The Two Natures of Christ

Rom. 9:5.

““Whose are the fathers and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came; who is over all God blessed for ever. Amen.”

“We are sometimes challenged by Unitarians to produce any text, in wliicli Christ is distinctly said to be God. Here is just such a text. Christ is God over all blessed for ever. The words bear no other meaning. You may deny that they are in the book, or you may deny that the book is true and authoritative; but once receive this New Testament, and you are constrained to the profession, Christ is God. Human language cannot be plainer. Sit down and imagine a phrase which shall most unequivocally and unanswerably tear up Socinianism by the roots, and you can invent nothing more to the point than this.

The more you look at it in its connexion and examine all its parts, the more will it stand out as a prominent and undeniable assertion of the godhead of Jesus. No one could ever have dreamed of putting any other signification on the words, if there had not been something repulsive to proud human intellect in the truth declared. The words are plain enough: the doctrine taught in them is mysterious. And haughty worms spurn mysteries. They are unwilling that God should reveal any thing which they could not have discovered themselves. They can not consent that there should be any recesses in the Divine nature which they have not explored. They marvel that God should be greater than man. To such God might say, as to Job, out of the whirlwind, Job 38:4 “Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” Or, in the famous words of Agur, Pro v. 30:4 “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth ‘^ What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell? “— We might remind them, that it was said of Messiah, in prophetic days, Isa. 9: 6 His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity.” All this would weigh little with persons who come to God’s revelation with a ready-made creed, a product of their own understanding, fully made up as to what they are to find in the Bible, before they approach it. But for this determination no one would ever have found any obscurity in the text. Read it again, and observe how you are shut up to one meaning. Paul is speaking of the Jewish nation 1-4 “ivliose’’ says he,” are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever.” “Who is over all:” — there is no antecedent to this relative, but “Christ.” Christ, undeniably, is over all God blessed forever. Nor can our adversaries evade this, till they have tortured the whole passage; put a full stop after “Christ;” and made a new sentence, thus, “God is over all blessed for ever.” Extraordinary presumption! Amazing abruptness of transition! Comj)are the sentence thus produced, in order to get rid of the divinity of Christ; mark how it hangs together, ‘’ Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. God is blessed for ever. Amen.” For such a change there is no authority.

Examine the verse in its connexion (for half our expository blunders arise from tearing single sentences out of their connexion) and you will perceive that as soon as Paul begins here to speak of Christ, he speaks of him under a twofold character. Observe — “Of whom, as concerning the flesh... that is, ‘of whom, as concerning the human nature,’ Christ came. Now, I put it to every impartial reader, does not this prepare for some corresponding clause? Does not the mind irresistibly run on, and wait for something more? saying to itself, Christ, as concerning the flesh, came of the Israelites; but what does the Apostle go on to say Christ came of as concerning his higher nature? The common reading supplies this, and no other reading does, to our entire satisfaction. “Of whom (Israelites) as concerning the flesh, Christ came,” in his inferior nature; and if you crave to know of whom lie came as concerning Lis superior nature, then know ye that he “is over all God Uessed for ever.”

No wonder, my brethren, that all who wdsh to degrade the character of the liedeemer, labor to pervert this passage. If ingenuity and zeal could have changed its meaning, this would have been accomplished. But all arts have failed. There it stands. A resort to various readings and other copies has effected nothing. All ancient copies and manuscripts agree in giving the words just as we have them. They perfectly agree with the whole drift of the argument. It was the very object of the Apostle in these verses to exalt the Jewish nation as much as possible, and nothing was more natural than for him to declare the dignity conferred on them, by the fact, that, according to his human nature, he was an Israelite, who, in another nature, was God over all, blessed for ever. The words thus understood perfectly agree with other passages of Sacred Scripture. Let one suffice — from this very epistle. 1: 3, 4. He designate’ the Gospel of God, as “concerning his Sou Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh (observe how parallel with our text); and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness;” that is, according to the divine nature. Here we have the very same antithesis or contrast as in the text; first the human nature, secondly the divine nature.

After this explanation of what the words mean, we are prepared to assert, on authority of inspiration, that Christ Jesus THE Lord has two natures. This is denied by all Socinians and others, who maintain that the Lord Jesus was a mere man; only differing from others in this, that he was the best of prophets and the best of men. They admit only a single nature, and scout the idea of two natures in one person; a union which their amazing advancement into the wonders of the Divine nature authorizes them to declare absurd and impossible.

