by Arthur W. Pink
Introduction
The present writer has not a doubt in his mind that the subject of spiritual union is the most important, the most profound, and yes, the most blessed of any that is set forth in the sacred Scriptures; and yet, sad to say, there is hardly any which is now more generally neglected. The very expression “spiritual union” is unknown in most professing Christian circles, and even where it is employed it is given such a protracted meaning as to take in only a fragment of this precious truth. Probably its very profundity is the reason why it is so largely ignored in this superficial age. Yet there are still a few left who are anxious to enter into God’s best and long for a fuller understanding of the deep things of the Spirit; and it is, principally, with these in mind that we take up this present series.
There are three principal unions revealed in the Scriptures which are the chief mysteries and form the foundation of our most holy faith. First, the union of three Divine Persons in one Godhead: having distinct personalities, being co-eternal and co-glorious, yet constituting one Jehovah. Second, the union of the Divine and human natures in one Person, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, being God and man. Third, the union of the Church to Christ, He being the Head, they the members, constituting one mystical body. Though we cannot form an exact idea of any of these unions in our imaginations, because the depth of such mysteries is beyond our comprehension, yet it is our bounden duty to believe them all, because they are clearly revealed in Scripture, and are the necessary foundation for other points of Christian doctrine. Hence it is our holy privilege to prayerfully study the same, looking unto the Holy Spirit to graciously enlighten us thereon.
The most wonderful thing of all, and yet the greatest mystery, in the natural world, is a union, namely, that conjunction which God has made between mind and matter, the soul and the body. What finite intelligence would or could have conceived of the joining together of an immaterial spirit and a clod of clay! What so little alike as the soul and an organized piece of earth! Who had ever imagined such a thing as animate and thinking dust! or that a spirit should be so linked with and tied to a carnal body that while that is preserved in health, it cannot free itself! And yet there is a union, a real union, a personal union, between the soul and the body. But that is only a natural mystery, and falls immeasurably below the sacred mystery of the union between human beings and the Lord of Glory.
The Scriptures have much to say upon the union which exists between Christ and His people. “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Eph. 5:30, 32). What an astonishing thing it is that there should be a union between the Son of God and worms of the earth!-infinitely more so than if the king of Great Britain had married the poorest and ugliest woman in all his realm. How immeasurable is the distance between the Creator and the creature, between Deity and mortal man! How wonderful beyond words that sinful wretches should be made one with Him before whom the seraphim veil their faces and cry “holy, holy, holy!”
“The union of Christ to His people is an amazing subject. It is an eternal union; it is an union made known and enjoyed in time; it is an union which will be openly and manifestatively declared in all its glory and perfection in the latter day; it is a grace union; it is also a glory union. As it is the foundation of all the gracious actings of Christ towards His Church in a time state, so it is of all the glory He will put on His Church and communicate unto His people at the last day. I cannot but lament we are most of us so great strangers to these important and heavenly truths. Depend on it, we are great losers hereby. The people of God lose much because they neglect truths of the greatest importance. In the present day they are too neglectful of important truths. They are willingly ignorant of them.
“We treat the Scriptures in the present day as though the less we know of the deep things of God, so much the better. Alas! alas! this, let us think of it as we may, is to cast contempt on God Himself. Nor will it serve to say we do not so mean or intend. It is a matter of fact, we are too neglectful of those Divine Truths and doctrines which concern the glory of Christ. The ancient and glorious settlements of grace are too little in our thoughts. It is sensibly felt, and by some very expressively confessed and acknowledged, that the influences of the Holy Spirit are very greatly suspended. Yet the cause is overlooked. Most assuredly one grand reason why we have so little of His sacred presence with us, and His power and influence manifested amongst us may be laid to the account of neglecting to preach supernatural, spiritual truth, and the mysteries of the everlasting Gospel” (S.E. Pierce, 1812).
The vital importance of this subject of the union of the Church to Christ may be clearly seen from the place which it occupies in the High Priestly prayer of Christ. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee” (John 17:20, 21). Our Lord here began His prayer for the whole body of His people by speaking of the union which they had with Him and His Father in Him, and He spends the verses which follow in expressing the blessings which follow as the fruits thereof. We are not to conceive that Christ here prayed for an union to be brought about or obtained; no, for it was established from all eternity: rather was He praying that His beloved might be blest with the clear knowledge of it, so that they might enjoy all the benefits of the same in their own souls.
