Herman Witsius: Our Mediator Must Be Both God And Man

Had he been God only he could neither have been subject, nor have obeyed, nor have suffered: if mere man, his obedience, subjection, and suffering, would not have been of sufficient value for the redemption of the elect. Nay, a mere creature is so bound to fulfill all righteousness for itself, that its righteousness cannot be imputed and imparted to others: and should we suppose a man truly and perfectly holy, but yet a mere man, who, according to the law of love, offered himself even to die for his brother, he himself would doubtless obtain a reward by his righteousness; but could merit nothing for a guilty person, unless perhaps exemption from punishment at most. And therefore it behooved our Surety to be man, that he might be capable to submit, obey, and suffer; and at the same time God, that the subjection, obedience, and suffering, of this person God-man, might on account of his infinite dignity, be imputed to others, and be sufficient for saving all, to who it is imputed. 

Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man 2.4.20

Man’s Savior must be God and Man Hypostatically United (2)

The relation of the deity and humanity was resolved at the Council of Chalcedon (451), which taught one Christ in two natures united in one person, or u9postasiv (hypostasis – hence the term, Hypostatic), yet remaining, “without confusion, without conversion, without division, without separation.” This was later refined to mean that the human nature is enhypostatic, meaning that it subsists in and through the divine nature. Further, Chalcedon declared, there are two wills – a human and divine – in the one Christ. The Monotheletes, as the advocates of a single Divine will in Christ were called, were summarily confuted by Maximus the Confessor by his argument that a human being without a human will is a mere mental abstraction. If Christ had no human will, He would not be fully human and therefore could not represent Man before God.

In the treatment this subject received during the Reformation, some less careful writers focused on a union of two natures in which the human nature is assumed into the divine. This position verged on the interpenetration of natures Chalcedon had tried to avoid. They posited an interpenetration of natures; hence this Christology is perilously akin to the Eutychian scheme. The weakness of this system can be exposed in the following simple manner: Two substances cannot be mixed without losing the essence – or nature – of both. If we mix water and honey, for instance, the result is neither water nor honey, but a third substance. If the two natures in Christ were mixed in such a way, He would be neither God nor man, but a third, different kind of being. And as such, He could not mediate between God and Man.

The Calvinists on the other hand, began with the divine person, which assumed humanity. They saw a direct union between the natures, adding to the patristic conception of the communicatio idiomatum the concept of the communicatio operationum in which the properties of the two natures coincide in one person. So they could speak of an active commuion between the natures without teaching a doctrine of mutual interpenetration. The communicatio operationum adjusts patristic theology’s somewhat static way of speaking of the Hypostatic Union by seeing the person and the work of Christ in inseparable unity. In other words, the Incarnation and the Atonement are complimentary in essence.

Christ knew what He came to do and was always aware of His Divine identity. There have been many speculations about Christ’s self-consciousness. We can assert with certainty that Christ did at all times walk in full conscious awareness that He was God and man in one person. The Spirit was given to Him as a consequence of the personal union in a degree that no mere man could possess. This constituted the link between the deity and the humanity, continuously imparting the full consciousness of His personality, and making Him aware of His Divine Sonship at all times (Luke 2:49).

Christ came as the God-man to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Any attempt to water-down the deity of Christ or His full manhood destroys salvation. His sacrifice at Calvary was not primarily a demonstration of God’s love, as many are so wont to say. Rather, it was a demonstration of God’s holy wrath and hatred of sin. Unless God’s wrath against sin were actually poured out on Christ, His death was purposeless. Atonement must be made for sin; God’s justice must be satisfied; His honor must be vindicated. Christ’s death cannot be a demonstration of love unless it is a demonstration of hatred.

Here is the weakness of the “moral suasion” theology. Good examples are not salvific. Only actual atonement for actual guilt is sufficient. Unless someone from our race was placed, like Adam, as the federal head of the race, we could never have been redeemed. A mediator must be on equal footing with both concerned parties. Christ, as God and Man, can represent man before God and can represent Man before God. He can pay the debt mankind owed to God that only God could pay. There is a great deal of truth in these fine words of George Smeaton, “The whole application of redemption is not to be regarded as man dealing with God, but rather as the action of the God-man, in His capacity as His people’s representative dealing with the Father, and the Father dealing with the Son, according to the counsel of peace between them both, for man’s acceptance.”[1] In the final analysis, “salvation is of the LORD.”[2]

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[1] George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, pt.2 chap. 5.

[2] Jonah 2:9

Man’s Savior must be God and Man Hypostatically United (1)

There is a beauty to correct theology that is difficult to express. We may put it best by saying that it is a harmonious unity of parts. All portions connect to and mutually prove the others. If we surrender one point, we lose everything. Such is the case with our present topic. If we consider what sin is and what it means to make satisfaction for sins, we will see how the Hypostatic Union is the only live option. Conversely, if we reject the Hypostatic Union, we thereby either destroy all hope of salvation or reveal a secret commitment to the religion of Cain.