The doctrine of Christ’s two natures likewise met with opposition from another quarter, that is to say from some who admitted the divinity of our Lord. A noted teacher and leader, Eutyches by name, lived at Constantinople, in the fifth century. In striving to combat Nestorius and others, who separated the human and the di’ine so as to make two persons, Eutyches sought to deny two natures. He readily admitted that there were originally two natures, that the Godhead and the humanity had been distinct; but that upon the incarnation the two became one.* Thus the human nature was by him turned into the divine. The lower was absorbed into the higher: to ase their own expression the human was swallowed up in the Divine. There is no ground for this in the Scriptures. It is not said that the flesh was made the Word, but that the Word was made flesh. Throughout the Gospel account we find both natures remaining, in mysterious union, yet perfectly distinct. The Lord Jesus Christ, “being the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father, in the fulness of time became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man, in two entire distinct natures, and one person forever.” This is the clear New Testa-

* Pearson on the Creed, Art. 3. p. 246.

66 thj: two natures of christ.

ment account. (Gal. 4: 4.) ‘’ God sent forth his Son made of a woDian“^ Yet the miraculous conception and birth resulted in more than man; it was more than a mere man produced by divine miraculous power. (Luke 1:35.) “That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of Godr The infant Saviour was at once Son of Mary and Son of God. And in his humanity was divine perfection incorporated: ‘’ for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Col. 2: 9. This is by no means a theological nicety. There are times in every ripe experience when we taste the sweetness of recognizing our Redeemer in each of his natures. We behold them blended and yet not in confusion. Did he cease to be man, we should miss that chief tie, which binds us to divinity — that chief source of sympathetic confidence — and that chief glory of our nature. Did he cease to be God, we should feel ourselves thrown back in the matter of salvation on the resources of bare human nature, the strength of a great prophet and martyr. There could be no bringing together, as now, of the divine and the human. And on the other hand this divinity and this humanity, equally distinct objects of our vision, and equally precious to our faith, exist in one Christ, sole and undivided; one glorious Person, whose name is Wonderful, and whose like is not in the universe. This has been the doctrine of the Catholic Church for hundreds of years. Heretics and errorists have gone off on one hand and on the other, but the great body of universal Christendom has held the same established path. Nor was this one of the matters in reo’ard to which our fathers made their protest at the time of the Reformation. The Church even of Rome was sound in resfard to the two natures of Christ. The Council of Trent and the Confession of Auofsburo: here speak the same language. We have no quarrel at this point with even popish tenets. The place where reformed theology diverged, where the dominant Church had wandered from apostolic teaching, and where we have returned to it, is in the doctrines of grace and justification — the Ml of man and his recovery. But as to the triune God and the preexistence of Christ, the true and Scriptural doctrine was enounced, settled, and put beyond dispute,- before the great schism, a division between the East and West. Hence nothing can be more exact or discriminating more full and satisfactory than the ancient creeds in the Greek language. And the doctrine of two natures in one Christ is clearly made known in the words of our text.

I. It declares that Cpieist our Mediator IS God. There are reasons for this stupendous truth which, I suypose, neither men nor angels can penetrate: but there are other reasons which are things revealed, and, as such, belong to us and to our children. (1.) It pleased God to accomplish our salvation by an intensity of suffering. That this was necessary, we may be sure; as God could not otherwise consent to bruise his only begotten Son. Suffering, be it observed, was an indispensable element in the atonino: Word. ‘No created pencil could depict, no human eloquence or tongues of angels describe, what passed in the soul of the Redeemer at Gethsemane and Calvary. Suffering, raised to agony, and transcending human endurance, was the ])rice of our pardon. The Lord took ilesh for this very purpose, that he might be a sufferer. The degree of this suffering was beyond all human strength to bear. Man could have borne much under uncommon supports of grace; but the utmost so endured would have fallen short of atoning for a sinde additional soul: what shall we say of atoning for millions; of atonement ample for a world 1