“And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one” (John 17:22). This subject of the union between Himself and the elect was truly sweet and blessed to the heart of Christ. He knew that the knowledge and use of it is of great value and service to His people, therefore did He speak of it again and again that His saints in all ages might receive the knowledge of it into their minds and enjoy in their hearts the blessings contained in it. And, my readers, if Christ Himself esteemed this truth of union with Himself as a foundation truth, we should learn to think of it so also. We should bring ourselves unto the closest and prayerful study of the same, for by it our faith and hope are sustained and kept in exercise on God our Saviour.
“And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one.” This petition is the very centre of Christ’s prayer, expressing the supreme desire of the Saviour’s mind towards His redeemed: it summed up the uttermost longing of His heart toward them. The union about which He prayed is such that thereby the Father and the Son dwell in us and we in Them. It is such that the elect are so joined unto God and His Christ that it is the very highest union which the elect are capable of. It is the chiefest and greatest of all blessings, being the foundation from which all others proceed.
“I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one” (v. 23). A great variety of blessings are set before us in the Gospel. Salvation is an unspeakable one, yet not so great as our union to the Person of Christ. If we had not been united to Christ, He had not been our Saviour: it was because we stood eternally related to Him that He was most graciously pleased to undertake for us. The grace of justification is an unspeakable blessing, yet not so great as that of union, because the effect can never be equal to the cause which produces it. To be in Christ must exceed all the blessings which flow from Him which we have or ever shall partake of, either on earth or in Heaven. Communion with Christ is unspeakably blessed, yet not so great as union, for our union is the foundation of all communion. It is the greatest of all those super-creation “spiritual blessings” (Eph. 1:3) which the Father bestowed on the Church before sin entered the universe. It is the fruit of God’s eternal love to His people.
Union with Christ is the foundation of all spiritual blessings, so that if there had been no connection with Him, there could be no regeneration, no justification, no sanctification, no glorification. It is so in the natural world-adumbrating the spiritual: sever one of the members from my physical body, and it is dead; only by its union with my person does it partake of life. “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9): the word “fellowship” signifies such a co-partnership between persons that they have a joint interest in one and the same enjoyment which is common between them. Now this fellowship or communion with Christ is entirely dependent upon our union with Him, even as much as the branch’s participation of the sap and juice is dependent upon its union and coalition with the stock of the tree. Take away union, and there can neither be communion nor communication.
As it is for Christ’s sake that God bestows upon His people all the blessings of salvation, so according to His eternal constitution those blessings could only be enjoyed in a state of communion with Him. The varied character of that communion it will be our joy to unfold, as the blessed Spirit is pleased to enable us, in the articles which follow. But the foundation of that vital, spiritual, and experimental union which the saints have with their Beloved in a time state and which they will enjoy forever in Heaven, was laid by God in that mystical union which He established between the Mediator and His elect before the foundation of the world, when He appointed Him to be the Head and they the members of His body: when God gave Christ to them and gave them to Christ in everlasting marriage.
In consequence of God’s having given the Church to Christ in marriage before the foundation of the world, He says to His people, “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies” (Hosea 2:19); “thy Maker is thine Husband” (Isa. 54:5). And therefore does the Church exclaim, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His” (Song. 2:16). “Consider the closeness and intimacy of the union between Him and them, and let this encourage thee to lean and live on Him by faith. It is far more intimate and dear than the union between husband and wife among men, for they are indeed ‘one flesh,’ but He is ‘one body’ and ‘one spirit’ (1 Cor. 6:20) with His spouse; He is in them, and they are in Him. And by virtue of this intimate union, thou hast a title to Him and to His whole purchase (Eben. Erskine, 1775).
