THE NATURE OF THE REDEEMER'S HUMANITY
The wisdom, love, and grace of God as revealed in the
incarnation of his dear Son.
To glorify his dear Son has from all eternity been the
purpose of the Father; and both in the plan and in the execution has he
manifested the depths of his infinite wisdom, power, and love. That the
eternal Son of God should take into intimate and indissoluble union with his
divine Person the flesh and the blood of the children, that in that nature
he might manifest the riches of the sovereign grace, the heights and depths
of the everlasting love, and the fullness of the uncreated glory of a Triune
Jehovah, has been from all eternity the determinate counsel and purpose of
the great and glorious self-existent I AM; and all creation, all providence,
and all events and circumstances of time and space were originally and
definitely arranged to carry into execution this original plan.
Creation, with all its wonders of power and wisdom, was
not necessary either for the happiness or the glory of the self-existent
Jehovah. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had, from all eternity, that holy,
intimate union and intercommunion with each other, that mutual love and
ineffable fellowship of three distinct Persons and yet but one God, which
creation could neither augment nor impair. Time, with all its incidents, is
but a moment; space, with all its dimensions, is but a speck, compared with
the existence of a God who inhabits eternity, and therefore fills all time
and all space. That a self-existent God should be amply sufficient for his
own happiness and his own glory is a truth as self-evident to a believing
heart as the very existence of God himself.
But it pleased the sacred Triune Jehovah that there
should be an external manifestation of his heavenly glory; and this was to
be accomplished by the incarnation of the Son of God, the second Person of
the holy Trinity. The Father, therefore, prepared him a body, which in due
time he would assume. Thus addressing his heavenly Father, he says, "A body
have you prepared me." (Heb. 10:5.) That he would take this prepared body
into union with his divine Person was the eternal will of God; so that when
the appointed time arrived for the decree to be accomplished, the eternal
Son could and did come forth from the bosom of the Father with these words
upon his lips, "Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me
(the volume of God's eternal decrees), to do your will, O God." (Heb. 10:7.)
Now, the word of truth declares that "God manifest in the
flesh" is "the great mystery of godliness." (1 Tim. 3:16.) Therefore,
without an experimental knowledge of this great mystery there can be no
godliness in heart, lip, or life; and if no godliness no salvation, unless
we mean to open the gates of bliss to the ungodly, who "shall not stand in
the judgment;" (Psalm 1:5;) and to count for nothing that "ungodliness"
against which "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." (Rom. 1:18.) It is
the truth, "the truth as it is in Jesus," which alone "makes free;" and it
is the truth, "the truth as it is in Jesus," which alone sanctifies as well
as liberates, "Sanctify them through your truth; your word is truth." (John
17:17.)
How important, then, how all-essential to know the truth
for ourselves, in our own hearts and consciences, by divine teaching and
divine testimony, that, set free from bondage, darkness, ignorance, and
error, liberated into the blessed enjoyment of the love and mercy of God,
and sanctified by his Spirit and grace, we may walk before him in the light
of his countenance. And as in the Person of the incarnate Son of God "are
hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," how blessed is it to look
up by faith to him at the right hand of the Father, and to receive out of
his fullness those communications of wisdom and grace which not only
enlighten us with the light of the living, but cause us to be partakers of
his holiness, and thus make us fit for the inheritance of the saints in
light.
As thus taught and blessed, we desire to approach this
solemn subject, and to look with the eyes of an enlightened understanding
and of a believing heart at the mystery of an incarnate God. And if Moses at
God's command put off his shoes from off his feet, when he looked at the
burning bush, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground, (Exod. 3:5,)
much more should we, when we look on the mystery of God made manifest in the
flesh, of which the burning bush was but a type, put off the shoes of carnal
reason from off our feet.
The nature of that sacred humanity which the blessed Lord
assumed in the execution of this wondrous plan.
