Protestant among the respondents, perhaps I may refer to a traditional Protestant slogan, sola Scriptura. Knowledge of God, Edith contends, is according to Scripture and through Scripture, but not by Scripture alone. The Church, both corporately and individually, plays a critical role in the mediation of that divine knowledge. Mediation is indeed “a many-faceted mystery whose depths can perhaps never be fully plumbed” (ix).

Fourth, I find the genre of this book fascinating: “a Christian household conversation . . . not an objective piece, but an in-house discussion” to which others are invited to listen in (x). As such, Edith writes, “it is intended as a form of ‘mediation’ among friends” (x).

Fifth, I appreciate the way Edith sets out the biblical and theological topic as a question: if all Christians have the Spirit and immediate access to God as participants in the new covenant, why is mediation still part of our tradition and daily practice (xii–xiii)?

Finally, I am in full agreement with much of what is said in this volume, especially in the first two chapters. It seems to me that all Christians should affirm with this final sentence in the book’s Introduction: “In the final analysis, mediation will be seen to be an essential mark of the Church that God uses for our full salvation” (9).

I turn now to the chapters themselves and to some concerns as well as points of agreement.

1. There is One God and One Mediator

It did my biblical and Protestant heart much good to see Edith begin in the right place: Scripture’s teaching that there is one God and one mediator. She has chosen her biblical support well: 1 Timothy, Hebrews, and the Gospel of John. But her definition of “mediate” (with reference especially to humans) as “to bring us to understand God better” (14) is a bit problematic.

First, is this the best understanding of mediation? I don’t think Edith actually thinks so, since effecting understanding is neither what Christ primarily did and does, or what we do in intercessory (mediatorial) prayer.

Second, there is a categorical difference between how I (hopefully), on the one hand, do whatever is involved in mediation, and how Christ, on the other hand, exercised and exercises his ministry of mediation. Edith does not deny this, as far as I can see. But the difference does make me wonder about the appropriate language to use to express this difference (more on this in considering chapter 2). As the one mediator, Christ is in fact “a tryst, or meeting place where God and humanity are joined” (20). That is not the case for me or anyone else as a mediator. As Edith says, Christ (alone, let us stress) is the one who should be described as “Once a Mediator, always a Mediator” (23). About Christ alone do we confess that his “very nature is to be the mediating God, through whom we receive many treasures. Yet the greatest gift that He mediates is not an external grace, but His very self” (32). I don’t want anything to diminish or obscure this central truth.

2. Mediation in the Church: A Family Trait

Chapter 2 is an eloquent, quite full biblical theology of intercessory prayer: “mediation by asking” (33; emphasis hers). What I particularly like about this chapter is its emphasis on participation, a topic near and dear to my heart. When we pray for others, we share in Christ’s ministry of mediation (33–34) and participate in God’s generosity and mercy (e.g., 48, 54, 63). “Mediation of one to another,” Edith writes, “is the essence of the body, and by it Jesus becomes present with us all, and with each” (55).

This chapter could be supplemented and perhaps strengthened by engagement with Paul’s spirituality of participation in the saving mission of God (see especially 1 Corinthians 7:16; 9:22). In those texts, Paul says human activity can “save others,” but in fact he does not mean that we save anyone; only God does. In the same way, perhaps, we don’t mediate; only Christ does, and we participate in his mediation. This seems to rhyme with Edith’s emphasis on participation in God’s character, with which I am in strong agreement. The apostle Paul might put my point this way: “It is no longer I who mediate, but Christ who mediates in me” (Galatians 2:20). In other words, mediation is being an instrument of divine grace and intimacy by participating in the polyvalent mediation of Christ.

3. Across the Divide: Mediation, the Saints, and All Creation

So far, so good—very little in the book for any Christian to challenge strongly. This changes in the longest chapter, chapter 3, with its focus on prayer both for and by the faithful departed (“double-directioned mediation”; 66), as well as its consideration of angels and physical objects. Space permits me only to address the first topic.

