Chapter 12.
CHAPTER 12.
That Jesus Christ is also very man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh, subsisting.
1. INASMUCH as it appears from the preceding chapters, that the Holy Scriptures afford such clear and abundant proof of the divinity of Christ, it may justly appear strange that any, who sincerely desire to know the truth, and with a view thereto diligently search these sacred records, should entertain any doubt concerning it. But one reason of this may be, the same Divine oracles which represent him as God, do also, in many other passages, speak of him in a very different and inferior character; nay, and affirm things of him absolutely incompatible with true and proper Deity. They tell us, that he was conceived and born, was an infant, a child; that he “grew in wisdom and in stature;” nay, and “in favour with God and man:” that he was subject to all the infirmities of human nature; felt hunger, thirst, weariness; eat, drank, slept; that he was sensible of mere human affections, such as sorrow, Matthew 26:38; joy, Luke 10:21; love, John 11:5. They signify that he was weak and ignorant in some things, not being able to do any thing of himself, and not knowing the day of judgment; that he loved God, obeyed his commandments, and sought his glory; that he frequently prayed to him as to “One that was able to save him,” and once in particular “offered up strong cries and tears, and was heard in what he feared;” that at that time his “soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;” and he entreated his disciples to “watch with him;” that he then went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt;” that after returning to his disciples, he “went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done;” that he “went away a third time, and prayed, saying the same words, and there appeared an angel unto him, strengthening him: and being in an agony, he prayed the more earnestly, and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground;” that when on the cross, he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and gave up the ghost.”
2. Now, how shall we account for all this? Surely by allowing what the true catholic Church has allowed, and believed, in all ages; that he who is God is also man; that he who is the root is also the offspring of David, Revelation 22:16. As the root of David, he is David’s Creator, the author of his existence, the source of his being, and, therefore, his King and Lord, Psa. 110:1; and Matthew 22:43. As David’s offspring, he is his true son, his real descendant. Now, as in the former character he is very God, possessed of a nature truly Divine, so in this latter he is very man, possessed of a nature truly human. Thus Bishop Pearson:— “When we say that he was conceived and born, we declare he was made really and truly man, of the same human nature which is in all other men, who, by the ordinary way of generation, are conceived and born. For ‘the mediator between God and man, is the man Christ Jesus:’ that since ‘by man came death, by man’ also should come ‘the resurrection of the dead.’ As sure, then, as the first Adam, and we who are redeemed, are men, so certainly is the second Adam, and our Mediator, man. He is therefore frequently called the Son of man, and in that nature he was always promised; first to Eve, as her seed, and consequently her son; then to Abraham, ‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,’ and that ‘seed is Christ,’ and so is the son of Abraham. Next to David, as his ‘son to sit upon his throne,’ and so he is made of the ‘seed of David according to the flesh; the son of David, the son of Abraham,’ and consequently of the same nature with David and Abraham; and as he was their son, so are we his brethren, as descending from the same father, Adam, and ‘therefore it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren.’ For ‘he laid not hold on angels,’ but on the seed of Abraham, and so became, not an angel, but a man.
3. “As, then, man consisted of two parts, body and soul, so doth Christ’ he assumed a body at his conception, of the blessed virgin. ‘Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.’ The verity of his body stands upon the truth of his nativity; and the actions and passions of his life show the nature of his flesh. He was first born with a body prepared for him of the same appearance with those of other infants; he grew up by degrees, and was so far from being sustained without the accustomed nutrition of our bodies, that he was observed, even by his enemies, to come eating and drinking; and when he did not so, he suffered hunger and thirst. Those ploughers never doubted of the true nature of his flesh, who ‘ploughed upon his back, and made long furrows there.’ The thorns which pricked his sacred temples, the nails which penetrated through his hands and feet, the spear which pierced his side, give sufficient testimony of the natural tenderness and frailty of his flesh. And lest his fasting forty days together, lest his walking on the water, and traversing the seas, lest his sudden standing in the midst of his disciples, when the doors were shut, should raise an opinion that his body was not true and proper flesh, he confirmed first his own disciples, ‘Handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.’ As, therefore, we believe the coming of Christ, so do we confess him to have come in the verity of our human nature, even in true and proper flesh. Thus it was always necessary to acknowledge him. ‘For every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in the flesh, is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come in the flesh, is not of God.’ This spirit appeared early in opposition to the apostolical doctrine, and Christ, who is both God and man, was as soon denied to be man as God.