The sacred humanity of the blessed Lord consists of a
perfect human body and a perfect human soul, taken at one and the same
instant in the womb of the Virgin Mary, under the overshadowing operation
and influence of the Holy Spirit. This is very evident from the language of
the angel to the Virgin—"The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow you therefore, also, that holy thing which
shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35.)
i. The first thing to be borne in mind is, that it was a
real and substantial human nature, consisting of a real
human body and a real human soul, both of which were assumed at one and the
same instant in the womb of the Virgin. It was necessary that the same
nature should be taken which had sinned, or there could have been no
redemption or reconciliation of that nature, or of those that wore that
nature. Thus the apostle argues, "For verily he took not on him the nature
of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham;" (Heb. 2:16;) implying,
that if fallen angels had to be redeemed and reconciled, the Son of God must
have taken angelic nature; but as man had to be redeemed, he assumed human
nature. It was not, then, a shadowy form which the son of God assumed in the
womb of the Virgin, as he had appeared in human shape before his incarnation
to Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, Manoah and his wife, but a real human nature, as
real and as substantial as our own. Thus the Son of God "took upon him the
form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men;" (Phil. 2:7;) "The
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" (John 1:14;) "God sent his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh;" (Rom. 8:3;) "Forasmuch as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the
same." (Heb. 2:14.) These Scripture testimonies abundantly show that the Son
of God assumed a real human nature, but not a fallen, peccable, mortal
nature. He was "made flesh," therefore real flesh; "in the
likeness of sinful flesh," therefore not in the reality of sinful
flesh. He took flesh of the Virgin, or he could not have been the promised
"seed of the woman," which was to bruise the serpent's head; (Gen 3:15;) or
of "the seed of Abraham," to which the promise was especially made, (Gal.
3:16,) and from whom the Virgin Mary was lineally descended. And this nature
he so assumed, or to use a scriptural expression, so "took hold of," (Heb.
2:16, marg.,) that it became his own nature as much as his divine
nature is his own. It was not assumed, as a garment, to be laid aside after
redemption's work was done, but was taken into indissoluble union with his
divine Person. Nor did his death on the cross dissolve this union, for
though body and soul were parted, and his immortal, incorruptible body lay
in the grave, his soul was in paradise, in indissoluble union with his
Deity. Thus, as each of us is really and truly man, by human nature being so
personally and individually appropriated by us as our own subsistence, that
it is as much ours as if there were no other partaker of it on earth but
ourselves; so the Son of God, by assuming that nature which is common to all
men, (therefore called "the flesh and blood of the children,") made it his
own as much as ours is our own nature. He is, therefore, really and truly
"the man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5.)
ii. The next thing to be believed in and held fast is,
that this humanity was not a person, but a nature. This point may
not seem at the first glance of deep and signal importance; but as all God's
ways and works are stamped with infinite wisdom, it will be seen, on deeper
reflection, that it involves matters of the greatest magnitude—of the
richest grace and the highest glory. For look at the consequences which
would necessarily follow, were the sacred humanity of our blessed Lord a
person and not a nature. Were it a person, the Lord Jesus Christ would be
two Persons, one Person as God, and another Person as man, and thus would be
two distinct individuals. But being a nature, which had of itself no
distinct individuality, but was assumed at the very instant of its
conception into union with his divine Person, the Lord Jesus is still but
one Person, though he possesses two distinct natures. The angel, therefore,
called it "that holy thing"—that is, that holy nature, that holy
flesh, that holy substance—a "thing," because it had a real substance,
"holy," because not begotten by natural generation, but sanctified in the
moment of conception by the Holy Spirit, so as to be intrinsically holy,
impeccable, immortal—capable of dying, but not tainted with the seeds of
sickness or death. It was not a body like ours, "shaped in iniquity and
conceived in sin;" (Psalm 51:5;) but was begotten by a divine and
supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, and was therefore "holy," not
relatively, and partially, as we, but really, thoroughly, and intrinsically
holy; "harmless," or as the word might be rendered, "free from all ill;"
"undefiled" with any taint of corruption in body or soul, original or
actual, in any seed, inclination, desire, feeling, or movement of or toward
it; "separate from sinners" in its conception and formation, in every
thought, word, or deed, so that it was as separate from sin, and sin as
separate from it, when on earth as it is now in the presence of God; "and
made higher than the heavens," by the exaltation of that human nature to the
throne of glory; higher than the visible heavens, for what is the glory of
sun, moon, or stars to the glory of the sacred humanity of Christ in the
courts of heaven? and higher too than the invisible heavens, for in his
human nature as the God-man, he is exalted far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in
this world, but also in that which is to come. (Rom. 7:26; Eph. 1:20-22.)
