01.16. The divine and human nature of Christ.

16. The divine and human nature of Christ. The testimony of Christ, given of Himself according to the Gospels, is developed and confirmed by the preaching of the Apostles. The confession that a man called Jesus is the Christ, the One-born of the Father, is in such direct conflict with all our experience and all our thinking, and above all with the inclinations of our hearts, that no one can accept it in sincerity and with all his soul, without the persuasive action of the Holy Spirit. By nature, everyone is hostile to this confession, because it is not after mankind. No one can say that Jesus is Lord except through the Holy Spirit, but no one who speaks through the Holy Spirit can call Jesus anathema, but acknowledges Him as his Savior and King (1 Corinthians 12:3). When Christ appeared on earth and professed Himself to be the Son of God, He did not leave it at that, but also saw to it that it found its way into the world and was believed by the congregation. He has called and taught His apostles and made them witnesses of His words and deeds, of His death and resurrection. He gave them the Holy Spirit, who led them personally to confess that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, Matthew 16:16, and who later, on the day of Pentecost, made them act as witnesses of that which they had seen with their eyes and touched with their hands of the Word of life, 1 John 1:1. The apostles were not the actual witnesses: the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, is the original, infallible and omnipotent witness to Christ, and the apostles are only in Him and through Him, John 15:26-27, Acts 5:32. And it is the same Spirit of truth who, through the witness of the apostles, brings the congregation of all ages to confession and keeps it there: Lord, unto whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we have believed and known that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, John 6:68-69. When the four Evangelists relate the events of Jesus’ life in a regular order, they usually only refer to Him by the name of Jesus, without any further description or addition. They then say that Jesus was born in Bethhehem, that Jesus was led into the desert, that Jesus saw the multitudes and climbed upon the mountain, etc. Jesus, the historical person who lived and died in Palestine, is the subject of their story. And so we also find a few times in the Letters of the Apostles that Jesus is only referred to by his historical name. Paul says, for example, that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except through the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:3. John testifies that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, 1 John 5:1-2, 1 John 2:22. And in the book of Revelation is spoken of the faith of Jesus, the witnesses and the testimony of Jesus, without the name being specified, Revelation 14:12, Revelation 17:6, Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:4.

Yet the use of this simple name, without more, in the Letters of the Apostles is rare; usually the name Jesus occurs only in connection with: the Lord, Christ, the Zone of God, etc., and the full name usually reads: our Lord Jesus Christ. But whether the name Jesus is used alone or in combination with other names, it always expresses the link with the historical person, who was born in Bethlehem and killed on the cross. The entire New Testament, in the Letters as well as in the Gospels, rests on the foundation of historical facts. The Christ figure is not an idea and not an ideal of the human brain, as many in earlier centuries and some even today would like to make it out to be, but it is a real figure, which has come to us at a certain time and in a certain person, in the man Jesus.

It is true that the various events in the life of Jesus are in the background in the Letters; of course, the Letters have a different purpose than the Gospels, they do not give a history of the life of Jesus, but they highlight the significance of that entire life for the redemption of mankind. But all the apostles are familiar with the person and life of Jesus, his words and deeds, and now show us that this Jesus is the Christ, who was exalted by God at his right hand to give repentance and the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:36, Acts 5:31). The apostles also repeatedly mention events from the life of Jesus in their preaching; they depicted Him before the eyes of their hearers and readers (Galatians 3:1). They mention that John the Baptist was His forerunner and wayfarer, Acts 13:25, Acts 19:4, that He is of the lineage of Judah and the tribe of David, Romans 1:3, Revelation 5:5, Revelation 22:16, that He was born of a woman, Galatians 4:4, was circumcised on the eighth day, Romans 15:8, was raised in Nazareth, and was the first in the world to be baptized. Romans 15:8, was brought up in Nazareth, Acts 2:22, Acts 3:6 and also had brothers, 1 Corinthians 9:5.

Furthermore, He was perfectly holy and sinless, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 7:26, 1 Peter 1:11, 1 Peter 2:22, 1 John 3:5, set himself as an example to us, 1 Corinthians 11:1, 1 Peter 2:21, and spoke words that have authority for us, Acts 20:35, 1 Corinthians 7:10, 1 Corinthians 7:12. By one of the twelve apostles, whom He appointed, 1 Corinthians 15:5, betrayed, 1 Corinthians 11:23, and not known by the rulers of the world as Lord of glory, 1 Corinthians 2:8, He was killed by the Jews, Acts 4:10, Acts 5:30, 1 Thessalonians 2:15, and died on the floodplain of the river.

He died on the flaming log of the cross, Galatians 3:13, Colossians 2:14. But though He suffered greatly in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, Php 2:6, Hebrews 5:7-8, Hebrews 12:2, Hebrews 13:12, by his shedding of blood he has made the atonement of the sins of the world. And for this reason God also raised Him up, exalted Him at His right hand, and appointed Him a Lord and Christ, a Prince and Saviour for all peoples, Acts 2:32-33, Acts 2:36, Acts 5:30-31, Romans 8:34, 1 Corinthians 15:20, Php 2:9 etc. From these few facts it is evident that the apostles did not deny or neglect the facts of Christianity, but on the contrary fully recognized and understood them in their spiritual significance. There is no trace with the apostles of a separation or opposition between the fact of salvation and the word of salvation, as was advocated by many in the past and later. The fact of salvation is the realization of the word of salvation; the latter is given its concrete and real form in the former and is therefore at the same time its explanation.