In consequence of this eternal marriage-union between Christ and His Church there is a communion of names. In Jeremiah 23:6 we read, “And this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and in Jeremiah 33:16 we are told, “And this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness”-this by virtue of her oneness with Him. So again in 1 Corinthians 12:12 the Church is actually designated “the Christ,” while in Galatians 3:16 and Colossians 1:24 the Head and His Church forming one body are conjointly referred to as “Christ”; hence when Saul of Tarsus was assaulting the Church, its Head protested, “Why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4). But what is yet more remarkable, we find the Lord Jesus given the name of His people: in Galatians 6:16 the Church is denominated, “the Israel of God,” while in Isaiah 49:3 we hear God saying to the Mediator “Thou art My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified”!
Unspeakably precious is this aspect of our wonderful subject. In Colossians 3:12 Christians are exhorted to “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies.” Each of those titles are given to the saints because of their union with Christ. They are “the elect of God” because He is God’s “Elect” (Isa. 42:1); they are “holy” because conjoined to God’s “Holy One” (Psa. 16:10); they are “beloved” because married to Him of whom the Father says, “This is My Beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17). Again, we are told that God “hath made us kings and priests” (Rev. 1:5), which is only because we are united to Him who is “the King of kings” and the “great High Priest.” Is Christ called “the Sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2)? so we are told, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43)! Does the Redeemer declare “I am the rose of Sharon” (Song. 2:1)? then He promises of the redeemed “The desert (their fruitless state by nature) shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa. 35:1)-the only two occasions the “rose” is mentioned in Holy Writ!
The union between Christ and His Church is so real, so vital, so intimate that God has never viewed the one apart from the other. There is such an indissoluble oneness between the Redeemer and the redeemed, such an absolute identification of interest between them, that the Father of mercies never saw them apart: He never saw Christ as “Christ” without seeing His mystical body; He never saw the Church apart from its Head. Therefore the Holy Spirit has delighted to emphasise this wondrous and glorious fact in many Scriptures. In connection with Christ’s birth we read, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same” (Heb. 2:14). Further, we are told, “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2:11)-His actual circumcision was our mystical circumcision. At His baptism Christ was “numbered with the transgressors,” and hence, speaking as the Representative of the entire election of grace, He said, “Thus it becometh us (not simply “Me”) to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15).
We are told that when the Saviour was nailed to the tree “our old man was crucified with Him” (Rom. 6:6). We are told that when He expired at Calvary “if One died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). We are told that when He was revived, we were “quickened together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). He did not rise again as a single and private person, but as the Head of His Church: “ye then be risen with Christ” (Col. 3:1). Nor is that all: in Ephesians 2:6 we are told, “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” O how surpassingly wonderful is the Christian’s oneness with Christ: “Because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). When Christ appears in glory it will not be alone: “Then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).-A.W.P. (January, 1935).
“One in the tomb; one when He rose;
One when He triumph’d o’er His foes;
One in Heaven He took His seat,
While seraphs sang all Hell’s defeat.
With Him, their Head, they stand or fall,
Their Life, their Surety, and their All.”Part 2
Union and communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit who dwells personally in the saints, is a most glorious and transcendent wonder of Divine grace. Nature cannot comprehend it; carnal reason cannot grasp it; none can have the least real perception of its nature, importance, or excellency, but such as are born from above; nor can the regenerate either, except as they are Divinely enlightened and supernaturally lifted up into the true knowledge and enjoyment of the same. Spiritual life, and all its activities, is beyond the ken of mere intellect, consisting as it does in communion with God Himself. The oneness of the Church with Christ is a blessed reality, which none but the Spirit of God can open to the renewed mind and give right views of it. It is His royal prerogative so to do: it is part of His official work according to the eternal settlements of grace: His work is to glorify Christ, to enthrone Him in the hearts of His blood-bought people.
Were it not that the Holy Spirit “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10), and that we had the unfailing promise of Christ (which needs to be laid hold of by faith and pleaded before God) that this infallible Teacher “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13), it would be the very height of presumption for us to attempt to write upon such a subject. The very profundity of our present theme has been clearly intimated by God’s designating it a “mystery.” It is remarkable that twice only in the sacred Scriptures do we read of a “great mystery”: once when the reference is to that ineffable union of the human nature with the Godhead in the Person of Immanuel-”great is the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16); and once when mention is made of the mystical union subsisting between Christ and His Church-”This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32).