All creatures, by virtue of their creaturehood, owe to God, as their Creator and Sustainer, perfect conformity to His will. Sin, then, is nothing else than to not render to God His due. Every thought of a rational creature should be subject to God’s will. This is what man and angel owe to God. Everyone who does not do this, sins. When a person sins, he robs God of the honor of perfect obedience. Consequently, everyone who sins ought to pay back the honor of which he has robbed God. This is the satisfaction that every sinner owes to God. Moreover, the satisfaction should be proportionate to the guilt.

What payment would we make for our sins: Repentance, a broken and contrite heart, self-denial, various bodily sufferings, pity in giving and forgiving, and obedience? But what do we give God in all these things that we do not already owe Him as His creatures? Nothing. How will we then be saved?

If we suppose that our contrite heart and repentant feelings are enough to blot out our sin, this is only because we have not considered aright what the true nature and burden of sin is. In his classic work, Cur Deus Homo, Anselm of Canterbury asks: “If you should find yourself in the sight of God, and someone said to you: ‘Look over there;’ and God, on the other hand, should say: ‘It is not my will that you should look;’ ask your own heart what there is in all of existence which would make it right for you to give that look contrary to the will of God.[i] Of course, we would all answer that there is absolutely no motive that would make it right. Anselm continues by asking, “what if it were necessary either that the whole universe, except God himself, should perish and fall back into nothing, or else that you should do so small a thing against the will of God?”[ii] The deed, which seems so insignificant, when viewed as contrary to God’s will, becomes the worst deed imaginable.

This is precisely the case of man. In Adam we have all given the look God forbade. It is contrary to God’s honor that man be reconciled to Him while this reproach is still heaped upon God. Man still owes God the perfect obedience required of Adam before the Fall. But man is no longer capable of this because he is conceived in and born in sin. Man has a two-fold plight: His depravity makes him unable to render to God the obedience God demands, and he stands under the just wrath of God for this violation.

God must recover His right. Supreme justice cannot forego this. Therefore it is an absolute perversion of justice for man to receive from God what God designed to give him, unless he return to God everything which he took from him. But this cannot be achieved except in this way: In the fall of man all humanity was corrupted and tainted with sin. God will not choose one of this nature to fill up the number in his heavenly kingdom. But, if man gained this victory, as many men as are needed to complete the number which man was made to fill, could be justified from sin. But a sinner cannot do this: a sinner cannot justify a sinner. Only God can do what man needs done. But that serves no purpose, since God is the offended party. Man must pay what only God can afford. God cannot pay the debt owed to Himself. This is surely the mother of all quandaries and an enigma that only the mind of God could unravel.

Hence when we look at the state of fallen man in Original Sin, we see that no other solution will prevail but that which God has actually given in His Son, Jesus Christ. The only solution to this dilemma is if God could become a man, and, as a man could pay man’s debt to God. Enter Jesus Christ - very God and very man, hypostatically united as our Mediator!

One of the finest New Testament passages describing for us the Hypostatic Union is Luke 1:35:

kai; ajpokriqei;" oJ a[ggelo" ei\pen aujth'/, Pneu'ma a{gion ejpeleuvsetai ejpi; sev, kai; duvnami" uJyivstou ejpiskiavsei soi: dio; kai; to; gennwvmenon a{gion klhqhvsetai, uiJo;" qeou'.

And the angel answered and said unto her, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

These words contain a brief description of the supernatural conception. They not only show us that Christ’s humanity was sinless, but also that it was never in Adam’s covenant. The second clause more fully describes what is affirmed in the first clause. (We are all familiar with the exegetic rule that in corresponding members of this type the darker is to be explained by the clearer.) The significance of both clauses is this: The Holy Spirit was the former of Christ’s human nature; and that the Son by assuming it into personal union, made it His own by a right unique to Himself – that is, by a union that is personal and incommunicable to the other Persons of the Godhead.* It was united to Him in such a sense that it also (kai9) is the Son of God. That Holy Thing began to be at the conception of the Spirit.  And these words are important to refute those who dislike the idea that our Lord’s flesh was formed by the Spirit from Mary’s substance, and imagine to themselves a certain heavenly flesh brought with Him from above.

*(The words “of thee” (en sou~), deleted by many in the phrase, should probably be retained in the text. They are found in such a number of Fathers (Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Jerome) that the balance of authority from this source alone goes far to counterbalance the evidence of faulty manuscripts against them.)

There are two poles of error regarding the union of natures in Christ. There is the heresy of Nestorius - Nestorianism, the rejection of the “hypostatic union” meaning that Christ was two persons, one human and one divine. Nestorianism denies any union between the two natures, making Christ a split personality, in fact, a dual personality. Christ becomes something of a schizophrenic whose actions cannot be clearly attributed to His humanity or His deity.

Springing from the same source, the opposite error is Eutychianism, the heresy of Eutychus (d. 454). His doctrine that the incarnate Christ had only a single, divine nature, clad in human flesh is sometimes called monophysitism. Incumbent in the heresy of Eutychus is the denial that Christ’s flesh derived from the virgin Mary.