If any doubt remained about this, it was completely removed by the struggle the Apostles already had to wage in their days. Not only in the second and third centuries but already in the apostolic age there stood out men who considered the facts of Christianity of secondary and transitory importance, or even denied them altogether, and thought the idea was enough. What does it matter, they argued, whether Christ is risen bodily; as long as He lives on in spirit, our salvation is thus sufficiently assured! But the Apostle Paul But the Apostle Paul had quite a different opinion, and in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 he placed the reality and significance of the bodily resurrection in the clearest light. He proclaims the Christ according to the Scriptures, the Christ who died, was buried and rose again according to the advice of the Father, who was seen by many disciples after his resurrection, and whose resurrection is the foundation and guarantee of our salvation. And if possible even stronger, John emphasizes that he is a proclaimer of that which he has seen with his eyes and touched with his hands from the Word of life. 1 John 1:1-3. The principle of antichrist lies in the fact that he denies the incarnation of the Word; and the Christian confession on the contrary consists in the belief that the Word became flesh, that the Zone of God came by water and blood, John 1:14, John 3:2-3, John 5:6. The entire apostolic preaching in the Gospels and Epistles, thus in the entire New Testament, comes down to the argument that Jesus, born of Mary and who died on the cross, is, according to his exaltation, the Christ, the Son of God. John 20:31, 1 John 2:22, 1 John 4:15, 1 John 5:5.

Now it deserves our attention that, in connection with the content and purpose of the apostolic preaching, the use of the single name Jesus, without further description, is very rare in the Epistles. As a rule, the apostles speak of Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus, or even more fully of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even the evangelists, who usually speak of Jesus in the narrative, use Jesus at the beginning or at a significant turning point in their Evangelie, Matthew 1:1, Matthew 1:18, Matthew 16:21, Mark 1:1, John 1:17, John 17:3, of the full name Jesus Christ, to indicate the person of whom their Gospel speaks. In the Acts and the Epistles, this usage becomes the rule; the Apostles do not speak about a person, Jesus, just like that, but in the addition of Christ, Lord, etc., they also express the value of what this person is to them. They are proclaimers of the Gospel, that ’in the man Jesus the Christ of God has appeared on earth. In this way they had gradually gotten to know Jesus during their contact with Him, and especially after the important hour at Caesarea Philippi a light had come to them about His person and they had all confessed through Peter, that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God, Matthew 16:16. In the supreme prayers He identifies Himself by the name of Jesus Christ, whom the Father has sent, John 17:3. Precisely because He presented Himself as the Christ, the Zone of God, He was accused of blasphemy by the Jewish council and sentenced to death, Matthew 26:63. And the inscription above His cross read: Jesus, the Nazarene, the King of the Jews, Matthew 27:37, John 19:19.

It is true that the disciples could not reconcile these Messianic claims of Jesus with His imminent suffering and death, Matthew 16:22. But through and after the Resurrection they also learned to understand the necessity and significance of the Cross. Now they understood that God had made this Jesus, whom the Jews had put to death, a Lord and Christ through the resurrection and had exalted him to be a Prince and Saviour, Acts 2:36, Acts 5:31. This is not to say that Jesus was not yet Christ and Lord before His resurrection and only became so after His resurrection, for already beforehand Jesus proclaimed Himself to be the Christ and was recognized and confessed as such by His disciples, Matthew 16:16. But before the resurrection He was the Messiah in servant form, in a form and shape that hid His dignity as the Son of God from the eyes of mankind; in and after the resurrection He has laid aside that servant form, He has taken back the Lordship that He had with the Father before the world was, John 17: 5, and so He is appointed as the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness that dwelt in Him, Romans 1:3.