Edith uses the references to Onesiphorus in 2 Timothy as a basis for our praying for the deceased: “May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. . . . —may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day!” (2 Timothy 1:16, 18a). It seems to me that this is a case of special pleading. It is true that Paul greets the man’s household, but not him per se, at the end of the letter (2 Timothy 4:19). But rather than assuming Onesiphorus is dead, why not assume he is simply not home or no longer a believer? I cannot concur with Edith’s claim that 2 Timothy 1, 1 Corinthians 15, and 1 Peter 3 “suggest that concern for those who are asleep in the Lord was a natural thing for the New Testament writers” (73).

That said, there may actually be a scripturally rooted case for prayer for the ongoing deification, and even initial salvation. If so, the scriptural basis might be Revelation 21:24–27. If that text or another is such a solid biblical foundation, then yes: “We hold both the living and those who are asleep dear; prayer to the one who loves them most is the very best that we can do for them” (76).

Furthermore, I agree that in Revelation “the ‘dead’ are described both as resting, and as active” (77), including prayer (87). In that respect, I part company with many Protestants who would frown on the notion that the saints in heaven are praying for us.

4. Mothers, Mediation, and Our Mediatrix

Chapter 4 is first of all a fascinating look at women in the Gospel of Matthew. Edith focuses on three narratives of significant females noted in Matthew that she deems mediators: on Rahab, the unnamed Canaanite mother, and the women at the tomb. Though Edith offers perceptive comments about all three, only the last one seems like a story of actual mediation. Her interpretation of the women on the day of Resurrection is highly insightful and convincing.

The chapter next considers the mother of our Lord. As someone who has taught at St. Mary’s Seminary & University for more than 30 years, I should be—and am—one of those Protestants who wants to see Protestants appreciate Mary, the Mother of God, more than she often is. That said, the language of “Mediatrix”—uppercase “M”—is, for this ecumenically minded, fairly catholic/Catholic Protestant, a bridge too far. It goes beyond the scriptural evidence and risks elevating Mary toward equality with Christ.

I do not doubt the special significance of Mary in the story of salvation. And I appreciate Edith’s distancing herself and Orthodoxy from certain Roman Catholic proponents of Mary as Co-redemptrix (144). Yet I fear that the term “Mediatrix,” even with all the qualifiers and even with all the Tradition behind it, unintentionally detracts from Edith’s first chapter and, more importantly, from its main theological claim there is but one mediator, Christ Jesus. Moreover, I am not sure it is possible to distance oneself from “Co-redemptrix” language while clinging to “Mediatrix” language. Furthermore, while I would concur that Mary’s mediation is ongoing (151), it is such only in the same way that this is true of all saints.

Is Mary unique in salvation history? Of course. Is she so distinctive as to merit a title that is at least to some degree competitive with Jesus’ unique mediatorial role? I think not. (But then again, I may be wrong.) I appreciate that Edith stresses that Mary always points to Jesus, in icons, theology, and so forth; similar convictions undergird good Roman Catholic theology. But my sola Scriptura tendencies are giving me concern. My preference would be to highlight, with Catholic theology since Vatican II, Mary’s role as first disciple. Since discipleship entails mediation in the sense of Edith’s discussion in chapter 2, Mary was and is a mediatrix—but not the (uppercase) Mediatrix.

Conclusion: Meant to be Mediators

Yes, we are called to be mediators, and we must understand and articulate that truth with appropriate theological guardrails, nuanced language, and careful practices. Edith has helped us greatly in that endeavor, even if there is more to discuss.

At the end of her lovely book on Christian mediation, Edith Humphrey reveals the fact that she, too, is a mediator—mediatrix?—when she writes that the aim of her “short study has been to pass on a partial glimpse of these many ‘unknown worlds’ (with their hidden angelic, human and creaturely inhabitants), and to invite others into this larger world” (167). Through the very act of writing the book, Edith, although an Eastern Orthodox woman, has become a pontifex—dare I attempt “pontifactrix”?—a bridge builder, to audiences who may be skeptical of such mediation. When she and I first talked about her book, I myself was something of a skeptic, although not of mediation proper. As someone who was formed in a Christian tradition inhabited by myriads of angels and saints, I rather glibly wondered aloud why such a book would be needed at all. Of course, I am long familiar with objections from some Christian quarters to the idea of “praying to saints” and especially the intercession of Mary, not to mention the role of icons in the church, but about mediation in general? Regardless, to my delight, I found much to treasure in her treatment of the many-colored (polypoikilos) wisdom of God, as Edith rightly renders Ephesians 3:10 (101). Discovering something even as small as this in her new-to-me translation was a joy.