We can expose the fallacy of this thinking quite simply. Christ either did or did not take human flesh from Mary. If He did not take it from her, then we must inquire what manhood He put on when He came among us. If His flesh did not come from the seed of Abraham and David and finally of Mary, then we must show what man's flesh he descended from, since, after the first man, all human flesh is derived from human flesh. If we name anybody beside Mary the virgin as the cause of the conception of Christ Savior, we will have stamped deception on the Godhead for shifting to others the promise of the prophecies made to Abraham and David that from their seed salvation would arise for the world. On the other hand, if it was not a truly human body, the Godhead is likewise convicted of falsehood for displaying to men a body that was not real and thus deceiving those who thought it real. If it was not a truly human body, the result is in essence no different than Docetism. But if flesh had been formed new and real but not taken from man, what was the purpose of the whole drama of the conception? Where is the value of His passion? The error of Eutyches takes its rise from the same source as that of Nestorius. Therefore, it ends the same way: the human race has not been saved, since man who was dead in sin and needed salvation was not taken into Godhead.

Returning to our text we note that the words dio; kai indicate that there is both: an eternal generation, and a holy thing begotten - created when assumed and assumed when created. And the result is not two Persons, but one; for the holy thing to which Mary gave birth is also called the Son of God.

Therefore it is abundantly clear from Scripture that the Lord’s humanity was produced by the Holy Spirit in a supernatural way, which at once prevented the possibility of contracting guilt from Adam and which, by an act of infinite wisdom and power, put Him within the human family as a kinsman-Redeemer, and yet exempted Him from being in Adam’s covenant; for He was the second Adam, the Son of man.

The mother did not need an immaculate nature. The question, “How could pure humanity be derived from a defiled source which unanimously entails corruption on others?” is a difficulty that has confounded many: the Valentinians, the Anabaptists, the Quakers and some of the Plymouth Brethren on the one side, and the entire Church of Rome on the other. The sects named attempted to meet the difficulty by representing Mary as but a pipe or channel (swlh9n) through which a heavenly body or flesh, immediately created by the Holy Spirit, but not formed from her substance, was introduced into the world. But on this principle the Lord Jesus would belong to another order of beings and would not be our brother, born into our family[iii]. Redemption was only possible when affected by a goel, or kinsman-Redeemer.[iv]

The Romish church met this difficulty (in the Papal Bull of Dec. 10, 1854) by affirming the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary and her exemption from all taint of original sin before she was born. Of this theory, the presupposition (or, as the theologians express it, the prw~ton yeu~dov) can be nothing else but the theory of Flacius on the subject of original sin, viz., that sin had become the very essence of man. The theologians who confuted Flacius immediately saw that on such a supposition the Incarnation would have been impossible. They saw that human nature, corrupted as it was by the sin of Adam, was still, as a work of God, good, and was therefore capable of redemption. We can distinguish in idea between the good work of God and the vitiating taint superinduced upon it. We cannot separate these elements. God can do both – redeem His creature, and separate sin.

The following quotation (which I have posted here before) from Bishop Horsley’s sermons will serve to elucidate the position we have affirmed here: “Neither of the two natures was absorbed in the other, but both remained in themselves perfect, notwithstanding the union of the two in one person, the Divine Word, to which the humanity was united, was not, as some ancient heretics imagined, instead of a soul to inform the body of the man; for this could not have been without a diminution of the divinity, which upon this supposition must have become obnoxious to all the perturbations of the human soul, - to the passions of grief, fear, anger, pity, joy, hope, and disappointment, - to all which our Lord without sin was liable. The human nature in our Lord was complete in both its parts, consisting of a body and a rational soul. The rational soul of our Lord’s human nature was a distinct thing from the principle of divinity to which it was united; and being so distinct, like the souls of other men, it owed the right use of its faculties, in the exercise of them upon religious subjects, and its uncorrupted rectitude of will, to the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus indeed ‘was anointed with this holy oil above His fellows,’ inasmuch as the intercourse was uninterrupted, - the illumination by infinite degrees more full, and the consent and submission, on the part of the man, more perfect than in any of the sons of Adam; insomuch that He alone of all the human race, by the strength and light imparted from above, was exempt from sin, and rendered superior to temptation. To Him the Spirit was given not by measure. The unmeasured infusion of the Spirit into the Redeemer’s soul was NOT THE MEANS, BUT THE EFFECT, of its union to the second person of the Godhead. A union of which this had been the means had differed only in degree from that which is, in some degree, the privilege of every believer, - which, in an eminent degree, was the privilege of the apostles, who, by the visible descent of the Holy Ghost upon them on the day of Pentecost, were, in some sort, like the Lord, anointed with the unction from on high. But in Him the natures were united, and the uninterrupted perfect commerce of His human soul with the Divine Spirit was the effect and privilege of that mysterious conjunction.”[v]

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[i]Anselm, Cur Deus Homo

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Heb. 2:14

[iv] Ruth 2:20

[v] (Sermon IX) cited by Smeaton

Why Trichotomy is Wrong 3 B, The Errors It Spawns

Part 3B: Christological Heresies

Think of the impact Trichotomy would have, if consistently held, on our Christology. Orthodox Christianity has always affirmed the Hypostatic Union of Christ. This means that Christ is fully God and fully man - two distinct natures, not intermingled - by a mystery of divine wisdom hypostatically united in One Person. Christ is not a human person and a Divine Person sharing a body.