Hence Paul can say that now, after it pleased God to reveal His Son in him, he no longer knew Christ according to the flesh, 2 Corinthians 5:16. Before his conversion, he knew Christ only according to the flesh, he judged Him only by His outward appearance, by the servant form in which He walked on earth. Then he could not believe that this Jesus, who was stripped of all glory and even hung on the cross and killed, was the Christ. But his conversion has changed all that. Now he knows and judges Christ not by appearances, not by the outward, temporary servant form, but by the spirit, by what was within Christ, by what He really was on the inside and showed Himself to be on the outside in His resurrection. And this is true, in a certain sense, of all the apostles. r,It is true that even before the suffering and death of Christ they had already been brought to a believing confession of his Messianic dignity. But for them, this dignity remained unscreened by the suffering and death. The resurrection, however, has reconciled this contradiction. It is the same Christ who came down to the lowest parts of the earth and who was taken up above all the heavens to fulfill all things, Ephesians 4:9. When they speak of Christ, the Apostles think at once of the Christ who died and was raised, of the Christ who was crucified and the Christ who was glorified. They relate their Gospel not only to the historical Jesus, who lived and died a few years ago in Palestine, but also to the same Jesus, as He was exalted and is now seated at the right hand of God’s power. They stand, as it were, at the intersection of the horizontal line, which connects them with the past, with history, and of the vertical line, which connects them with the living Lord in the heavens. Christianity, therefore, is a religion of history, but at the same time a religion that lives out of eternity in the present. The disciples of Jesus were not called Jesuits after his historical name, but Christians after his official name, Acts 11:26. This peculiar standpoint, which the apostles took in their preaching after the resurrection, indicates the reason why they almost never refer to Jesus simply by his historical name, but almost always speak of him as Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. Even the name Christ soon lost its appellative meaning in the circle of the disciples and assumed the meaning of a proper name. The conviction that Jesus was the Christ was so strong that He could simply be called Christ, even without the prefix cr. Already in the Gospels this occurs a few times, Matthew 1:1, Matthew 1:16-18, Matthew 27:17, Matthew 27:22, Mark 1:1, Mark 9:41, Luke 2:11, Luke 23:2, John 1:17, but with the apostles, especially with Paul, this becomes rule. In addition, in the Acts 3:20, Acts 5:41 etc., and again especially with Paul, both names, Jesus Christ, were repeatedly transformed in order to make the Messianic dignity of Christ even more conspicuous, and the name thus became Christ Jesus. This name, Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, was the name of choice for the first congregations. The use and meaning of the name in the Old Testament is transferred to Christ in the New Testament. The Name of the Lord, or the Name alone, was in the books of the Old Covenant the indication of the revealed Lordship of God. In the days of the New Covenant that glory of God has appeared in the person of Jesus Christ; and thus in His name stands the power of the church. In that name is baptism, Acts 2:38, speaking and teaching, Acts 4:18, the lame man is healed, Acts 3:6, and sin forgiven, Acts 10:43. That name is resisted and opposed, Acts 26:9, but also suffered for that name, Acts 5:41, and invoked, Acts 22:13, and made great, Acts 19:17. In this sense the name of Jesus Christ became the short content of the church’s confession, the strength of its faith and the anchor of its hope. Just as Israel used to glory in the name of Jehovah, so the church of the New Testament finds its strength in the name of Jesus Christ. In this name the name of Jehovah has been fully revealed. The name of Lord, which in the New Testament is always linked to the name of Jesus Christ, points in the same direction. In the Gospels, Jesus is repeatedly addressed by those who do not belong to his disciples, but still ask for his help, Matthew 8:2, Matthew 8:6, Matthew 8:21, Matthew 15:22, Matthew 16:22, Matthew 17:4, Matthew 17:15 etc.; and then this name usually has no more meaning than that of rabbi or master. But we also find this name many times on the lips of His disciples, Matthew 14:28, Matthew 14:30, Matthew 26:22, John 16:6-8, John 11:3, John 21:15-17, John 21:21. Furthermore, in the Gospel story the name of Jesus is sometimes alternated with that of the Lord by Luke and John, Luke 1:43, Luke 2:11, Luke 2:38, John 7:13, John 7:31, John 10:1, John 11:39, John 17:6 etc. John 4:1, John 6:23, John 11:2, John 20:2, John 20:13, John 20:18, John 20:25, John 20:28 etc. And finally Jesus Himself also uses this name and refers to Himself as the Lord, Matthew 7:21, Matthew 12:8, Matthew 21:3, Mark 5:19, John 13:14 etc. In the mouth of Jesus himself and of the disciples this name of Lord now takes on a much deeper meaning than that contained in the title; rabbi or master. It is not possible to say with certainty what everyone who came to Jesus for help and addressed Him by the name of ’Lord’ thought of and meant by that name. But in His own consciousness Jesus was the teacher, the master, the Lord above all others, and He attributed to Himself an authority far beyond that of the scribes. This is already evident in places like Matthew 23:1-11 and Mark 1:22, Mark 1:27, where Jesus elevates himself as the only Master above all others. But it is even more pronounced and beyond all doubt, when He calls Himself Lord of the Sabbath, Matthew 12:8, and elsewhere the Son of David and David’s Lord, Matthew 22:43-45. There is no less in this, than that He is the Messiah, who sits at the right hand of God, shares in His power, and has the decision over the living and the dead, Matthew 21:4-5, Matthew 13:35, Matthew 24:42 f. Matthew 25:34 f. This deep significance has probably also partly attached itself to the name of Lord, because the names of Jehovah and Adonai in the Old Testament are rendered in the Greek translation by kurios, Lord, that is, by that same word, which was also applied to Chris. As Christ expressed Himself more clearly, who He was, and as the disciples better understood the revelation of God that had come to them in Christ, so the name Lord also became richer in meaning. Texts in the Old Testament that spoke of God were applied to Christ without difficulty. Thus, in Mark 1:3 is quoted from Isaiah: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, and in the preparation of Chris, the Lord, through John the Baptist, the fulfilment of that prophetic word is seen. In Christ, God himself, the Lord, has come to his people. And the disciples, confessing Jesus as Lord, have expressed ever more clearly that God Himself had revealed and given to them in the person of Christ. To the climax of this confession, during Jesus’ stay on earth, Thomas ascends when he falls on foot of the risen Christ and addresses him with the name: My Lord and my God, John 20:28.

After the resurrection, the name Lord became the common name within the circle of Jesus’ disciples.

Jesus’ disciples the common name. We find it repeatedly in the Acts and in the Letters, especially those of Paul. Sometimes the name Lord is used on its own, but usually it appears in combination with others: the Lord Jesus, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or our Lord Jesus Christ, or our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, etc. And with the name Lord, the believers then express that Jesus Christ, who was humbled to death on the cross, because of his complete obedience to God is exalted by God to be Lord and Prince, Acts 2:36, Acts 5:31, who is seated at God’s right hand, Acts 2:34, Lord of all and everything, Acts 10:36, first of all of the church, which he bought with his blood, Acts 20:28, but also of all creation, which he will judge one day as the judge of the living and the dead, Acts 10:42, Acts 17:31.

He that therefore shall call upon this name, the name of Jesus as Christ and Lord, shall be saved, Acts 2:21, 1 Corinthians 1:2, To be a Christian, that is to say, to confess with one’s mouth the Lord Jesus, and to believe with one’s heart that God raised him from the dead, Romans 10:9, 1 Corinthians 12:3, Php 2:11. The content of the preaching is: Christ Jesus the Lord, 2 Corinthians 4:5. So much is the essence of Christianity drawn together in this confession, that the name Lord with Paul becomes, as it were, a proper name, given to Christ in distinction from the Father and the Spirit. We have as Christians one God, the Father, of whom all things are, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we by him; and one and the same Spirit, who giveth to every man in particular according as he will, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 Corinthians 12:11. The apostolic blessing therefore prays for the congregation the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, 2 Corinthians 13:13. The one name of God’ explains itself in the three persons of Father, Son and Spirit, Matthew 28:2-9.