The book begins, as it should, with Scripture, specifically 1 Timothy 2:5–6, “For there is one God; there is also one mediator (mesitēs) of God and humanity, a human, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all” (my translation).1 Looking at this verse initially through the lens of a hymn sung in the Salvation Army, the Christian tradition into which she was born, Edith integrates other Scripture, her own personal experience, critical scholarship, the early church fathers, and the work of one much later Christian who appears to be almost as foundational for her thinking as the church fathers, even though he would and she might reject the tier to which I am raising him. I’m speaking of C. S. Lewis, who is tightly interwoven into Edith’s thought throughout the book. In fact, Lewis is cited more than St. John Chrysostom! which is something I have no problem with, because I’ve been formed by Lewis in almost exactly the same way Edith has. More than once while I was reading her book, I wrote “Lewis?” in the margin right before she brought him explicitly into the conversation.

After introducing Jesus as mediator in 1 Timothy 2:5, Edith moves to the Gospel of John, concentrating on its prologue. She writes that “a sober reading of the text, supplemented by a thorough understanding of Greek, yields only one meaning: Jesus is God” (27). Here, in the first chapter of the book, is the major place where I disagree with her. Despite the fact that she does give a nod to “the efforts of the Arians . . . and the confusion of the Jehovah’s witnesses” who deviate from that understanding, I cannot countenance her assertion that there is “only one meaning” for this multivalent text, which has flummoxed greater minds than ours for millennia. I applaud her pointing out some of the ambiguities of the Greek, e.g., in the first half of John 1:1, which is often translated, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.” As we know, “with” is not an ideal translation, because the Greek is pros, which does not mean “with.” Pros indicates “toward, next to, beside, or in addition to.” Hence Edith correctly notes that the Logos “was with or toward God (pros ton theon)” (27). Offering this insight into the complexity of the underlying Greek of the verse to her readership of educated lay people is excellent. However, she might have challenged them further. Before making such a statement (“only one meaning”), one must at least consider the topic of the Greek definite article in the verse. The preposition pros in John 1:1 is hard enough to deal with, but the word that follows it is worse: the Logos is pros ton theon, which, in a painfully literal translation, could be rendered “toward the God.” In the Gospel of John, ho theos, “the God,” is God with a capital G, whereas “god” without the definite article indicates god with, as we might distinguish it today, a lowercase g. In the second half of John 1:1, there is a definite article for the Logos but not for the other noun: kai theos ēn ho logos. It’s impossible to know how to translate this into English. My best shot is “and the Logos was god”—that is, not the God, the one God with a capital G, but something different.

The same usage appears in Philo of Alexandria, who was writing very close in time to the author of John. As Murray Harris notes, “Philo . . . distinguishes between [ho theos the God] (God as the Creator who is good, loving, and benevolent),” and theos, the Logos.2 To Philo, as to Edith, the Logos is mediator par excellence, but to Philo, he isn’t the God. In a complicated passage, Philo writes,

To [God’s] Logos, his chief messenger (Greek archangelos), highest in age and honor, the father of all has given the privilege to stand on the border and to separate the creature from the creator. [The Logos] pleads with the immortal as suppliant for afflicted mortality and acts as ambassador of the ruler to the subject. He rejoices in this privilege and affirms, “I stood between the Lord and you” (Deut. 5:5), neither unbegotten/uncreated (agennētos) as God, nor begotten/created (gennētos) as you are (plural), but midway between the two extremes, a pledge to both.3

To Philo, the Logos is God’s oldest and most honorable figure, the chief messenger who mediates between the immortal, uncreated deity, and mortal, created humanity, happily serving both like an ambassador between a ruler and his subjects. The Logos stands midway between God and humanity, paradoxically neither uncreated like God nor created like humanity.