To aid our finite understandings, a variety of figures and natural analogies are used to express the oneness of Christ and His people. The marriage of Adam and Eve in their unfallen state, by which they became “one flesh” (Eph. 5:31) is a striking resemblance of the union between Christ and His Church, for He is the Husband (Isa. 54:5), she is the Spouse (Song. 2:1): as Adam said of Eve “this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), so the saints are assured “we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). Another resemblance or type is that of the head and members of our physical organism. In the human body there is such an intimate relation and vital connection between the head and its members that if severed the one could have no living existence apart from the other. Thus it is in the Body mystical: Christ is the Head, believers are the members: see 1 Corinthians 12:12, 27; Ephesians 4:15, 16.
A third resemblance is that of the root and the branches: there is a union between them, otherwise how should the one convey juice and nourishment to the others. So it is with Christ and believers: “I am the Vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5). The same figure is found again in a number of passages in the Epistles: there we read of being “grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree” (Rom. 11:17); of being “rooted and built up in Him” (Col. 2:7). This is a blessed analogy between Christ and believers and the root and the branches, in point of union and in point of influence: the root conveys life and nourishment to the branches; so does Christ to those who are one with Him. With this resemblance we may link the simile used by our Lord: “the corn of wheat” (John 12:24) falling into the ground, with its embryo increase of “much fruit” wrapped up within itself.
Still another resemblance is the foundation and the building which is found again and again in Scripture. Here too there is a union, for in a building all the stones and timbers being joined and fastened together upon the foundation, make but one entire structure. So it is here. The saints are “God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9), Christ Himself being the “Foundation” of that building (v. 11). And again, we are said to be “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:20). The building itself is the complement of the foundation, but remove it, and the whole superstructure topples to the ground. How blessed to be assured by God, “Behold, I lay in Zion a sure foundation” (Isa. 28:16). Finally, Christians are referred to as “lively (living) stones, are built up a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5), which tells us that our union with Christ is both a mystical and a vital one.
In addition to the various figures and resemblances which God has graciously designed to employ so as to aid our feeble minds in grasping something of the mysterious and glorious union which exists between His Son and His people, there are also types in the Old Testament which throw light thereon. A notable one is found in Exodus 28: “And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty . . . And thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel . . . And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the ephod for stones of memorial unto the children of Israel: and Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD upon his two shoulders for a memorial . . . And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD. And thou shalt put it on a blue lace, that it may be upon the mitre; upon the forefront of the mitre it shall be. And it shall be upon Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD” (vv. 2, 9, 12, 36-38). Thus was the whole Israel of God represented before Jehovah in the person of Aaron-blessed adumbration of the identification with our great High Priest. “It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments” (Psa. 133:2)-figure of the Holy Spirit communicated to Christ and His people.
Communion with Christ is our participation with Him in the benefits flowing from His several offices. As in marriage there must be a union before there can be any communion (sharing together) of estates and conditions, so before we can obtain anything from Christ we must first be one with Him: all is in Christ for us. “He that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5:12), and the term “life” sums up all spiritual blessings, just as physical “death” cuts off from all temporal mercies. We “have” the Son by God’s eternal gift to us, as He possesses us by the Father’s eternal gift of us to Him. Therefore it is written, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given” (Isa. 9:6)-as in marriage: God made a grant of His Son to us, and that included all: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).
“For we are made partakers of Christ” (Heb. 3:14): He and we are made one, “joint heirs” (Rom. 8:17). “Being united to Christ, we are possessed of all in Christ, so far as is consistent with our capacities of receiving and God’s ordination and appointment in giving. Union gives us interest in the personal merits and righteousness of Christ and the benefits of His mediatory actions; they are ours to all effects and purposes, as if we ourselves had satisfied and obeyed the law. Why? because it is not in a person sundered from us; it is in our Head, in One to whom we are united by a strait bond of union (better “by a legal and vital bond of union”), therefore are they reputed as one.” (T. Manton, 1670).