Among the heresies and errors which pestered the early
church, was the Nestorian heresy, which asserted that Christ's human nature
was a Person, and thus made two persons in the Lord, and the Eutychian,
which declared that there was but one nature, the humanity of Christ being
absorbed into his divinity. Against both these errors the Athanasian Creed,
that sound and admirable compendium and bulwark of divine truth, draws its
two-edged sword. "Who, although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but
one Christ; one not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking
the 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 Nestorian heresy is cut to pieces by the declaration
that "he is not two," (that is, persons,) but one Christ; and the
Eutychian by the words, "one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but
by unity of person."
But consider the BLESSINGS that are connected with and
flow out of this heavenly truth. The glory and beauty of this mystery, it is
true, can only be seen and known by faith; for faith, as "the substance of
things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," alone gives to these
divine realities a substantial existence in the believer's heart. But
looking by faith into this heavenly mystery, we may see in the two points we
have thus far touched upon signal beauty and blessedness.
The human nature which the blessed Lord assumed into
union with his divine Person hungered, thirsted, was weary, wept, sighed,
groaned, sweat drops of blood, agonized in the garden and on the cross, was
tried, deserted, tempted, buffeted, spit upon, crucified, and, by a
voluntary act, died. Had it not been a real human nature, the sufferings and
sorrows of the holy soul, the pains and agonies of the sacred body, the
obedience rendered, the blood shed, the sacrifice offered, the life laid
down would not have been real, at least not really endured and offered in
that very nature which was to be redeemed and reconciled. This is
beautifully unfolded by the apostle—"Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus
to be in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could
be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. He then could offer a
sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since he himself has
gone through suffering and temptation, he is able to help us when we are
being tempted." (Heb. 2:17, 18.)
But again, were the human nature of our blessed Lord a
Person, its acts would have been personally distinct, and the virtue and
validity of Deity would not have been stamped upon them. We may thus
illustrate the distinction between a nature and a person. Man and wife are
mystically by marriage one flesh, but they still remain two distinct
persons. Their acts, therefore, as persons, are individually distinct, and
each is morally and really responsible for his or her individual actions.
But were they so incorporated, like a grafted tree, as to become two natures
and only one person, then the acts of the weaker nature, assuming for the
moment that the female is the weaker, being the acts of one and the same
person, would be stamped with all the strength and power of the stronger.
Thus it is with the two natures of our blessed Lord. The
human nature, though essentially and intrinsically holy, impeccable,
incorruptible, and immortal, being the weaker and inferior nature, yet
becomes stamped with all the worth, virtue, and validity of the divine
nature, because though there are two natures there is but one Person. Thus
the grand, vital truth of the two natures yet but one Person of the glorious
Immanuel is no mere dry or abstract doctrine, no speculative theory spun out
of the brains of ancient fathers and learned theologians, but a blessed
revelation of the wisdom and grace of God.
iii. But much beauty and heavenly glory are wrapped up
in the way in which that humanity was assumed. In the forming of this
holy humanity we see the three Persons of the blessed Trinity engaged. The
Father prepared the body, the Son assumed it, the Holy Spirit formed it. By
the preparation of the body, as the act of the Father, we understand not its
actual forming or framing in the womb of the Virgin, but its eternal
designation, its preparation in the council, wisdom, and love of the
Father."A body have you prepared me;" (Heb. 10:5;) margin, "you have
fitted me," literally, "put together joint by joint." To design, to
contrive, to put together in his own eternal mind, not merely the framework
of the Lord's body and the constitution of his soul, but so to prepare it
that, conceived in the womb of the sinful Virgin, it should not partake of
her sin, of her fall, of her sickness, of her corruptibility—this was a
greater wonder to appear in heaven than what holy John saw in vision. (Rev.