If, according to the testimony of the apostles, Christ has such a high place, it is no wonder that all kinds of divine virtues and works are attributed to Him, yes, even the divine nature.

It is a completely unique figure that meets us on the pages of the Holy Scriptures in the person of Christ. On the one hand, He is truly man, made flesh and entered into the flesh, John 1:14, 1 John 4:2-3, bearing the stature of the sinful flesh, Romans 8:3, of the fathers, as far as the flesh is concerned, Romans 9:5, Abraham’s seed, Galatians 3:16, of Judah’s lineage, Hebrews 7:14, of David’s lineage, Romans 1:3, born of a woman, Galatians 4:4, possessing our flesh and blood, Hebrews 2:14, with a spirit, Matthew 27:50, a soul, Matthew 26:38, and a body, 1 Peter 2:24, man in the full, proper sense, who grew up like a babe and increased in wisdom and stature and grace with God and mankind, Luke 2:40, Luke 2:52, who hungered and thirsted, grieved and rejoiced, was moved and angered, Matthew 4:2, Matthew 26:28, John 11:27, John 11:35, John 19:28 etc., who put himself under the law and was obedient unto death, Galatians 4:4, Php 2:8, Hebrews 5:8, Hebrews 10:7, Hebrews 10:9, who suffered, died on the cross, was buried in the garden; without form or glory. When we looked at Him, there was no form that we should have desired Him. He was despised, and the most unworthy of men, a man of sorrows, and tempted with sickness, Isaiah 53:2-3. And yet this same man is set apart from all men and placed high above them all. Not only was He, according to His human nature, received of the Holy Spirit, during His whole life He remained free from all temptations, from all sin, and after His death He was raised again from the dead and ascended into heaven. But the same subject, the same person, the same I, who humbled Himself so deeply that He took on the form of a servant and became obedient to the death of the cross, existed in another form of existence long before the time of His incarnation and humiliation. He then existed in the form of God and did not consider it a robbery to be equal to God, Php 2:6. At His resurrection and ascension He received back the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, John 17:5. He is eternal as God Himself, having been with Him from the beginning, John 1:1, 1 John 1:1, and just as He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, Revelation 22:13; omnipresent, so that, while walking on earth, He is also in the bosom of the Father, in heaven, John 1:18, John 3:13, and after His glorification He remains with His church and fulfills all in all, Matthew 28:20, Ephesians 1:23, Ephesians 4:10; unchangeable and faithful, so that He is the same yesterday and today and for ever, Hebrews 13:8; omniscient, so that He hears the prayers, Acts 1:24, Acts 7:59-60, Acts 6:13, Romans 10:12-13 etc. and perhaps in Acts 1:24 (unless it is the Father who is meant here); omnipotent, so that all things are subject to Him, all power is given to Him in heaven and on earth, and He is the Prince of all kings, Matthew 28:18, 1 Corinthians 15:27, Ephesians 1:22, Revelation 1:4, Revelation 19:16, Revelation 19:16. Being in possession of all these divine perfections, He also participates in all divine works. With the Father and the Spirit He is the Creator of all things, John 1:3, Colossians 1:5, and the firstborn, the principle and head of all creatures, Colossians 1:15, Revelation 3:14. He sustains all things by the word of His power, so that they exist not only of Him, but also in Him and through Him forever, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:17. And above all, He preserves, reconciles and restores all things and gathers them into one under Himself as the head. As such He carries above all the name of Saviour of the world. In the Old Testament the name of Saviour, He-land or Redeemer was given to God, Isaiah 43:3, Isaiah 43:11, Isaiah 45:15, Jeremiah 14:8, Hosea 13:4. But in the New Testament the Son as well as the Father bear this name. In 1 Timothy 1:3, Titus 1:3, Titus 2:10 God, and in 2 Timothy 1:10, Titus 1:4, Titus 2:13, Titus 3:6, 2 Peter 1:11, 2 Peter 2:20, 2 Peter 3:18 Christ in whom and through whom the salvific work of God is completely accomplished.

All this points to a unity between Father and Son, between God and Christ, which nowhere else exists between the Creator and His creatures. Even though Christ assumed a human nature that is finite and limited, and began to exist in time; as a person, as an entity, Christ is not on the side of the creature in Scripture, but on the side of God. He shares His virtues, He participates in all His works, He possesses the same divine nature. This is especially evident in the three names given to Christ: the Image, the Word and the Son of God.

Christ is the Image of God, the radiance of God’s glory, and the expressed image of His independence, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3. In Christ the unseen God has become visible; he who sees Him sees the Father, John 9:1. He who wants to know who and what God is, looks to Christ; as Christ is, so is the Father. Christ is also the Word of God, John 1:1, Revelation 19:13; in Him the Father has made Himself fully known, His wisdom, His will, all His virtues, His whole being; He has given Himself to have life in Himself, John 5:26. Whoever wants to know God’s thought, God’s counsel and God’s will for mankind and the world, should listen to Christ and hear Him, Matthew 17:5. Finally, Christ is the Zone of God, the Son, as John, in particular, often calls Him without any further description, 1 John 2:22 ff, Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:8 etc., the only begotten and the one true, He who wishes to be a child of God accepts Christ, for all who accept Him receive the right and the authority to be called children of God, John 1:12.