It is not only modern scholars and one ancient Jewish intellectual who make a big deal about the presence or absence of “the” regarding God. Chrysostom emphasizes it in his Commentary on John. He notes that the author “has used the articles in one place and omitted them in another very precisely” because he understands how to use Greek. “He adds the article when the noun ‘God’ stands for the uncreated cause of the universe, but he omits it when the Word is referred to as ‘God’ . . . God, with the article, is very God . . . on the other hand, everything beside the very God . . . would more properly not be said as ‘the God,’ but ‘God'” (2.13–17).

I think Edith is correct when she asserts that the gospel does portray Jesus as God, even if I disagree that it does so in John 1:1. It is only at the end of the gospel that Jesus is first and fully acknowledged ho theos, the God, in the story of the doubting Thomas. After Thomas missed the first resurrection visit of Jesus at the house where the apostles were staying, and he refused to believe, Jesus appeared again, and Thomas did believe, crying out, ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou, “My Lord and my [the] God!” (John 20:28). But even this proclamation of divinity left room for Christological argumentation, as later interpreters wondered if Jesus became ho theos, the God, only after his resurrection from the dead.

I understand why Edith might not want to include any of this in a book written for a general audience. I’m concerned about the statement that elicited my response, that a sober reading of the text by someone who knows their Greek would yield “only one meaning: Jesus is God.” This simply isn’t the case, and not just for ancient Arians and modern Jehovah’s witnesses, but, I think, for anyone who works through the Greek. I’m not alone in making this assertion, even if I’m confined to the category “Eastern Orthodox scholars of the Bible.” David Bentley Hart, in the notes to his translation of the New Testament, calls John 1:1 “an exemplary case of the untranslatable,” and I agree. I also agree when he says that analyzing the ambiguities of the verse does not imply that “there is anything amiss in the theology of Nicaea, or that the original Greek text calls it into question.”4 Edith’s statement “only one meaning” could have been omitted without affecting her argument. The point can made differently, as for example Irenaeus does. Combating those who deny the true humanity of Jesus, Irenaeus emphasizes the incarnation, through which humanity is united to God. He writes, “Unless the human race had been united with God, it would not be a partaker of imperishability. For it behooved the mediator [mesitēs] of God and humanity, by his kinship to both, to bring them back to friendship and concord, and to bring it about that God would take humankind to himself.” The only way this can happen, Irenaeus says, is through the Word made flesh (Against Heresies 3.18.7). Irenaeus seems to combine Philo’s portrayal of the Logos as the “ambassador” between God and humanity with John 1:14, “the Logos became flesh and set up camp among us” (my translation). Of course, the incarnation is central to Edith’s book from the beginning to the end.

I’m also taken aback by Edith’s definition of Logos as “knowledge,” as when she writes, “The very name ‘Word’ (Greek, Logos) should have tipped us off from the get-go as to the message of the Gospel. It is by this One that any knowledge (logos) of the Father is possible” (28). Logos is an expansive word, a house that contains many mansions, but I’ve never run across “knowledge” as being one of them. A spoken word, a report, a proclamation, a reason or cause, yes, but knowledge? Perhaps in her response Edith could explain why she equates “knowledge” with “logos.” That said, I very much enjoyed what she did with John 1:18, which the NRSV translates, “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” Underneath the English “made him known” is the Greek exēgeomai, to guide, lead, explain, interpret or, as Edith insightfully puts it, to “exegete,” as scholars exegete Scripture (28).