Try to square this with Trichotomy and you rush headlong into blasphemous heresy. You will end up trying to divide Christ in an Apollonarian way. Apollonarius taught that Christ was a human body that had the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, in the place of a normal human soul. If you do this, you must postulate two spiritual natures in Christ and you don't want to know where that will lead you. A human nature without a human soul is a non-entity. It is semantic nonsense. If Christ was not fully human, He could not have died for humans. His death is efficacious for the elect precisely because He is one of us. A human without a soul is not a human. Christ had to be human to atone for humans.

The simple fact is, there is no way to square Trichotomy with biblical Christology. Either you end up denying or downplaying Christ’s deity, His humanity or you create a schizophrenic Christ – each option as heretical and blasphemous as the others. Mention is made of Jesus’ soul being troubled in Matthew 26:38. In John 11:33 and 13:21, we read that His spirit was troubled. The same emotion is described in these three texts, again reaffirming what we claimed before about the interchangeable nature of these words. But try dealing with any of those passages from a Trichotomist view point and you head straight down the toilet theologically. There is no way to handle those passages from a Trichotomist view point without ending up in one of the Christological heresies of the first 4 centuries of Church history. 

A Christocentric Hermeneutic

In a previous post, we have discussed the importance of a Christocentric hermeneutic when dealing with the Old Testament. Christ tells us that He is the focus of everything in the Scriptures (by which He meant the Old Testament). For instance, when rebuking the unbelieving Jews said, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” John 5:39. Some might think that Christ didn’t refer to everything in the Old Testament. But, Christ dispels this misunderstanding in Luke 24:27 by expounding from Moses and the prophets the things concerning Himself. And lest that weren’t enough, a few verses later (v. 44-46), He opens their understanding to see Him in all the Scriptures of the Old Testament – dividing it into the three parts: Law, Prophets, and Psalms. I have noted it before, but it seems rather odd to many people today to think they can find Christ in the Psalms.

I said all that to say this: We greatly err when we do not see Christ as the focus of the Old Testament. If the story of Daniel serves only to teach our children in Sunday School to “dare to be a Daniel,” then we are in trouble. This is simply moralism or pietism: Law, not grace. If bravery is the moral of the story of David and Goliath, we are not better off than those without the Bible. The Old Testament becomes little more than a collection of fables, like Aesop’s, with a nice moral lesson attached. The great battles of the Old Testament, the marvelous adventures of the Patriarchs, the miraculous rescues of underdogs – these are not object lessons for us to teach our kids about kindness, bravery, cooperation, loyalty and friendship. They are shining examples of God’s faithfulness to His covenant promises. He preserved His elect people in the Old Testament in order to bring about the circumstances surrounding the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ and the salvation and preservation of His elect people in the New Testament.

Take the famine during the days of Jacob as exhibit A. Jacob and his family suffers from a famine. Meanwhile, Pharaoh in Egypt is prospering with the most abundant harvests he’s ever seen. Little does Jacob know that his son Joseph is in Egypt. Joseph has been passed off a dead by his jealous brothers. After having been sold as a slave and chastely resisting the seduction of his master’s wife, he is thrown in prison. God uses this to make Joseph a special favorite of Pharaoh. Was this merely a lesson on long-suffering for Jacob and/or Joseph? Not at all. These circumstances conspire to bring Jacob down to Egypt. Jacob dies, leaving his whole family there. All this make way for the future miracles of the glorious exodus which is a type of our spiritual deliverance wrought by Christ.

I hope everyone can see how much more profound this view of the Old Testament is than the view that turns all the stories into cute little object lessons.

Notable Quotes 3

There are phrases and title used in regard to Himself which argue that He was conscious of a quite uniquw relation to the world, or, more strictly, to a flock or people whom He acknowledges as His. Of these expressions we shall adduce a few. The terms commonly used in the doctrinal discussions of the atonement, and are drawn from Bible phraseology, such as SURETY, MEDIATOR, HIGH PRIEST, ADVOCATE - all representing Him as our substitute, who appears in the presence of God for us, and conducts our cause, - are not indeed found in the Lord's own words descriptive of Himself. But, beyond question, the thing is there; and He acts as fully conscious that, except through Himself, as Mediator, God could have no intercourse with man, nor man with God. He understands and consults the bests interests of His people in every respect: He took flesh, and knows the infirmities of human nature by personal experience, that He may sympathize with their condition, and compassionately conduct their concerns: He was lawfully called and appointed to that function. And not only so: the sacrificial languagee, which we find Him so frequently usinf, impies a Priest, though He does not expressly appropriate the term.