Finally, Scripture crowns this testimony concerning Christ by attributing to Him the Divine Name. Thomas already confessed Him as his Lord and God before the ascension, John 20:28. John testifies of Him that in the beginning He was the Word with God and God Himself. Paul declares that He is of the fathers as far as the flesh is concerned, but that according to His nature He is God above all things, to be praised for ever and ever, Romans 9:5. The letter to the Hebrews says that He is exalted far above the angels and is addressed by God Himself with the name of God, Hebrews 1:8-9. Peter speaks of Him as our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 1:1. In the baptismal command of Jesus, Matthew 28:19, and in the prayers of blessing of the apostles, 2 Corinthians 13:13, 1 Peter 1:2, Revelation 1:4-6, Christ the Son is on the same line with the Father and the Spirit. The name and essence, the virtues and works of Godhead belong to the Son (and the Spirit) as much as to the Father.

Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God - the church is built on this foundation. From the beginning, the unique meaning of Christ was clear to all believers. He was confessed by all as the Lord, who had acquired salvation, the forgiveness of sins and immortality, by his teachings and life, then was exalted by the Father at his right hand, and would soon return as Judge to judge the living and the dead. With the same names, Christ, Lord, Zone of God, God, etc., which occur in the Letters of the Apostles, He is also mentioned in the oldest Christian scriptures and invoked in prayers and songs. All stood in the conviction that there was one God, whose children they knew, one Lord, who had assured and given them God’s love, and one Spirit, who made them all walk in newness of life. The baptismal command in Matthew 28:19, which came into general use towards the end of the apostolic era, is evidence of this. But as soon as people began to think about the contents of this confession, all kinds of differences of opinion arose. The members of the congregation, who had previously been educated in Judaism and Paganism, and who for the most part belonged to the humble classes of the country, were not able to assimilate the apostolic teaching into their consciousness at once; they lived in the midst of a society in which all sorts of ideas and directions were intermingled, and were therefore continually at the mercy of temptation and error. Already during the life of the Apostles we read of various deceivers who penetrated into the congregation and tried to tear it away from the firmness of its faith. In Colossae, for example, there were members who did not appreciate the person and work of Christ and turned the Gospel into a new law, Colossians 2:3, Colossians 2:16. In Corinth libertinists arose who, abusing Chris¬tian freedom, did not want to be bound by any rules, 1 Corinthians 6:12, In his first letter, the apostle John conducts a battle against so-called doctrines, who deny the coming of Christ in the flesh and thus misunderstand the truth of his human nature, 1 John 2:18 ff, 1 John 4:1 ff, 1 John 5:5 ff etc. And so it remained in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. And so it remained in the post-apostolic age; even the errors of the second century increased in variety, strength and expansion. There were those who believed in the true human nature of Christ, in his supernatural birth, resurrection and ascension, but who saw the divine in nothing but an extraordinary measure of the gifts and powers of the Spirit, which had been given to him by God at his birth or baptism and which made him capable of his religious and moral work. The followers of this movement lived under the influence of the deistic Jewish idea of the relation between God and the world; they could not imagine a more intimate relation between God and man than that which consisted in a communication of gifts; Jesus was therefore a richly gifted man, a religious genius, but He was and remained a Christian. But others, who had been brought up in paganism and were more attracted to polytheistic ideas, thought they could understand very well that, according to his inner nature, Christ was one of the best, or perhaps the highest of all divine beings; but they could not believe that such a divine, pure being could have taken on a human, material, fleshly nature. And so they abandoned the true humanity of Christ, saying that He had only temporarily walked the earth in an apparent form, just as the angels of the Old Testament had done on many occasions. Both tendencies live on to this day; while at one time the Godhead is sacrificed to mankind, at another time the Godhead is maintained at the expense of mankind. There are always extremes who sacrifice the idea for the sake of the fact, or the fact for the sake of the idea; they do not see the unity and harmony of the two. But the Christian Church stood on a different foundation from the very beginning and professed in the person of Christ the most intimate and profound, and therefore the wholly unique, communion of God and man. In the early days, its interpreters sometimes expressed themselves in a very awkward manner; they had to struggle first to gain a somewhat clear understanding of the matter, and then to put this understanding into clear language. But the congregation did not allow itself to be torn away from its foundation; it avoided the one extreme and held fast to the apostles’ teaching on the person of Christ. But when one and the same person was both a partaker of the divine nature and a true man, it was necessary to determine his place and to define clearly the relationship between him and the Godhead and the world. And here again a mistake was made to the right and to the left.

If, namely, the unity of God, which is a fundamental truth of Christianity, were to be understood in such a way that the essence of the Godhead coincided completely with the person of the Father, there would be no place in the Godhead for Christ; he would be outside the Godhead and thus on the side of the creature, for there is no gradual transition between Creator and creature. And then it could be said, as Arius did, that He preceded the whole world in time and rank, that He was created first of all creatures and surpassed them all in stature and honor; but Christ remained a creature, there was a time when He was not, and in that time He was called into being, like all other creatures, by the will of God. In striving, however, to maintain the unity of God and to secure to the person of Christ the place and honor due to Him, it was very easy to fall into another error, that which takes its name from its foremost teacher, Sabellius. Whereas Arius, so to speak, identified the essence of Godhead with the person of the Father, Sabellius offered all three persons to that essence. According to his doctrine, the three persons, Father, Son and Spirit, are not eternal entities existing in the essence of the Godhead, but forms and appearances, in which the one Godhead has revealed itself successively in the course of time, under the Old Testament, in the earthly walk of Christ, and after the Day of Pentecost. Both errors have found followers throughout the centuries: the Groninger Theology, for example, essentially renewed the teachings of Arius, and modern Theology first followed in the footsteps of Sabellius.