Edith’s treatment of John’s prologue comprises my most acute disagreement with her. On a lighter note, I have two speculative questions. First, throughout the book, she uses the scriptural language “falling asleep” for human death, language that the Eastern Orthodox church habitually employs. However, this language elicits questions about the ability of the saints who have “fallen asleep” to intercede for us. As she writes, “If they are ‘asleep’ in the Lord, can they be aware of our situation, or be involved in it?” (76). I appreciate what she observes next: “Of course, the question may be incoherent as we consider the relationship between time and eternity.” I expected a reference to Mere Christianity to follow, but it did not. In Mere Christianity, Lewis borrows his thoughts on God and time from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. Unlike us, God isn’t stuck in linear time with one event necessarily following another in sequence. If time is a book, and we are characters in the story, God is the author who can take in the entire volume at a glance. Therefore it is probably useless to fret about prayers of the saints who sleep in the Lord now as we think about now.

Instead of citing Lewis, Edith looks to the fifth seal of Revelation, where the souls of the martyrs cry out under God’s altar in heaven (Rev. 6:9–11). I’ve always been queasy about putting too much weight on this passage for theorizing the intermediate state. First, it is a symbolic narrative. Furthermore, the symbolic narrative appears in an apocalypse, which makes it that much harder to interpret. Then, as Edith notes, these aren’t just any souls, but the ones who had given their lives as martyrs. So special are they that they are the unique recipients of the “first resurrection” in Revelation 20. “Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection!” (Rev. 20:6). The rest of humanity isn’t resurrected until after the millennium, making me wonder if—in this symbolic narrative—the rest of humanity enjoys any conscious afterlife in the interim state. Edith mentions the twenty-four elders who offer prayers in Revelation 4, but they, too, like the martyrs under the altar, seem to be special cases (86–87).

My second speculative question concerns the role of humanity in mediating the ultimate destiny of animals—especially domestic animals. Edith mentions the topic a few times, and I would have liked to have seen more. In the large central chapter of the book, there is a substantial quote from the even longer “Song of the Three Young Men,” which bids creation to bless the Lord, but Edith omits the verses exhorting the whales, birds, wild animals, and cattle—which is understandable given limitations of time and space. In the last chapter, Edith mentions the relationship between a person and her animal: “a human being . . . can become ‘doggish’ with her pet” as “the ‘higher’ . . . is able to enter into the world of the lower and smaller, for the purposes of mediation.” I was expecting to see a different reference to Lewis than the one that appears next (164). Lewis does talk about the ability of the “higher” members of the animal kingdom to relate to the “lower”—as a human can feel for a horse, but a horse can’t empathize with a rat—but when Lewis brings up dogs, he usually goes the opposite direction. That is, by virtue of their close connections with people, dogs can become, as their owners commonly say, “almost human.” In Lewis’s fantasy The Great Divorce, the narrator, standing at the doorstep of heaven, encounters Sarah Smith from Golders Green accompanied by a retinue of beasts: dogs, cats, birds, and horses. The love and joy in her earthly life were so great that they overflowed to the animals, so that they were swept along in her love to the afterlife. Edith, do you dare hope that this might happen with you and your dear dog Angus?

In the Preface to her insightful new book, Mediation and the Immediate God: Scriptures, the Church, and Knowing God, Edith Humphrey explains that she hopes her work “will be of help in reframing the ongoing debate concerning mediation among those who love the Lord.”1 The controversy she refers to revolves around 1 Timothy 2:5, which affirms that Christ is “the one mediator between God and human beings.”2 While many have viewed this passage as undermining certain beliefs and practices of ancient Christianity, e.g., the belief that those in glory can pray for those on earth, Humphrey shows such need not be the case. As a Roman Rite Catholic I am immensely grateful for Humphrey’s book. Here I will present a brief response to this fine study, organizing my remarks around four major areas: (1) the Gospel’s ecclesial dimension; (2) the Gospel’s sacramental dimension; (3) the communion of saints; and (4) the question of believers’ participation in Christ’s work of redemption.