4. “And certainly if the Son of God would vouchsafe to take the frailty of our flesh, he would not omit the nobler part, our soul, without which he could not be man. ‘For Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, one in respect of his body and the other of his soul. Wisdom belongeth not to the flesh, nor can the knowledge of God, which is infinite, increase: he, then, whose knowledge did improve, together with his years, must have had a subject proper for it, which was no other than a human soul. This was the seat of his finite understanding, and directed will, distinct from the will of his Father, and consequently of his Divine nature, as appeareth by that known submission, ‘Not my will, but thine be done.’ This was the subject of those affections and passions which so manifestly appeared in him: nor spake he any other than a proper language, when before his suffering he said, ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.’ This was it which, on the cross, before the departure from the body, he recommended to the Father, teaching us in whose hands the souls of the faithful are. For ‘when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit; and having said this, he gave up the ghost.’ And as his death was nothing else but the separation of his soul from his body, so the life of Christ, as man, did consist in the conjunction and vital union of that soul with the body. So that he who was perfect God, was also perfect man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh, subsisting.”
5. Now this being allowed to be a truth, as it undoubtedly must, we need not wonder if this human nature of Christ, consisting of body and soul, and constituting as complete and proper a person as the human nature of any man—we need not wonder, I say, if it should frequently be represented in the Holy Scriptures as a complete and proper person, and should speak and act as such: surely this is what one might reasonably expect, notwithstanding its union with the “Word of the Father.” For though the union was such that he might properly be termed “Emmanuel, God with us, God manifest in the flesh,” yet the two natures were preserved distinct, and the personality of the man was not destroyed.
6. “If both natures (says the last mentioned author) were not preserved complete and distinct in Christ, it must either be by the conversion and transubstantiation of one into the other, or by the commixion and confusion of both into one. But neither of these ways can consist with the person of our Saviour, or the office of our Mediator: for if we should conceive such a mixion and confusion of substances as to make a union of natures, we should be so far from acknowledging him to be both God and man, that thereby we should profess him to be neither God nor man, but a person of a nature as different from both as all mixed bodies are distinct from each element, which concurs into their composition. Beside, we know there were in Christ the affections proper unto the nature of man, and all those infirmities which belong to us, and cannot be conceived to belong to that nature, [which is Divine, or,] of which the Divine is but a part.
7. “And as the confusion, so the conversion of natures is impossible: for, first, we cannot, with the least show of probability, conceive the Divine nature of Christ to be transubstantiated into the human nature. There is a plain repugnancy even in the supposition; for the nature of man must be made, the nature of God cannot be made, and consequently cannot become the nature of man. The immaterial, indivisible, and immortal Godhead, cannot be divided into a spiritual and incorruptible soul, and a carnal and corruptible body; of which two, humanity consisteth. Secondly, we must not, on the contrary, invent a conversion of the human nature into the Divine, as the Eutychians of old did fancy: for sure the incarnation could not at first consist in such a conversion, it being unimaginable how that which had no being should be made by being turned into something else. Therefore the humanity of Christ could not at first be made by being the divinity of the Word: nor is the incarnation so preposterously expressed, as if the flesh were made the Word; but, ‘the Word was made flesh.’ And if the manhood were not in the first act of incarnation converted into the Divine nature, as we see it could not, then is there no pretence of any time or manner in or by which it was afterward so transubstantiated.
8. “Vain, therefore, was that old conceit of Eutyches, who thought the union to be made so in the natures, that the humanity was absorbed and wholly turned into the divinity, so that by that transubstantiation the human nature had no longer being. And well did the ancient fathers, who opposed this heresy, make use of the sacramental union between the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ, and thereby showed that the human nature of Christ is no more really converted into the divinity, (and so ceaseth to be the human nature,) than the substance of the bread and wine is really converted into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, and thereby ceaseth to be both bread and wine.”
9. Now because these two natures of our Lord were preserved thus distinct, therefore, as, in the preceding pages, we have frequently seen the Divine nature represented as a complete and proper person, even after its union with the human, without any reference to that union: so we meet with the same in respect to the human nature: this is also represented to our view as a complete and proper person, without any reference to its union with the Divine: and, indeed, had it been otherwise, we should have had reason to doubt of his manhood, as the overlooking the important particulars, stated above, makes many doubt of his Godhead.