These title, both numerous and various, imply that He had a relation to manking which is unique; that He stood between God and man; that He was not an individual unit of the race, as all negative theology represents Him; but acting in a representative capacity for it. He assumes a position that no one but Himself could dare to occupy. Thus when He calls Himself THE WAY, in saying, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John xiv.6), He is the exclusive Way; not only paving the way for others, but constituting, in His own person and the work the only way by which any could have access to God. That this is the meaning is evident from the subjoined words, "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Could Christ affirm this of Himself, if He were nothing more than a teacher, an example, or a merely human founder of a new religion? Certainly not.

George Smeaton, Christ's Doctrine of the Atonement, pg 51& 52

Christ's Pre-Incarnate Glory, Pt 5, by John Flavel

2. Use of Exhortation

1. To saints: If Christ lay eternally in this bosom of love, and yet was content to forsake and leave it for your sakes; then,

(1.) Be you ready to forsake and leave all the comforts you have on earth for Christ: famous Galleacius left all for this enjoyment. Moses left all the glory of Egypt: Peter, and the other Apostles left all, Luke 18: 28. But what have we to leave for Christ in comparison of what he left for us? Surely Christ is the highest pattern of self-denial in the world.

(2.) Let this confirm your faith in prayer: If he, that has such an interest in the heart of God, intercede with the Father for you, then never doubt of audience and acceptance with him; surely you shall be accepted through the beloved, Eph. 1: 6. Christ was never denied any thing that he asked, John 11: 42. The Father hears him always; though you are not worthy, Christ is, and he ever lives to make intercession for you, Heb. 7: 25.

(3.) Let this encourage thy heart, O saint, in a dying hour, and not only make thee patient in death, but in a holy manner impatient till thou be gone; for whither is thy soul now going, but to that bosom of love whence Christ came? John 17: 24. “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am:” and where is he but in that bosom of glory and love where he lay before the world was? ver. 5. O then let every believer encourage his soul; comfort ye one another with these words, I am leaving the bosom of a creature, I am going to the bosom of God.

2. To sinners, exhorting them to embrace the bosom-son of God: Poor Wretches! Whatever you are, or have been; whatever guilt or discouragement at present you lie under; embrace Christ, who is freely offered to you, and you shall be as dear to God as the holiest and most eminent believer in the world: but if you still continue to despise and neglect such a Saviour, sorer wrath is treasured up for you than other sinners, even something worse than dying without mercy, Heb. 10: 28. O that these discoveries and overtures of Christ may never come to such a fatal issue with any of your souls, in whose eyes his glory has been this day opened!

Christ's Pre-Incarnate Glory, Pt 4, by John Flavel

Use of Information.

Inference 1.

What an astonishing act of love was this then, for the Father to give the delight, the darling, of his soul, out of his very bosom, for poor sinners! all tongues must needs pause and falter, that attempt the expressions of his grace, expressions being here swallowed up: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,” John 3: 16. Here is a “sic” without a “sicut”; so loved them: how did he love them? nay, here you must excuse the tongues of angels; which of us would deliver a child, the child of our delights, an only child, to death for the greatest inheritance in the world? what tender parent can endure a parting pull with such a child? when Hagar was taking her last leave (as she thought) of her Ishmael, Gen. 21: 16. the text saith, “she went and sat over against him, a good way off: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over-against him, and lift up her voice, and wept:” though she were none of the best of mothers, nor he the best of children, yet she could not give up the child. O it was hard to part! what an outcry did David make, even for an Absalom! wishing he had died for him. What a hole (as I may say) has the death of some children made in the hearts of some parents, which will never be closed up in this world! yet surely, never did any child lie so close to a parent’s heart, as Christ did to his Father’s; and yet he willingly parts with him, though his only one, the Son of his delights, and that to death, a cursed death, for sinners, for the worst of sinners. O miranda Dei philanthropic! O the admirable love of God to men! matchless love! a love past finding out! Let all men, therefore, in the business of their redemption, give equal glory to the Father with the Son, John 5: 23. If the Father had not loved thee, he had never parted with such a Son for thee.

Inference 2.

From one wonder let our souls turn to another, for they are now in the midst of wonders: adore, and be forever astonished at the love of Jesus Christ to poor sinners; that ever he should consent to leave such a bosom, and the ineffable delights that were there, for such poor worms as we are. O the heights, depths, lengths, and breadths of unmeasurable love! O see, Rom. 5: 6, 7, 8. Read, and wonder; how is the love of Christ commended in ravishing circumstances to poor sinners! You would be loth to leave a creature’s bosom, a comfortable dwelling, a fair estate for the best friend in the world; your souls are loth to leave their bodies, though they have no such great content there; but which of you, if ever you found by experience what it is to be in the bosom of God by divine communion, would be persuaded to leave such a bosom for all the good that is in the world? And yet Jesus Christ who was embraced in that bosom after another manner than ever you were acquainted with, freely left it, and laid down the glory and riches he enjoyed there, for your sakes; and as the Father loved him; even so (believers) has he loved you, John 17: 22. What manner of love is this! Who ever loved as Christ loves? Who ever denied himself for Christ, as Christ denied himself for us?