The Gospel’s Ecclesial Dimension

While Humphrey affirms that New Testament writers such as Paul maintain that God dwells with each individual believer personally, she nonetheless rightly remarks that, for the writers of the New Testament, “. . . the corporate nature of Christ’s Body, the Church, is also an integral part of the good news.”3 In this, Humphrey offers a much-needed counterbalance to approaches to the Gospel today that are reductively individualistic. The New Testament writers drew upon the Jewish scriptures and Second Temple Jewish traditions in which hopes for redemption are bound up with the restoration of the people of God, namely, Israel.4 Because of this, for the New Testament writers, salvation in Christ is profoundly communal in nature.5 As Humphrey points out, the ecclesial dimension of soteriology is understood by the Church Fathers as anchored in the New Testament’s revelation that the divine life itself involves communion—God is Father, Son, and Spirit.6 The ultimate goal of God’s saving plan is incorporation into this divine communion. To show this Humphrey quotes, among other passages, John 17, where Jesus prays to the Father that believers “may be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us” (John 17:21). The unity Christians share is none other than a sharing in the life of the one God. Without blurring the Creator-creature distinction, salvation is thus described by the Fathers as theosis—a term Michael Gorman has helpfully brought back to the scholarly discussion of Paul.7 As 2 Peter puts it, believers are made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).8 Ecclesial communion is rooted in the Trinity.

Salvation, then, must not be seen as mere “fire insurance,” that is, deliverance from damnation.9 The Gospel is about inclusion in the divine communion, which is found in the Church. Individualistic accounts of soteriology have left many with a severely diminished ecclesiology that reduces the “Church” to something like a “doctrine club.”10 Creedal agreement is certainly necessary. Yet, for many Christians, ecclesiology is effectively severed from soteriology. Humphrey’s treatment offers a helpful corrective to this.

The Sacramental Nature of the Gospel

Moreover, as Humphrey shows, there is also a “sacramental” dimension to New Testament soteriology, which is inextricably bound up with the incarnation; Jesus, “the one mediator between God and human beings” (1 Tim. 2:5), mediates salvation in taking flesh. The celebration of the sacraments underscores that God’s plan of salvation is not merely spiritual but involves materiality, as Romans 8:19–24 indicates.11 In 2 John, the person who does not believe Jesus has “come in the flesh” is “the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 2:7). Humphrey helpfully observes that when Jesus sent out the apostles to heal others they did so through the use of oil: “they anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them” (Mark 6:13). As she writes, “Material things actually participate in our actions of mediation.”12 Here I would like to add my voice to hers by expanding her treatment a bit, looking at Paul’s teaching on baptism.

After speaking of how believers are saved by faith in Galatians 2, Paul goes on to insist:

> . . . in Christ Jesus you are children of God through faith. ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26–28)

Note the following. First, for the apostle, saving faith means incorporation into Christ: “in Christ Jesus you are children of God through faith” (Gal. 3:26). Second, this incorporation of the believer “into Christ” by faith is said to occur in the waters of baptism: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal. 3:27). Incorporation into Christ through faith is inseparable from baptism. Humphrey puts it well when she says, “liturgical acts are not substitutes for personal faith, but means by which that faith is passed on and confirmed.”13 She goes on to show that this was the view of Church Fathers such as Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory of Nyssa.14 Third, and most importantly for our purposes, one is not merely united to Christ but, once again, to other believers: “you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Baptism is soteriological but it is also inseparably ecclesiological. Why? Because soteriology is essentially ecclesiological. This is evident in the very practice of baptism, which signifies the way salvation occurs through mediation; one does not baptize oneself.

Here a brief note on infant baptism. Humphrey rightly explains that for those who practice it, infant baptism does not save apart from faith. The child is still expected to grow in faith and live a life of ongoing repentance. I would add that another feature of infant baptism is often overlooked: it emphasizes in a profound way the gratuity of grace. I always marvel at those who insist that Catholic soteriology is somehow Pelagian. The practice of infant baptism reveals nothing could be further from the truth. Defending infant baptism, Pope Francis explains, “No one can earn Baptism, which is always a gift freely given to all, adults and infants.”15 True, even in infant baptism, the sacrament is still inseparable from faith; the Catholic understanding is that, due to ecclesial communion, the parents can supply faith for the child at baptism. A passage that can be highlighted in this regard is the story of Jesus’s healing of the paralyzed man. Note the role of the four men who carry the paralytic:

> Then they came to him, bringing a man who was paralyzed, who was carried by four men. Since they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. After they dug through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralyzed man lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:3–5)

In context, the reference to Jesus seeing “their faith” is best understood as indicating his response to the four men identified throughout the pericope—Jesus forgives the paralyzed man’s sins because of their faith. A robustly ecclesial view of soteriology helps make sense of this.

