this “economic condescension” of God in which he accommodates his self-revelation to man that the fathers regarded the Old Testament Scriptures as registering the gradual self-revelation of God to his people in anticipation of the incarnational fullness and finality of his self-communication to mankind in Jesus Christ.22 When in him the Word actually became flesh, God forged the distinctive language whereby he forever speaks to man and man may speak to God and of God. And since it was through the