It took much prayer and much struggle to find the right way amidst all these errors, which moreover were modified and mixed in all kinds of ways. But under the leadership of great men, who excelled both in their piety and their powers of thought and who therefore rightly bear the name of Church Fathers, the church nevertheless remained faithful to the slate of the apostles. At the Nicea Synod in 325, the church proclaimed its faith in the one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible, and in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was generated from the Father as the one-born, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, created and not created, being one with the Father, through whom all things in heaven and earth were made,.... and in the Holy Spirit.

Important as this outcome was, it by no means brought about an end to the *Iyristian Disputes. On the contrary, the Nicene Creed opened the way to new questions and different answers. For although the relationship of Christ to the essence of God and to the world and humanity was determined in the sense that He shared both in His person and was God and humanity in one person, the question could not be left unanswered as to how the relationship of these two natures in one person should be conceived. And on this point, too, various avenues were explored for an answer.

Nestorius decided that if there were two natures in Christ, there must also be two persons, two selves, in Him, who could only be united by a moral bond, as, for example, in marriage between a man and a woman. And Eutyches, starting from the same identification of nature and person, came to the conclusion that, if in Christus there was only one person, one I, then the two natures must have been so mixed and fused that only one divine nature emerged from that mixture.

There the distinction between the natures was maintained at the expense of the unity of the person, here the unity of the person at the expense of the duality of the natures. But after long, hard struggles, the church also overcame these disagreements. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, it declared that the one person of Christ consisted of two natures, which existed unchanged and unmixed (against Eutyches), and undivided and undivided (against Nestorius), but had their unity in the one person. This decision, which was later supplemented and completed on a specific point at the Synod in Constantinople in 680, put an end to the centuries-long struggle over the person of Christ. The Church had preserved the essence of Christianity, the absolute character of the Christian religion, and with that also her own independence.

It goes without saying that this Nicene and Chalcedon creeds cannot claim infallibility. The terms used by the church and theology, such as person, nature, unity, etc., are not found in Scripture, but are the fruit of the reflection which Christianity gradually had to devote to the verbosity of salvation; it was forced to do so by the errors which arose from all sides, both within and outside the church. All the expressions and descriptions used in the Church’s confession and in the language of theology do not serve to explain the mystery before us, but to preserve it purely and unimpaired in the face of all those who weaken or deny it. The Incarnation of the Word is not a problem that we must or can solve, but it is a wonderful fact that we thankfully confess, as God Himself places it before our eyes in His Word. But understood in this way, the confession, which the church established at Nicea and Chalcedori, is of great value. There have been many, and there are still many, who look down on the doctrine of the two natures in Christ and try to replace it with other words and terms. What does it matter, they say, whether we agree with this doctrine or not; what matters is that we possess the person of Christ Himself, who stands high behind and above this clumsy confession. But later on all these men will themselves also introduce words and terms in order to describe in more detail the person of Christ whom they accept. No one can escape this, for what we do not know, we do not have. If we believe that we possess Christ, that we have fellowship with Him, that we are His property, then that faith must also speak, and resort to words, terms, expressions and descriptions. But then, history has also shown that the expressions used by those who oppose the doctrine of two natures lag far behind those of the confession in value and force, and often even, in disregard of the fact that they are true, fall short of the latter.

Even in disregard of the fact of the Incarnation, as Scripture makes us know it, they encourage error.

Today, for example, there are many who consider the doctrine of the two natures to be the height of absurdity and who, in their consciousness, take an entirely different view of the person of Christ. They cannot deny that there is something in Christ that distinguishes Him from all men and raises Him above all. But this Divinity which they recognize in Christ they do not regard as partaking of Divine nature itself, but as a Divine gift or power which was given to Christ in a special measure. They say, then, that Christ has two sides, a divine and a human side; or that he can be seen from two points of view; or that he lived in two successive states, of mortification and exaltation; or that he, though only a man, has been, through his preaching of the love of God and the foundation of his kingdom, the extraordinary and perfect organ of God’s revelation, and has thus acquired for us the value of God. But any impartial reader will feel that these representations do not merely modify ecclesiastical expressions, but make something entirely different of the person of Christ than the Church has always professed on the basis of the Apostolic witness concerning Him.

Divine gifts and powers are given to every human being in a certain sense, because all good gifts and perfect gifts come down from the Father of Lights. The prophets and the apostles were men of the same movements as we are. If, therefore, Christ received nothing more than extraordinary divine gifts and powers, he was no more than a man, and there can be no question of his becoming flesh. But then He could never, as others propose, have been exalted to God through resurrection and ascension after His death or have acquired the significance of God for us. For between man and God there is no gradual transition, but a deep cleavage. They stand in relation to each other as creature and Creator, and the creature, of course, can never become the Creator nor ever have the value and significance for us, human beings, of the Creator, on Whom we are completely dependent.

It is remarkable, then, that after comparing all these new ideas about the person of Christ with the teachings of the Church and Scripture, some have come to the honest conclusion that ultimately the creed of the Church still corresponds best to the teachings of Scripture. The doctrine that Christ was God and Man in one person is not a product of pagan philosophy, but is grounded in the Apostolic Testimony.