It is also worth mentioning here that, for Paul, the bread of the Lord’s Supper is much more than a symbol of communion. A close reading reveals that, according to the apostle, the bread itself is what actualizes unity in Christ: “Because [hoti] there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for [gar] we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). Some suggest Paul merely holds that the Lord’s Supper manifests the communion believers already have in Christ by faith apart from the eucharist. This fails to do justice to this verse.16 Paul does not write, “Because we are one body, we share in the one bread,” but rather, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.” Even Ernst Käsemann, who called Paul’s theology “anti-cultic” (a description that I find highly questionable), recognizes that, for Paul, the Lord’s Supper “effects incorporation into the Body of Christ.”17

The Communion of Saints

Humphrey goes on to spotlight ways Scripture indicates our unity in Christ cannot be severed even by death (here, she could have mentioned, Rom. 8:38–39). As she indicates, since death does not separate us from our unity in Christ, the Church Fathers clearly affirm that the saints in heaven are able to pray for those on earth. She further supports this claim by appealing to a number of biblical texts, among them, Revelation 4, which describes “the twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, and on their heads were golden crowns” (Rev. 4:4). These figures, who come before the throne of God, are later depicted in the Apocalypse as holding “golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). Since the “saints” in the Apocalypse are the righteous on earth (e.g., Rev. 13:8, 10; 14:12), by offering “the prayers of the saints,” the twenty-four elders are therefore depicted as bringing the prayers of those on earth before God.

Humphrey assumes that the twenty-four elders are best understood as the saints who have gone on to eternal glory. Many interpreters, however, insist that the twenty-four elders are angels, not human beings.18 Support for the angelic reading may be found in Revelation 8 where it is an angel, not a deceased saint, who offers the prayers of the righteous with incense (Rev. 8:1–3). Nevertheless, I agree with Humphrey’s interpretation. Given that martyrs are elsewhere depicted as wearing the same attire the twenty-four elders wear—the martyrs receive crowns (Rev. 2:10) and are clad in white robes (Rev. 19:8)—it is difficult to think that the reader is not intended to see the elders as martyrs. This reading is attested as early as Caesarea of Arles in the sixth century.19

I also deeply appreciated Professor Humphrey’s chapter on Mary. For many Christians today giving attention to Mary and the saints is seen as somehow detracting from the glory of Christ. This, however, profoundly misconstrues the views of Orthodox and Catholic Christians. As Humphrey observes, Christian tradition recognizes that Mary and the saints are only holy by God’s grace. Catholics affirm this by translating Gabriel’s description of Mary as kecharitōmenē with “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). By recognizing Mary as “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42) and affirming traditions such as her Dormition/Assumption, Christians do not detract from Christ’s power but underscore it. Grace is truly so “amazing” that it can make a human being this holy. If Marian beliefs are wrong, it would be because those who hold them give grace too much credit.

Humphrey also mentions that tradition views Mary in terms of the ark of the covenant. I might add here that there is biblical data to support this. It seems Luke suggests the connection between the ark and Mary.20 After Gabriel departs from her, Mary visits Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah. Luke’s account of this seems to echo the story of the ark’s journey to Jerusalem at the time of David. Consider the parallels listed in the following chart:

The tradition linking Mary to the Ark is no arbitrary development; it is rooted in Scripture.21