10. Accordingly, in the sacred Scriptures we read the following, and many more such like passages: “I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken, according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Thou art fairer than the children of men, grace is poured upon thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.” “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel: butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah, and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of Jehovah, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.”
“Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles: he shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken, ye people, from far; Jehovah hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name, and said unto me, Thou art my servant, in whom I will be glorified. Then said I, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for naught; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again unto him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth. Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, To him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of Jehovah that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.
“The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; he wakeneth, morning by morning, he wakeneth my ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set my face as a flint, and I know that I shall not be confounded. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee: (his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:) so shall he sprinkle many nations.
“He shall grow up before the Lord as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment; was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken; and he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hands. He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
“The Spirit of Jehovah Elohim is upon me, because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Thus saith the Lord God, I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall be their shepherd. I Jehovah will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them. I Jehovah have spoken it. He shall give them up until the time that she that travaileth hath brought forth—and he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of his God.”
11. Our Lord and his apostles, in a great variety of passages in the New Testament, illustrate and confirm these declarations of Moses and the prophets, concerning the real and proper humanity of the Messiah. A few of these I shall quote.
“The child grew and waxed strong in Spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. Ye seek to kill me, a man that have told you the truth which I have heard of God. Labour for the meat which endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of man will give you; for him hath God the Father sealed. I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which sent me. The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself that hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. I seek not mine own glory. I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
“To sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I say, I go to my Father, for my Father is greater than I. My Father who gave them me, is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hands. Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven: but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but my Father only. All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.
“God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed with the devil; for God was with him: whom they slew and hanged upon a tree, whom God raised up the third day, and showed him openly,— and who is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you; him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and with wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the bands of death. There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, of which he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. He was verily fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.”
12. Now, as in these, and such like passages, which occur in a great abundance throughout the Scriptures, the name Jehovah, God, or Father, includes the whole Godhead, (not the Father as distinguished from his Word and Spirit only as in 1 John 5:7, and Matthew 28:19, but the Word and Spirit also,) so, in them, the purely human nature of Christ is chiefly spoken of, and held up to our view as a complete and proper person, as truly dependent upon the Deity for knowledge and power, holiness and happiness, as the human nature of any man. And, doubtless, this is a just representation of things: for this human nature of our Lord, this body and soul of the holy Jesus, was properly a creature, derived from, and dependent upon God, as all other creatures are. Whatever knowledge he had, therefore, as man—whatever power, purity, or comfort, it was communicated. And, it is probable these communications were made, especially while he was yet a child, in a gradual manner, viz. as his faculties opened and he was susceptible of them, which accounts for his “increasing in wisdom,” as well as in stature, and “in favour with God and man,” and “waxing strong in Spirit.” Nay, and it is manifest, that throughout his life his manhood could be no farther conscious to or acquainted with the ideas of the divinity than they were imparted, it being absolutely impossible that any creature should know the ideas of the Deity by immediate intuition as a man is conscious of the thoughts of his own heart.
With the same propriety, therefore, wherewith Christ could speak of himself things that referred to his body or animal nature only, and say, “I am weary with my journey, I am hungry, I thirst,” he might also affirm things which belonged only to his soul or rational nature, as, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, I rejoice in Spirit, I increase in wisdom, I know not the day of judgment, I can do nothing of myself.” For these things were as precisely and perfectly true as the other, and it was the manhood alone, without any reference to the Godhead, that spoke them, even as it was the Godhead alone, without any reference to the manhood, (though by its lips,) which said, “Before Abraham was, I am. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.”
13. Such proofs as these, of his true and proper humanity, we might expect to meet with, and meeting with them accordingly, why should we be staggered or surprised? The Godhead, as we have seen, was not converted into flesh, but only dwelt in it, and manifested himself to mankind by it as far as he saw fit; and the manhood, while on earth at least, was not so taken up into God, as to be quite absorbed and lost therein. Nay, this is not the case, now he is in heaven, but the “Lamb in the midst of the throne” is still of a nature distinct from pure and proper Deity, and knows not the secrets of the Divine counsels any farther than they are communicated to him. Hence he is represented as receiving the book containing these counsels from the right hand of Him that sitteth on the throne, and hence we meet with that expression, “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him.”