Herein lies the mystery of godliness, that He who, as the Word, was in the beginning with God and was God Himself, John 1:1, who was in the form of God and did not think it worthwhile to be equal to God, Php 2:6, who was the reflection of God’s glory and the expressed image of his own nature, Hebrews 1:3, who became flesh in the fullness of time, John 1:14, who was born of a woman, Galatians 4:4, who destroyed himself, took on the form of a servant, and became like unto men, Php 2:7. The first thing to note here is that Christ was and is God and remains eternal. He was not the Father nor the Spirit, but the Son, the Father’s own, only begotten, beloved Son. And not the Divine being, nor the Father and the Spirit, but the person of the Son became man in the fullness of time. And when He became man and walked around the earth as a man, even when He wrestled in Gethsemane and hung on the cross, He remained His own Son, in whom the Father had all His good pleasure. It is true that the apostle says that Christ, who was in the form of God and did not think it was a sin to be like God, destroyed or emptied Himself, Php 2:6-7. But this is wrongly understood by some to mean that Christ, at his incarnation, in the state of humiliation, stripped himself of his divinity in whole or in part, and laid down his divine attributes, and then gradually took them back in the state of his exaltation. For how would this be possible, since God cannot deny Himself, 2 Timothy 2:13, and since the unchangeable One in Himself is above all creation and corruption? No, even when He became what He was not, He remained what He was, the One-born of the Father. But the Apostle does say that Christ destroyed Himself in this sense, that He, who was in the form of God, took on the form of a man and a servant. To put it humanly and simply, before His incarnation Christ was not only equal to the Father in essence and virtues, but He also had the form of God. He looked like God; He was the reflection of His glory and the expressed image of His autonomy. Whoever could have seen Him would have recognized Him immediately as God. But this changed at His conception; then He took on the form of a man, the figure of a servant. Whoever saw Him now could no longer see in Him the only Son of the Father, except through the eye of faith. He had laid aside His divine form and glory; He hid His divine nature behind the form of a servant; on earth He was and looked like our one.

Secondly, the incarnation includes the fact that He, who remained what He was, became what He was not. He became this at a point in time, at a particular moment in history, at that hour when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her (Luke 1:35). But that does not take away from the fact that this Incarnation was prepared centuries ago.

If one wants to understand it well, one can say that even the generation of the Son and the creation of the world prepared the incarnation of the Word. Not in the sense that the generation and creation already included the incarnation in principle. For the Scriptures always connect the incarnation of the Son with the redemption from sin and the acquisition of salvation, Matthew 1:21, John 3:16, Romans 8:3. Galatians 4:4-5 etc. But generation and creation, especially the creation of man in God’s image, both teach that God is communicable, in a complete sense within and in a relative sense outside the Divine being. If this were not the case, there would be no room for the incarnation of God. Whoever considers the incarnation of God impossible, in principle also denies the creation of the world and the generation of the Son; and whoever recognizes the latter, can no longer raise any principled objection to the former.

However, the Incarnation of the Word was directly prepared in the Revelation, which began immediately after the fall, continued in the history of Israel, and reached its highest point in the conception of Mary. The entire Old Testament is an approach of God to man, in order to make his home permanently in him in the fullness of time.

However, since the Son of God, who assumed human nature in Mary, already existed before that time and from eternity as the person of the Son, his conception in Mary’s womb did not take place through the will of the flesh and the will of man, but through the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. The Incarnation joins and completes the previous revelation, but it is not itself a product of nature or mankind. It is a work of God, a revelation, the highest revelation. Just as it was the Father who sent His Son into the world, and the Holy Spirit who came upon Mary, so it was the Son Himself who became a partaker of our flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14). He became flesh by His own will and by His own act. Therefore, at the time of His incarnation, He set aside the will of the flesh and the will of man, and He prepared Himself a human nature in Mary’s womb by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. This human nature did not exist beforehand. It was not brought by Christ out of heaven and carried into Mary from outside and led through her. The Anabaptists taught this, in order to be able to maintain the sinlessness of human nature in Christ; but in doing so they were following in the footsteps of the old Gnosticism and starting from the idea that flesh and matter are in themselves sinful. But the Scriptures maintain the goodness of creation and the divine origin of matter, even in the incarnation.

Christ took on His human nature from Mary, Matthew 1:20, Luke 1:52, Luke 2:7, Galatians 4:4. He is, as far as the flesh is concerned, of David and of the fathers, Acts 2:30, Romans 1:3, Romans 9:5. Therefore it is also a true and perfect human nature, equal to us in all things, except sin, Hebrews 2:14, Hebrews 2:17, Hebrews 4:15. Nothing human was foreign to Christ. The denial of the coming of Christ in the flesh is the principle of antichrist, 1 John 2:22.

