A helpful Christological response to my “blood and soil” post from Jack Kilcrease of Marquette University:

“I’m currently working on an article about Gerhard Forde and the Radical Lutherans concept of discontinuity. They want between the law and gospel for there to be total discontinuity. Granted, this is to overcome Thomism and the belief that a sinner is potentially a saint. But it also means that God abandons his faithfulness to creation and his word of Law.

“My solution is take a page from the Neo-Chalcedonians and say that our model should be enhyposthesis-anhyposthesis Christology.

“Whenever God engages in a redemptive act it is a miracle. Nevertheless, he does not abandon his old work, but incorporates the old reality into it. He, in effect, ‘enhypostatized’ it into the new.

“This does not mean that the old act is potentially the new act of creation/redemption. The flesh of Mary is not ‘potentially’ the God-Man. Bread and Wine are not ‘potentially’ the flesh and blood of Jesus. A corpse is not ‘potentially’ a resurrected body. Nevertheless, all these are incorporated into God’s new act.

“So too with blood and soil. If Christ has pacified them, then they are incorporated into his new act of creation. This does not mean that they bear their old character, they are merely ‘anhypostatized’ into the new act of redemption. They need not possess their old significance and character due to their incorporation into Christ and his mission.”