14. And yet, to signify that these two natures, though preserved complete and distinct, were nevertheless most closely united in the person of the Redeemer, we frequently, in the Scriptures, meet with what is termed a communication of properties, viz. the one nature speaks things, or has things spoken of it, which are only proper to the other nature. As for instance, Acts 20:28, we read, “The Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood;” and 1 John 3:16, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us;” which is speaking of the Divine nature things proper only of the human. And, John 3:13, we read, “No man hath ascended up into heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven”—which is affirming of the human nature, the Son of man, things that could only be true of the Divine. For as God cannot die, and has no blood to shed; so the Son of man, the human nature, had not then been in heaven, and much more, could not be there while on earth. Nay, and our Lord, at one and the same time, and with one breath, often said things proper to both his natures, as in the passage above quoted: “I am the root and offspring of David,” the root as God, and the offspring as man. Again: “I lay down my life for the sheep. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” I lay down my life as man: I have power to take it again as God.
15. Bishop Burnet speaks well on this subject. “What a person is that results from a close conjunction of two natures, we can only judge by considering man, in whom there is a material and a spiritual nature joined together. They are two natures as different as any we can apprehend among all created beings; yet these make but one man. The matter of which the body is composed, does not subsist by itself—is not under all those laws of motion to which it would be subject, if it were mere inanimated matter. But by the indwelling and actuation of the soul, it has another spring within it, and another course of operations. According to this, then, to subsist by another, is when a being is acting according to its natural properties, but yet in a constant dependence upon another being; so our bodies subsist by the subsistence of our souls.
16. “This may help us to apprehend, how as the body is still a body, and operates as a body, though it subsist by the indwelling and actuation of the soul; so in the person of Jesus Christ, the human nature was entire, and still acted according to its own character. Yet there was such a union and inhabitation of the eternal Word in it, that there did arise out of that a communication of names and characters, as we find in the Scriptures. A man is called tall, fair, and healthy, from the state of his body; and learned, and wise, and good, from the qualities of his mind. So Christ is called holy, harmless, and undefiled; is said to have died, risen, and ascended up into heaven, with relation to his human nature. He is also said to be in the ‘form of God,’ to have ‘created all things,’ to be ‘the brightness of the Father’s glory,’ and ‘the express image of his person,’ with relation to his Divine nature. The ideas that we have of what is material, and what is spiritual, lead us to distinguish in a man those descriptions that belong to his body, from those that belong to his mind; so the different apprehensions that we have of what is created and uncreated, must be our thread to guide us into the resolution of those various expressions which occur in the Scriptures concerning Christ.
17. “The design of the definition that was made by the Church, concerning Christ’s having one person, was chiefly to distinguish the nature of the indwelling of the Godhead in him from all prophetical inspirations. The Mosaic degree of prophecy was, in many respects, superior to that of the subsequent prophets; yet the difference is stated between Christ and Moses, in terms that import things of quite another nature: the one being mentioned as the servant, the other as the Son that built the house. It is not said that God appeared to Christ, or that he spoke to him; but God was ever with him, and in him; and while the ‘Word was made flesh,’ yet still ‘his glory was as the glory of the only begotten Son of God.’ The glory that Isaiah saw, was his glory; and, on the other hand, God is said to have purchased the Church with his own blood. If Nestorius, in opposing this, meant only (as some think it appears by many citations out of him) that the blessed virgin was not to be called simply the ‘mother of God,’ but ‘the mother of him that was God;’ and if that of making two persons in Christ was only fastened on him as a consequence, we are not at all concerned in the matter of fact, whether Nestorius was misunderstood and hardly used or not; but the doctrine here asserted is plain in the Scriptures; that though the human nature of Christ acted still according to its proper character, and had a peculiar will, yet there was such a constant presence, indwelling, and actuation on it from the eternal Word, as did constitute both human and Divine nature one person. As these are thus so entirely united, so they are never to be separated. Christ is now exalted to the highest degrees of glory and honour; and the characters of ‘blessing, honour, and glory,’ are represented in St. John’s vision, as offered ‘unto the Lamb for ever and ever.’” (Burnet on the Articles.)