The wrath of God is not an unmeaning term: it was due to us; it was borne by Jesus. To bear it required the sustentation of the divine nature. The penalty of the law was death; not merely the pang of dissolution, but that heavier death which finite beings could not have exhausted in an eternity. Christ tasted of this death. God raised him up, “having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden by it.” The Divine nature bore up the human under unparalleled and awful sufferings, but for which support it would have sunk and perished. The universe beheld the glorious sight, of one like ourselves, and under our yoke, made strong to suffer, and opeU’ ing a boundless capacity for the reception of pains, before which simple humanity would have vanished in a moment. The divine nature in Christ was necessary, that the human nature might endure the shock. 2. The threefold functions of our Lord, in suffering for us, obeying for us, and interceding for us, are all dependent on his personal merit. The value of suffering is in the dignity of the sufferer. The value of obedience is in the dignity of him who obeys. And the prevalence of intercession depends on the influence and glory of the intercessor. In each of these three offices the power of a mere man would reach but a little way. His pangs were next to useless, at best but martyrdom. His obedience were no more than payment of his own debt. And his prayers for others at the court of heaven might prove as inefficacious as those of Jeremiah or of Job or of Samuel. But add divinity, that is infinitude — and how does the mediatorial work tower above all reach of computation! ‘Now we see why the Messiah must be God. The divine nature becomes the golden altar, on which the human body and soul of Jesus is hiid, a spotless victim: and the ‘^ altar sanctiiieth the gift.” The obedience to law of the Son of God, born of a woman, made under the law, is such as honours that law more than all anoelic rectitude could do, and becomes such a righteousness as that by it “many may be made righteous.” And in the heavenly court what can resist the pleadings of God’s well beloved Son; whom the Father heareth alway? Such dignity is conferred uyon all these parts of the mediatorial work, that even those which are primarily transacted in the human nature, as all sufferins: and all obedience must be, are nevertheless regarded as divine, by reason of the intimate union of the divine and human natures. The Scriptures attribute to one what in strictness of speech belongs only to the other. Thus we are tauoht Acts 20. 28 “to feed the church of God, wdiich he hath purchased with his own blood.” And on the other hand the Son of Man John 3:18, is said to be then in heaven. Indeed it is so evident that divinity is necessary to propitiation and vicarious obedience, that as soon as a man gives up the proper divinity of Christ, lie gives up the atonement. Or, to sjDeak more ]3roj)erly, when lie has given up the atonement, he sees that he has abandoned all that made a divine nature necessary in Messiah, and so he denies any such divine nature. This is the pedigree of Unitarianism. The first step in this series of errors is the rejection of substitution, and of a proj)erly penal character in the sufferings of Christ. By a natural process this leads down to the gulf of Socinian unbelief. If the Mediator had not been God, there would have been no efficacy in his mediatorial work.

3. The satisfaction of divine Justice which is involved in every just notion of Atonement, demands something more than man. The wound inflicted by sin, on God’s declarative glory, was too dee]) to be healed by the holy life or temporary pain of the best of men, even though he were immaculate. There are teachers abroad, brethren, who will tell you, that there is no such satisfaction; that it was no part of Christ’s errand; and that in regard to pardoned sinners God’s justice is never satisfied. Paiclon is therefore an act of absolute divine sovereignty; and might as well, so far as appears, have followed the oblation of a lamb, as the oblation of Christ. According to our view, the oblation of Christ was necessary, because justice had been so signally insulted, that no reparation could be sufficient, but that which offered the covenanted humiliation of an infinite person; and to render this, God became man. 4 In carrying out the same glorious purpose, the Kedeemer procures God’s favour for his people, in his divine character, as Son of God; “to the praise of the glory of his grace, cfec.” He carries this point wdth a vehemence of triumphant authority and resistless right. 5 So als<j he arose from the struggle of his human sufferings as the Head of a countless retinue, all ransomed by his arm and bought to be his followers; inasmuch as “he gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and ])urify unto himself a people, zealous of good works.” Nor is he content with leading them; he reigns over them, subdues and holds in check ail their enemies, and abides their everlasting

Head. Sending down upon them by promise that Holy Spirit of God, whom we cannot for a moment conceive to be at the bidding of a glorified man, however exalted. In all these particulars we clearly perceive how truly it was requisite that the Mediator should be very God.