Just as the human nature of Christ did not exist before His conception in Mary, so it did not exist for a time before or after His birth, separate from Christ. The seed received in Mary, and the child born of her, did not first grow up independently into a human being, into a person, into an entity, and was then accepted by Christ and united with Himself. This error, too, was defended in the past and later, but Scripture knows nothing of such an idea. The Holy One, who was conceived in Mary’s womb, was and bore from the beginning the name of Zone Cods, Luke 1:35. The Son, whom the Father sent, was born of a woman, Galatians 4:4. The Word did not take upon Himself a man at a later date, but became flesh, John 1:14. And that is why the Christian church said in her confession that the person of the Son did not take upon Himself a human person, but a human nature; and that only in this way can the duality of natures be maintained in the unity of the person. For - and this is the third point that merits our consideration - although Scripture states as clearly as possible that Christ was the Word and became flesh, that according to the flesh He is of the fathers but according to His essence He is God over all, to be praised for all eternity, yet in this Christ He always appears as one person to us. It is always the same I that speaks and acts out of Christ. The child that was born bears the name of strong God and eternal Father, Isaiah 9:5. David’s son is also David’s Lord. The same, who came down, is also ascended far above all heavens, Ephesians 4:10. Who according to the flesh is of the fathers, is according to his nature the God of all things, to be praised for ever and ever, Romans 9:5. Walking about on the earth, He was and remains in heaven, in the bosom of the Father, John 1:18, John 3:13. The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him in a bodily manner, Colossians 2:9. In a word, to the same subject, to the same person, are ascribed Divine and human characteristics and works, eternity and time, omnipresence and limitedness, creative omnipotence and creaturely weakness. This being so, the union of the two naves in Christ cannot have been as that between two persons. For two persons can be intimately united by love, but they can never become one person, one I. Love presupposes the duality and brings about nothing but a mystical and ethical unity. If the union of the Son of God with humanity had this character, it would be different, at best in degree but not in essence, from that which God establishes with His creatures, especially His children. But Christ occupies a wholly unique place. He did not form a moral alliance with a human being and did not take an existing human being into His community, but He prepared Himself a human afterlife in Mary’s womb, and became a human being and a servant. Just as a human being can pass from one state of life to another, can live successively or sometimes even simultaneously in two spheres of consciousness, so Christ, who was in the form of God, walked the earth in the form of a servant by way of analogy (agreement). The union that came about in his incarnation was not a moral one between two persons, but the union of two natures in the same person. Man and woman, however intimately united in marriage, remain two persons; God and man, although united by the most intimate love, remain distinct in nature. But in Christ, man is the same subject as the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God Himself, and the Word is the same subject that became flesh. Here is a completely unique, incomparable and incomprehensible union of God and man. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, John 1:14.

Through this union Christ, in the unity of His person, possesses all the qualities and powers that are peculiar to both natures. Some have tried to obtain a stronger and more intimate union of the two natures by teaching that the two natures were at once fused into one divine nature at the conception of the flesh, or that divine nature divested itself of its own attributes and descended into the narrowness of human nature, or that human nature lost its attributes and received those of divine nature (either all or some, such as omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience and life-giving power) as its own. But the Reformed confession has always rejected and disputed such a fusion of both natures and such a communication of characteristics by one nature to the other. For such a fusion and communication amounted to confusion and mixing of the two natures and thus to a pantheistic denial of the distinction between God and man, between Creator and creature.

There is a close union between the two natures and their properties and powers. But this union is brought about in the unity of the person. And a stronger, deeper, more intimate union is not conceivable. Just as, by comparison but not by assimilation, soul and body are united in one human being and yet remain distinct from one another in essence and properties, so in Christ the same person is the subject of both natures with all their properties and powers. The distinction between soul and body is the foundation and the condition for their intimate unity in the one man, and thus also the distinction between divine and human natures is the basis of their unity in the person of Christ. The fusion of the two natures and the communication of the characteristics of one to the other does not bring about a more intimate union, but rather dissolves the union in a fusion, and actually impoverishes the fullness that is in Christ. They rob either the divine, or the human, or both natures in Christ and weaken the word of Scripture that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, Colossians 2:19, Colossians 1:9. Only then does that fullness remain, if both natures remain distinct, and do not communicate their qualities to each other, but to the one person, and place them at his service. It is then always the same, rich Christ, who in His humiliation and exaltation has the qualities and powers of both natures at His disposal and who is thus able to accomplish those very works which, as mediatorial works, are on the one hand distinct from the works of God and on the other hand from the works of man, and which have their own place in the history of the world. This doctrine of two natures has the great advantage that everything that Scripture says about the person of Christ and attributes to Him can be fully appreciated. On the one hand, then, He is and remains the only and eternal Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit created, sustains and governs all things, John 1:3, Colossians 1:15-16, Hebrews 1:2, and therefore may be the object of our worship. He was already this in the days of the apostles, John 14:13, Acts 7:59, Acts 9:13, Acts 22:16, Romans 10:12-13, Php 2:9, Hebrews 1:6, just as He was then and is now the object of the faith and confidence of all His disciples, John 14:1, John 17:3, Romans 14:9, 2 Corinthians 5:15, Ephesians 3:12, Ephesians 5:23, Colossians 1:27 etc. But He cannot and must not be both, if He is not truly God, for it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou worship, and Him only shalt thou serve (Matthew 4:10). The basis for the religious worship and adoration of Christ can only lie in His divine nature, so that whoever denies this and yet maintains this worship, is guilty of idolatry. The divinity of Christ is not a reserved doctrine, but it is of the utmost importance for the life of the church. On the other hand, Christ became a true and complete human being, equal to us in everything except sin. He was an infant, a child, a youth and a man like us, and increased in wisdom, size and grace with God and mankind. All this is not an appearance, as they must say, who make the Divine qualities the property of human nature, but it is the full truth. There was in Christ a slow development, a gradual progress in size of body, in powers of soul, in favor with God and man. The gifts of the Spirit were not all given to him at once, but were given to him in increasing measure. There were things He had to learn and which He did not know at first. 13: 32, Acts 1:7. In Him, even though He possessed the inability to sin because of His weak human nature, there was nevertheless a possibility to be tempted, to suffer and to die. As long as He was on earth, He was not in heaven according to His human nature, and therefore He lived, not by sight, but by faith. He has fought and suffered, and in all this has clung to the word and promise of God. In this way He learned obedience from what He suffered, continually established Himself in obedience and in that way sanctified Himself, John 17:19, Hebrews 5:8-9. But at the same time He left us an example and became a cause of eternal salvation for all who obey Him, Hebrews 5:9.