12:1.)
This body, thus prepared, the eternal Son of God assumed.
By its assumption by the Son we understand not a creating act, as if the Son
of God himself created the body to be assumed, but that ineffable act of
condescension and grace whereby he took at one and the same instant of its
formation, that sacred humanity, consisting of a perfect human body and a
perfect human soul, into union with his divine Person. We say "at one and
the same instant," for we reject with abhorrence that vain figment, that
idle tale, that pestilential and dangerous error of the pre-existence of the
human soul of the Lord Jesus. He was made in all things like unto his
brethren, sin only excepted; (Heb. 2:17; 4:15;) and unless it can be proved
that our soul was created before our body, and pre-existed ages before it,
it cannot be shown that the human soul of the Lord Jesus had any such
pre-existence. This human nature, prepared by God the Father, and assumed
by God the Son, God the Holy Spirit formed. By the forming of that
sacred humanity by the Holy Spirit we understand that act of miraculous
power whereby he overshadowed the Virgin by his operations and influence,
and created, of her flesh, a holy human nature, which he sanctified and
filled with grace in the very instant of its conception.
iv. But this leads us onward to a fourth point, not less
full of truth and blessedness. And we may put it in the form of a solemn
question. How was it possible that in a nature so prepared, so assumed, and
created, there could be any taint of sin, corruption, disease, or
mortality? The Father contemplated that human nature which he had
prepared for his dear Son from all eternity with ineffable complacency and
delight. Could he who made man in his original creation so pure and
innocent, creating him in his own image, after his own likeness, have
prepared for his own Son, his only-begotten, eternal Son, a body fallen,
tainted, and corruptible, or even capable of corruption and decay? Could the
Son, who is "the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of
his Person," assume into union with his eternal Godhead any other but a
pure, holy, immortal, and incorruptible nature? It was not a body to decay
with sickness and die of disease, and then be thrust away out of sight as
the food of corruption, but taken into intimate union with Deity itself, as
its immortal and incorruptible companion. Could the Holy Spirit form
anything but a holy nature for the Son of God to assume into a union so
close, intimate, and indissoluble?
But it may not be unprofitable to examine these points of
divine truth a little more closely.
1. And first, as to the intrinsic holiness and purity
of the Lord's human nature. It was essentially a nature impeccable,
that is, not only not tainted with sin, but absolutely incapable of
being so tainted. As we read of its being "impossible for God to lie," (Heb.
6:18,) so we may say of the sacred humanity of the blessed Lord, it was
impossible it could sin. The testimonies in the word of truth are most full
and clear to the impeccability of the human nature of the blessed Lord. "He
has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin." (2 Cor. 5:21.) He
knew no sin; that is, in his own Person, in its taint or defilement, or in
any approach thereunto. "The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in
me." (John 14:30.) Satan, the prince of this world, came to tempt and to
assail him; but he had nothing in him, as he has in us; that is, no internal
material on which to work. If we may use such a figure, he had no ground
within the walls on which to plant his infernal artillery. He might assault
the blessed Lord from without, for "in all points he was tempted like as we
are, yet without sin," which had neither birth nor being, root nor stem, nor
the possibility of any, in the sacred humanity of the adorable Redeemer.
The late Dr. Cole, in the work before us, published many
years ago, has exposed, in the most clear and forcible manner, the awful
blasphemies of the once popular Edward Irving on this point. Well may we
call them "awful blasphemies," for Dr. Cole declares that he heard with his
own ears this poor, miserable, ranting orator, for he called his own sermons
"Orations," term the holy humanity of the blessed Lord "that sinful
substance." The sacred beauty, the ineffable blessedness of that holy
humanity mainly consisted in the Lord's being "a lamb without blemish and
without spot," (1 Pet. 1:19,) as was typified by the paschal lamb, (Exod.