II. The text declares that Christ our Mediator is man: “Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.” It is unnecessary to prove that the word “flesh” in this passage is not taken in any one of those several New Testament acceptations, which involve the conception of sin. “In him was no sin.” Neither does it mean the human body alone; as if the Divine Nature had merely assumed a body, and been the sole animating principle of this body, without any human spirit. The Son of God took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. We seldom meet in our day, with any followers of those ancient heretics,* who denied the existence of a human soul in Christ. The tendency of the age is too much away from the spiritual and the

* Apollinarists, Bretscbneider, § 98.

mystical to favour this class of errors: the 023j)osite class is rife — those I mean which grow out of rationalism, which sink the divinity, and represent oui Mediator as man and only man. Nevertheless we must not allow extremes on this side to diive us from the important and indisyensable work of holding forth the Lord’s humanity. He is true and proper man, having taken the nature not of angels, but of the seed of Abraham. In this sense Paul declares him to have come of Israel “according to the flesh.” The phrase is delightfully illustrated by 1 Tim. 3: 16: “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh .... seen of angels:” as if even angels could see God only by means of incarnation. Again, “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” In Peter’s sermon at Pentecost Acts 2: 30 he quotes David of whom he says, “Being a proj)het, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins according: to jhe flesh — he would raise up Messiah to sit on his throne.” How unmeanino wouhl such words be (’ according t(j the flesh ‘)

if Messiah was to exist according to no other nature! But our present use of them is to illustrate the text, and affirm the human nature of Messiah. “The Word was made ilesh and dwelt among us.” Confident of your belief of this august doctrine, permit me to give a few reasons why it was requisite that our Mediator should be Man. 1 Great is the advantage my brethren of holding fast to the representative principle in religion. It is a key that opens many theological locks. All that Christ does as Mediator he does representatively. He acts as a public person. He transacts for many. This led him to become man. It is far too low a view of the subject to think of Christ as standino off at a distance and conferring benefits on man. No; in order to transact on man’s behalf, he becomes man. In this nature he makes the awful plunge into abysses of degradation and pain: in this nature he emerges, ascends and carries uj) our manhood in a glorious exaltation. The human nature sits in Christ Jesus on an eminence which could never havt* been reached, but by the incarnation. Christ must needs become man, if lie would exalt man’s nature. 2 In the progress of this unparalleled representative work, it was necessary that obedience should be rendered to Law. Here you have a second reason for the manhood of Christ. As God he could not be amenable — he could not obey. As a person, combining godhead and humanity, he could, and did, hold himself subject to the legal demands. “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” This active righteousness was accomplished by Christ, standing at the head of the vast column of believers, and for them; and consists in the totality of his holy principles, thoughts, feelings, purposes, words, works, and abstinences from evil.

3 But our thoughts become still more solemn when we consider the grand essential part of the Atonement, that is, the suffering of Christ. It was necessary that he should suffer; and yet exceyt in humanity he could not suffer. Strictly speaking, God can no more suffer, than he can cease to exist. If in certain j)afesages he is said to suffer, and to die, it is so said only ill the same sense in which he is said to shed his blood. God (need I say it) has no blood, except the blood of his assumed humanity, and God in like manner has no suffering, but the suffering of his assumed humanity. This humanity was assumed for the very reason that there could be no suffering without it. But when the humanity is assumed, and God and man united in one Person, theology attributes to the undivided person the acts and attributes of either nature; nay, even attributes to one nature the acts and attributes of the other nature. Gomr ‘inunicatio idiomatuon Hence we explain all ex]3ressions which ascribe suffering to Jehovah, who would cease to be Jehovah, the moment he ceased to be happy. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death.” For all the common purposes of daily Christian exj)erience we need no nice discriminations. Let us fix our eyes and hearts on the One adorable Person, Christ, suffering and dying for us.

THE T^V’O NATURES OF CHRIST. 79

4 Another reason is the ground afforded for the affectionate confidence of Christ’s people in troubles and temptations. He is Man, therefore he can feel with us! Who has not admitted it a hundred times! Sweet is his human name, Jesus! There are moments when it is the sweetest of his names: and when among his “many crowns” the loveliest is his human crown of thorns. As God, he could indeed approach us, but how could we approach him? This is the very door to the inner sanctuary. “For we have not a HiG:h Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” That ’ holy thing ’ which came of Israel, was our flesh and blood. He too was born of woman; he too was wearied, was wasted, was in tears and blood, was in tem^tation and death. In our hour of ano:uish it is of infinite consolation to resort to Christ’s wounded humanity, and to bear our sufferings under the recollection that he has borne the same.

5 The result of all these considerations is that Christ is not only a Lord and Saviour, “but “according to the flesh” an Elder Brother; and by this connexion we “receive the adoption of sons:” if sons, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Our language is his language, namely, Abba, Father! The throne of God becomes the throne of grace, when we behold there, seated in benignant power, one who is very man as well as very God. And our religious experience is incomplete, if we do not perpetually refresh our thoughts with views of the Lord Jesus Christ as a man.