Similarly, Humphrey mentions the ancient tradition of Mary giving birth to Jesus painlessly. Again, this tradition is rooted in Scripture, specifically, Isaiah 66:7: “Before she was in labor, she gave birth. Before her pain came upon her she delivered a son.” While this passage may be read as a symbolic description of Israel’s eschatological restoration, it is important to note that the Targum on Isaiah evinces another type of eschatological reading. It interprets the passage as referring to the birth of the Messiah: “Before distress comes to her she shall be delivered . . . as pains upon a woman in travail, her king will be revealed.” (Targum Isaiah 66:7–8; cf. also Rabbah Rabbah Genesis 85:1; Rabbah Leviticus 14:9). Not surprisingly, then, Irenaeus quotes Isaiah 66 as evidence that Mary was miraculously free of pain in bearing Jesus, explaining that Isaiah “indicated [Jesus’s] unexpected and extraordinary birth from the Virgin.”22 Many other Fathers follow suit.23 What we affirm about Mary is ultimately related to what we declare about Jesus:24 he is the Messiah and in him the Old Testament prophecies are all fulfilled—even the strange ones.

The Question of Participation in Christ’s Redemptive Work

Lest I appear to be a mere gushing reviewer, let me mention the one aspect of Humphrey’s treatment that puzzled me. She emphasizes that while believers participate in Christ’s work of mediation, she stops short of speaking of their participation in his work of redemption.25 Yet if Christians can participate in Christ’s work of mediation, why should we insist that they cannot participate in his redemptive suffering? Here I would like to take a page from the Orthodox theologian John Breck, who offers a powerful treatment of Colossians 1:24.26

In this passage, Paul is depicted27 as saying: “I now rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the Church” (Col. 1:24). Breck insists that this should not be misinterpreted as indicating the heretical notion that Christ’s Passion was somehow incomplete.28 Still, as he shows, the passage is best viewed as indicating that Christ’s body, the Church, must participate in the work of Christ, her head. What is “lacking” according to Colossians 1 is not something in Christ’s sufferings on the Cross, but the Church’s full participation in his redemptive work. Each member contributes to the growth of the whole body by suffering. Thus believers suffer with Christ for others, that is, the other members. Paul can therefore affirm that he suffers “for your sake” (Col. 1:24). Speaking of those who suffer patiently with faith in Christ, Breck writes:

> [Christ] welcomes, blesses and uses it in His own ongoing work for the world’s salvation. Their suffering participates in His; they share, in some mysterious but very real way, in His Cross. And in some equally mysterious way, their suffering is necessary, to fill up or complete “what is lacking” in Christ’s own afflictions. What is “lacking” in His afflictions, then, is nothing other than the martyrdom of the saints, our personal martyrdoms. . . . It is a purpose St Paul describes in another of his letters: “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29).29

What Christ does in his personal body, he now does in his mystical body, the Church. Paul therefore exhorts the Romans: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable worship” (Rom. 12:1). The apostle instructs believers to offer their bodies (plural) as a “living sacrifice” (singular). The members offer themselves up in communion with Christ and one another as one offering. This is in no way is to deny that salvation is Christ’s work, for Paul also says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work within you” (Phil. 2:12–13). He also maintains, “It is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives within me” (Gal. 2:20). To say believers’ works are not redemptive is a serious problem: believers’ works are not merely theirs but God’s. As John Barclay’s work has underscored, the competitive account of divine and human agency in classic Reformed Protestantism is not present in Paul—grace is a gift involving energism or empowerment that enables us to reciprocate in giving ourselves back to God.30 Since our works are Christ’s, to deny that believers’ works have redemptive value would therefore be to say that Christ’s work lacks redemptive significance. With this in mind we can perhaps better appreciate Origen’s statement: “some will be redeemed by the precious blood of the martyrs.”31 Likewise, we can better appreciate the way Gregory of Nazianzus applies Christological titles such as the “horn of salvation” from Luke 1:69 to Athanasius.32 Moreover, if we understand that the faith expressed by the saints of the Old Testament represents a participation in Christ even prior to the Incarnation, we can also understand why Sirach states: “almsgiving atones for sin” (Sir. 3:30).

Conclusion

My brief comments here cannot do appropriate justice to the nuanced and rich exegesis found in Edith Humphrey’s wonderful book, Mediation and the Immediate God. Few books display both careful exegesis and theological profundity—Humphrey’s combination of both is exceptional. I heartily endorse it and hope it receives the wide readership it deserves.