Inference 3.

Hence we are informed, That interest in Jesus Christ is the true way to all spiritual preferment in heaven. Do you covet to be in the heart, in the favour and delight of God? Get interest in Jesus Christ, and you shall presently be there. What old Israel said of the children of his beloved Joseph, Thy children are my children; the same God saith of all the dear children of Christ, Gen. 48: 5, 9. You see among men, all things are carried by interest: persons rise in this world as they are befriended; preferment goes by favour: So it is in heaven, persons are preferred according to their interest in the beloved, Eph. 1: 9. Christ is the great favourite in heaven: his image upon your souls and his name in your prayers, makes both accepted with God.

Inference 4.

How worthy is Jesus Christ of all our love and delights? You see how infinitely the Father delighteth in him, how he ravishes the heart of God; and shall he not ravish our hearts? I present you a Christ this day, able to ravish any soul that will but view and consider him. O that you did but see this lovely Lord Jesus Christ! Then would you go home sick of love: surely he is a drawing Saviour, John 12: 32. Why do ye lavish away your precious affections upon vanity: None but Christ is worthy of them: when you spend your precious affections upon other objects, what is it but to dig for dross with golden mattocks? The Lord direct our hearts into the love Of Christ. O that our hearts, loves and delights did meet and concentre with the heart of God in this most blessed object! O let him that left God’s bosom for you, be embosomed by you, though yours be nothing to God’s; he that left God’s bosom for you, deserves yours.

Inference 5.

If Christ be the beloved darling of the Father’s soul, think what a grievous and insufferable thing it is to the heart of God, to see his dear Son despised, slighted, and rejected by sinners: verily, there is no such cut to the heart of God in the whole world. Unbelievers trample upon God’s darling, tread under foot him that eternally lay in his bosom, Heb. 10: 29. Smite the Apple of his eye, and how God will bear this, that parable, Mat. 21: 37, to 40, will inform you, surely he will miserably destroy such wretched sinners. If you would study to do God the greatest despight, there is none like this. What a dismal word is that; 1 Cor. 16: 22. “If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha,” (i. e.) let the great curse of God lie upon that man till the Lord come. O sinners! you shall one day know the price of this sin; you shall feel what it is to despise a Jesus, that is able to compel love from the hardest heart. O that you would slight him no more! O that this day your hearts might fall in love with him! I tell you, if you would set your love to sale, none bids so fair for it as Christ.

Christ's Pre-Incarnate Glory, Pt 3, by John Flavel

2. Let us consider it positively, what it was, and guess by some particular considerations (for indeed we can but guess) at the glory of it; as,

(1.) We cannot but conceive it to be a state of matchless happiness, if we consider the persons enjoying and delighting in each other: he was with God, John 1: 1. God, you know, is the fountain, ocean and centre of all delights and joys: Psal. 16: 11, “In thy presence is fulness of joy.” To be wrapt up in the soul and bosom of all delights, as Christ was, must needs be a state transcending apprehension; to have the fountain of love and delight letting out itself so immediately, and fully, and ever lastingly, upon this only begotten darling of his soul, so as it never did communicate itself to any; judge what a state of transcendent felicity this must be. Great persons have great delights.

(2.) Or if we consider the intimacy, dearness, yea, oneness of those great persons one with another: the nearer the union, the sweeter the communion. Now Jesus Christ was not only near and dear to God, but one with him; I and my Father are one,” John 10: 30, one in nature, will, love and delight. There is indeed a moral union of souls among men by love, but this was a natural oneness, no child is so one with his father, no husband so one with the wife of his bosom, no friend so one with his friend, no soul so one with its body, as Jesus Christ and his Father were one. O what matchless delights must necessarily flow from such a blessed union!

(3.) Consider again the purity of that delight with which the blessed Father and Son embraced each other; the best creature delights one in another, are mixed, debased, and allayed; if there be something ravishing and engaging, there is also something cloying and distasting. The purer any delight is, the more excellent. Now, there are no crystal streams flowing so purely from the fountain, no beams of light so unmixed from the sun, as the loves and delights of these holy and glorious persons were: the holy, holy, holy Father embraced the thrice holy Son with a most holy delight and love.

(4.) Consider the constancy of this delight; it was from everlasting, as in verse 23, and from eternity; it never suffered one moment’s interruption. The overflowing fountain of God’s delight and love never stopped its course, never ebbed; but as he speaks in the text, “I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.” Once more, consider the fulness at that delight, the perfection of that pleasure; I was delights: so the word is in its original; not only plural, delights, all delights, but also in the abstract, delight itself: as afterwards from the abundance of his sorrows, he was stiled, a man of sorrows, so here, from the fulness of his delights: as though you should say, even constituted and made up of pleasure and delight.