III. But, as was said before, while we contemplate the divine nature and the human nature, as unconfased, and eternally distinct, we must equally contemplate the Lord our Saviour as one Christ, uniting both natures in One Person. There is a divine fitness and beauty in this. Not only are we kept from being distracted in our thoughts first in one direction and then in another, but we find a relief in knowing that here is a “Daysman betwixt us,” Job 9: 33, that may “lay his hand upon both.” The great work was to reconcile God and man: here is a glorious Person who is both God and man. God so looks on the undivided Person. God accepts the work belonging to each nature, as the work of the whole person — as the work not so much of God — or of man — as of Christ, at once God and man. We also should so look on the undivided Person; we should by faith behold and receive and trust in the works of each nature, as the works of one adorable Christ. I conceive it to be important to counsel all believers, and especially those who are young and simple-hearted, to beware of perplexing their minds with the high points pertaining to this subject. Look at Cheist. There x the eyes of your mind. Be not overmuch anxious to discern what belongs to one nature, and what to the other. Fix your contemplation on his Person. Behold him dying, behold him reigning. There is no danger of going astray, when in your common thoughts and prayers, your whole soul goes forth to a single undivided object — Christ.

Are you feeling for his support, and resting on his sympathies, as a man: you do well — lie is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Are you praying to him, as God. You do well — you do no more than dying Stephen, who said “Lord Jesus receire my Spirit:” for he is God over all, blessed for ever! — If you wish to have the grand secret of religion couched in a single maxim; if you would learn how to be reconciled and how to abide so; if you would be strengthened against temptation, if you would be holy and happy, take this rule: Look to Cheist! Just so much piety have you, as you have Christ in your thoughts. Lay it before your minds as the great Christian lesson of your lives, to study the person of Christ. Make it your delightful task, to become more and more acquainted with it. As you would diligently traverse a great domain, every part of which you were bound to know — so set yourself to expatiate over the character and personality of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Scriptures. Begin the New Testament and never stop reading it over and over, with this very thing in view, to learn more and more of the Lord. His own light will shine on his own glorious countenance, and as you read again and again, you will see its lineaments radiant with higher and higher illumination; each adorable feature will be more distinct and familiar; you will know it better; as the face of a friend of a brother of a Cheist (for all other words come short); you will feel the fleshly tablet of your heart receiving the rays from this ‘Shining in the face of Jesus;’ and as you feel the reflection of this Sun of righteousness, you will own an unwonted glow; beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord you will be changed into the same image. The work of inward assimilation is going on. As you hold the soul, by loving contemplation, in these beams, the pencil of heavenly light is drawing Christ’s image within you. The table of the heart is becoming his best and most cherished portrait. Desist not then from such study of his person as shall cause you, day by day, to be more reflective of his image.

It follows from this, that I consider the deliberate and perpetually increasing study of Christ’s person, in the New Testament, as the principal means of grace. If you Imow Christy you hiow emry thing. Here there can be no excess. You cannot by possibility, visit him too often, or love him too much. This daily endeavour to ^-s, your heart on the person of Christ, God and man, will regulate all your other experience. Never fear lest it make you a one-sided Christian It is the very means of symmetry. Because it is looking at the centralpoint of the painting. All other truths, as subordinate, will fall, of themselves, into their true relation. Open your bible every day, with the inquiry. What more can I this day learn of Christ? Try to live over the scenes of the type-prophecy of gospel history, with the eye always on him whom you love. Begin in Eternity. Proceed to Bethlehem — to Egypt — to Nazareth — to the Temple. Follow him, increasing in stature and in favor both with God and man. Mingle with the throng, and approach him, on the crowded highways, beside the lake, at Jordan, at the feasts. Join yourself to a more favored few, and penetrate to his miracles, to his sermons, to his transfiguration, to his pasdial supper, to his passion, resurrection and ascension. Follow him upwards, and remember him as “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday to day and forever.” As you do this; as you dwell on his peculiar traits; as you gain light on mysteries; as you perceive at one time his humanity, and at another time his godhead, most prominent; you will be disposed with Paul to add your loud response, to the declaration of the text, “Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed forever.” I say you will from a full heart add Amen!