12:5,) and indeed by every other ceremonial sacrifice. (Lev. 22:19-24; Deut.
15:21.) We must never lose sight of the peculiar nature of the blessed
Lord's humanity. The nature of Adam was peccable, that is, capable of
sinning, because, though created pure, it was not generated by any
supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit. It was a pure created nature, but
not a holy begotten nature. The two things are essentially distinct. Besides
which, the humanity of Adam was a person, and therefore could fall; but the
humanity of Jesus is a nature taken into union with his divine Person, and
therefore could no more sin or fall away from Godhead than his Godhead could
sin or fall off from his manhood.
2. It was therefore, as Dr. Cole has well shown,
incorruptible. The body of the blessed Redeemer lay three days and
nights, according to the Jewish mode of calculation, in the sepulcher, but
it knew no corruption. As the apostle expressly declares, "He whom God
raised again saw no corruption." (Acts 13:37.) The sacred humanity of the
Lord Jesus had no seeds in it of decay. Though a real body, like our own,
though it ate and drank and slept as we do, not being under the original
curse, nor involved in the Adam fall, it was not subject to sickness or
corruption, as our body is. The voluntary death of the blessed Lord severed
for a while body and soul; but the body was no more tainted with corruption
in the sepulcher than the soul was tainted with sin in paradise.
3. This sacred humanity of the adorable Lord was
therefore essentially immortal. Dr. Cole, in his letter on the
subject, has admirably shown this. The body of the Lord was capable of
death; indeed, as dying was the main part of every sacrifice, it was taken
that it might die. It did not die from inherent necessity, as our bodies
die, which are essentially mortal, because involved in Adam's transgression;
but it died by a voluntary act. This is most plain from the Lord's own
words, "Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I
may take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I
have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:17, 18.) It was not the
pain of the cross, the nails driven through the hands and feet, the
exhaustion of nature, or the agony of soul that killed, so to speak, the
Lord Jesus. When he had finished the work which his Father gave him to do,
so that he could say, "It is finished," "he bowed his head"—the head did not
decline of itself, weighed down by death, but he himself, full of life and
immortality, bowed it; and then, by a voluntary act, "gave up the spirit,"
or breathed out his life.
As in our next Number we hope, with God's help and
blessing; to dwell more fully on this part of the subject, in our remarks on
the sacred humanity of our blessed Lord in its state of humiliation, we
shall enlarge no further upon it at present, but conclude with an extract
from Dr. Cole's book:
"The awful and inevitable consequences of applying this
term 'mortal' to the body of Christ."
"1. If the body of Christ was 'mortal' in the unalterable
meaning of that term, his death, as we have already hinted, was not
voluntary but of necessity. He did not die of his own free will,
but died, because, being a personal sinner, (tremble my soul at the
thought!) he could not save himself from death! He had no power to 'lay
down' his life, but was compelled to yield it up, because he had forfeited
it by his own sins! He did not 'give his life a ransom for many;' but
the just judgments of God took it from him for his own transgressions—'The
soul that sins it shall die.' (Ezek. 18:4.) But is this the truth as it is
in Jesus Christ? Is this the doctrine concerning the adorable Person of the
Son of God that is revealed in the Word? Is this the instruction which the
Holy and Blessed Spirit seals upon the heart of the redeemed? No, no! The
scriptures declare, and those that have been brought to experience the
benefits of the death of Christ know and believe that his death was not of
necessity, but a free and voluntary gift. How plainly does he
declare, and how expressively describe this himself—'I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. I lay down my
life that I may take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it
down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take
it again.' (John 16:11; 17:18.) His sacrifice is everywhere called 'a
sacrifice of himself, a voluntary gift.' 'He offered up himself;' (Heb.
7:27;) 'By the sacrifice of himself;' (Heb. 9:26;) 'Who gave himself a
ransom.' (1 Tim. 2:6.) And so universally. But all these scriptures are
flatly contradicted, all this cloud of testimonies is utterly nullified, if
the body of Christ was 'mortal.'"