3. Once more, let us consider it comparatively, and this state still yet appear more glorious, comparing it with either the choicest delights that one creature takes in another, or that God takes in the creature, or that the creatures take in God: measure these immense delights, betwixt the Father and his Son, by either of these lines, and you shall find them infinitely short: For,

(1.) Though the delights that creatures take in each other, be sometimes a great delight; such was Jacob’s delight in Benjamin, whose life is said to be bound up in the lad’s life, a dear and high expression, Gen. 44: 30. Such was that of Jonathan in David, whose soul was knit with his soul, “and he loved him as his own soul,” 1 Sam. 13: 1, and such is the delight of one friend in another: “there is a friend that is as a man’s own soul,” Deut. 13: 6, yet all this is but creature-delight, and can in no particular equal the delights betwixt the Father and the Son; for this is but a finite delight, according to the measure and abilities of creatures, but that is infinite, suitable to the infinite perfection of the divine Being; this is always mixed, that perfectly pure.

(2.) Or if you compare it with the delight that God takes in the creatures, it is confessed that God takes great delight in some creatures. “The Lord takes pleasure in his saints, he rejoices over them with singing! and resteth in his love,” Zeph. 3: 17; Isa. 62: 5. But yet there is a great difference betwixt his delight in creatures, and his delights in Christ; for all his delight in the saints is secondary, and for Christ’s sake; but his delights in Christ are primary, and for his own sake: we are accepted in the beloved, Eph. 1: 6, he is beloved, and accepted for himself.

(3.) To conclude, compare it once more with the delights that the best of creatures take in God, and Christ, and it must be confessed that is a choice delight, and a transcendent love, with which they love and delight in him; Psal. 73: 25. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and on earth there is none I desire besides thee.” What pangs of love, what raptures of delight did the spouse express to Christ? “O thou whom my soul loveth!” But surely our delight in God is no perfect rule to measure his delight in Christ by: for our love to God (at the best) is still imperfect; that is the burden and constant complaint of saints, but this is perfect; ours is inconstant, up and down, ebbing and flowing, but this is constant. So then, to conclude, the condition and state of Jesus Christ before his incarnation, was a state of the highest and matchless delight, in the enjoyment of his Father.

Christ's Pre-Incarnate Glory, Pt 2, by John Flavel

Now to sketch out (as we are able) the unspeakable felicity of that state of Christ, whilst he lay in that blessed bosom, I shall consider it three ways, negatively, positively, and comparatively.

1. Let us consider that state negatively, by removing from it all those degrees of abasement and sorrow which his incarnation brought him under: as,

First, He was not then abased to the condition of a creature, which was a low step indeed, and that which upon the matter undid him in point of reputation; for by this (saith the apostle) “he made himself of no reputation,” Phil. 2: 7, it emptied him of his glory. For God to be made man, is such an abasement as none can express: but then not only to appear in true flesh, but also in the likeness of sinful flesh, as. Rom. 8: 3. O what is this!

Secondly, Christ was not under the law in this estate. I confess it was no disparagement to Adam in the state of innocence, to angels in their state of glory, to be under law to God; but it was an inconceivable abasement to the absolute independent Being to come under law: yea, not only under the obedience, but also under the malediction and curse of the law, Gal. 4: 4. “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”

Thirdly, In this state he was not liable to any of those sorrowful consequent and attendants of that frail and feeble state of humanity, which he afterwards assumed, with the nature. As,

(1.) He was unacquainted with griefs; there was no sorrowing or sighing in that bosom where he lay, though afterwards he became a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” Isa. 53: 3. “A man of sorrows,” as if he had been constituted and made up of pure and unmixed sorrows; every day conversing with griefs, as with his intimate companions and acquaintance.

(2.) He was never pinched with poverty and wants, while he continued in that bosom, as he was afterwards, when he said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has not where to lay his head,” Matth. 8: 20. Ah blessed Jesus! thou needest not to have wanted a place to have lain thine head, hadst thou not left that bosom for my sake.

(3.) He never underwent reproach and shame in that bosom, there was nothing but glory and honour reflected upon him by his Father, though afterwards he was despised, and rejected of men, Isa 53: 3. His Father never looked upon him without smiles and love, delight and joy, though afterwards he became a reproach of men, and despised of the people, Psalm 22: 6.

(4.) His holy heart was never offended with an impure suggestion or temptation of the Devil; all the while he lay in that bosom of peace and love, he never knew what it was to be assaulted with temptations to be besieged and battered upon by unclean spirits, as he did afterwards, Mat. 4: 1, “Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.” It was for our sakes that he submitted to those exercises of spirit, “to be in all points tempted like as we are, that he might be unto us a merciful and faithful high-priest, Heb. 4: 15.

(5.) He was never sensible of pains and tortures in soul or body, there were no such things in that blessed bosom where he lay, though afterwards he groaned and sweat under them, Isa. 53: 5. The Lord embraced him from eternity, but never wounded him till he stood in our place and room

(6.) There were no hidings or withdrawings of his Father from him; there was not a cloud from eternity upon the face of God, till Jesus Christ had left that bosom. It was a new thing to Christ to see frowns in the face of his Father; a new thing for him to cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Mat. 27:46.

(7.) There were never any impressions of his Fathers wrath upon him, as there were afterwards: God never delivered such a bitter cup into his hands before, as that was, Matth. 26: 39. Lastly, There was no death, to which he was subject, in that bosom. All these things were new things to Christ; he was above them all, till for our sakes he voluntarily subjected himself unto them. Thus you see what that state was not.

Christ's Pre-Incarnate Glory, Pt 1, by John Flavel

Proverbs 8:30

Then I was by him, [as] one brought up [with him]: and I was daily [his] delight, rejoicing always before him;

These words are a part of that excellent commendation of wisdom, by which in this book Solomon intends two things; first, Grace or holiness, Prov 4: 7. ” Wisdom is the principal thing.” Secondly, Jesus Christ, the fountain of that grace: and look, as the former is renowned for its excellency, Job 28: 14, 15, so the latter, in this context, wherein the Spirit of God describes the most blessed state of Jesus Christ, the wisdom of the Father, from those eternal delights he had with his Father, before his assumption of our nature: “Then was I by him,” &c. that long Evum was wholly swallowed up, and spent in unspeakable delights and pleasures. Which delights were twofold,

(1.) The Father and Son delighted one in another (from which delights the Spirit is not here excluded) without communicating that their joy to any other, for no creature did then exist save in the mind of God, verse 30.

(2.) They delighted in the salvation of men, in the prospect of that work, though not yet extant, verse 31. My present business lies in the former, viz. the mutual delights of the Father and Son, one with and in another; the account whereof we have in the text; wherein consider,

1. The glorious condition of the non-incarnated Son of God, described by the person with whom his fellowship was, “Then was I by him,” or with him; so with him as never was any, in his very bosom, John 1: 18, the only begotten Son was in the bosom of the Father, an expression of the greatest dearness and intimacy in the world; as if he should say, wrapt up in the very soul of his Father, embosomed in God.

2. This fellowship is illustrated by a metaphor, wherein the Lord will stoop to our capacities, (as “One brought up with him”), the Hebrew word “amon” is sometimes rendered a cunning workman, or curious artist, as in Cant. 7: 1, which is the same word. And indeed Christ shewed himself such an artist in the creation of the world; “For all things were made by him, and without him there was nothing made, that was made,” John 1: 3. But Montanus, and others, render it nutricius; and so Christ is here compared to a delightful child, spotting before its Father: the Hebrew root “shachak”, which our translation renders “rejoicing before him,” signifies to laugh, play, or rejoice; so that, look as parents delight to see their children sporting before them, so did the Father delight in beholding this darling of his bosom.

3. This delight is farther amplified by the perpetuity, and uninterruptedness thereof; “I was day by day his delight, rejoicing always before him.” These delights of the Father and the Son one in another, knew not a moment’s interruption, or diminution: thus did these great and glorious persons mutually let forth their fullest pleasure and delight, each into the heart of the other; they lay as it were embosomed one in another, entertaining themselves with delights and pleasures ineffable, and inconceivable. Hence we observe,

Doctrine: That the condition and state of Jesus Christ before his incarnation, was a state of the highest and most unspeakable delight and pleasure, in the enjoyment of his Father.

John tells us he was in the bosom of his Father: to lie in the bosom is the posture of dearest love, John 13: 23. “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved:” but Christ did not lean upon the Father’s bosom, as that disciple did in his, but lay in it: and therefore in Isa. 42: 1, the Father calls him, “Mine elect in whom my soul delighteth;” which is variously rendered; the Septuagint, quem suscepit, whom my soul takes, or wraps up: others, complacuit, one that highly pleases and delights my very soul: and 2 Cor. 8: 9, he is said, in this estate, wherein I am now describing him, to be rich: and, Phil. 2: 7. “To be equal with God, and to be in the form of God,” (i. e.) to have all the glory and ensigns of the majesty of God; and the riches which he speaks of, was no less than all that God the Father has, John 16: 14. “All that the Father has is mine:” and what he now has in his exalted state, is the same he had before his humiliation, John 17: 5.

Christology Quiz Answers

All eight of yesterday's statements were heretical. They are all false.

The orthodox formula is that Jesus is one Person in two natures.

The Athanasian Creed states, "For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of the substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ."

The Belgic Confession words it: "the person of the Son has been inseparably united and joined together with human nature, in such a way that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures united in a single person, with each nature retaining its own distinct properties. Thus his divine nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life, filling heaven and earth."

Christology Quiz

Which of the following statements, if any, are orthodox; or which of the following statements, if any, are heretical?

1. The Son of God, the Second member of the Trinity, in the Incarnation, stopped being God for a time and became man for a time.

2. The Son of God took on the form of a man, but was not really a man.

3. The Son of God, the Second member of the Trinity, laid aside some of His attributes for a time and became man for a time.

4. Jesus was simply a common man when He was born and was later glorified by the Father and adopted as God.

5. In Christ there two persons: a human person and a Divine Person.

6. Christ was neither God nor man, but a special combination of both at the same time.

7. Jesus was a human person and the Divine Son of God, the Second member of the Trinity became His soul.

8. In the Incarnation, God was specially formed in the womb of Mary as the man Jesus Christ.