“But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). To be “in Christ” is to be united to Him: first electively (Eph. 1:4), when God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Second, representatively (1 Cor. 15:22), as we were in Adam. Third, vitally (2 Cor. 5:17), as a branch in the vine. Fourth, voluntarily (Rom. 8:1), by faith cleaving unto Him. Of this compound union we are taught two things here in 1 Corinthians 1:30: its origin and its effects. As to its origin, it is “of God,” He alone being the efficient cause. As to its effects, because the saints are one with Christ, they participate in His benefits, and so He is “made unto us wisdom” etc.
Because of our union with Christ we are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). We have the same title to enter God’s presence that Christ has: “by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12), “having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19)! Because of our union with Christ we have not only a valid title or right to draw nigh unto God, but a personal fitness: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). Our very life is “hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), so that before we can perish, He must perish. What is yet more blessed, the Father loves us as He loves Christ: “That the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me” (John 17:23).
“Christ is His Father’s Son, and believers are Christ’s sons: (Isa. 8:18). He is the Father’s delight (Isa. 42:1), they are Christ’s: Psalm 16:3. He is the Father’s glory (Heb. 1:3), and they are Christ’s: 2 Corinthians 8:23. God is Christ’s Head (1 Cor. 11:3), Christ is their Head: 1 Corinthians 11:3. God always hears Christ (John 11:42), and Christ them: John 15. All power is given to Christ (Matt. 28:18), and by Christ to them: Philippians 4:13. God has committed all judgment to Christ (John 5:22), Christ makes them His assessors: 1 Corinthians 6:2, 3” (D. Clarkson, 1685).
The oneness of Christ and His people is manifested in intimate and precious fellowship together. The whole of Solomon’s “Song” sets forth this union and communion in a most wonderful and blessed way. Observe by what endearing terms the Saviour calls His Church: “Thou hast ravished My heart, my Sister, my Spouse” (4:9)-she is His “sister” as well as His “spouse,” for by taking her into union with Himself, this brings the Church into every relation: the saints are His “sons” (Heb. 2:10), His “brethren” (Heb. 2:12), and compare Matthew 12:48. The Divine Bridegroom says to His wife, “eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved” (5:1); and she says, “Let my beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits” (4:16): there is sweet entertainment on both sides. They are mutually charmed with each other’s beauty: He says, “Behold, thou art fair, My love” (4:1); she exclaims, “my Beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand” (5:10).
The precious intimacy of that union which exists between Christ and His people is manifested in many Scriptures. “If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20): there is mutual communion, reciprocal affections. Christ and His saints are fond of hearing each other’s voices: “let Me see thy countenance, let Me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely” (Song. 2:14). That is Christ speaking to His spouse; her response is, “the companions hearken to Thy voice: cause me to hear it” (8:13). There are also mutual complaints between them: “I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love” (Rev. 2:4); “LORD, why castest Thou off my soul? why hidest Thou Thy face from me?” (Psa. 88:14). O that both writer and reader may be favoured with more intimate and constant communion with the eternal Lover of our souls: “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
Let us now seek to define and describe a little more closely the nature of that union which exists between Christ and His Church.
1. It is supernatural, being altogether beyond the powers of the creature to effectuate. It is wholly of the wisdom, grace, and power of God. All the unions we have in the natural world come infinitely short of this. The union of the body and soul in man puzzles and baffles the greatest philosophers, but the union of Christ and His Church is a far greater mystery: that persons so distant, so divided, should be made one, is a profundity which no finite intelligence can fully comprehend. We had known nothing whatever about it if God had not revealed it to us in His Word, and even now we discern it “through a glass darkly.”
2. It is a real union, not a mere theoretical or fantastic thing, a creature of the imagination. Though it cannot be perceived by our senses, nor visualized by the mind, it is not a mere theological fiction. It is plainly and expressly affirmed in many Scriptures, under a great variety of expressions, all of which are too clear to be misunderstood. As actually as the limbs of the body are united to their head, the wife to the husband, the branches to the root, so truly are the saints united to Christ and Christ to them. Take this away and the whole of Christianity collapses. Is not the union between God the Father and God the Son a real one? then so is this: John 17:22: the one is as much a verity as the other.
3. It is spiritual. The great design and the grand aim of God in His purpose and dealings with the elect is the communication to them of the benefits of Christ; but all communication of benefits implies communion, and all communion necessarily presupposes union with His Person. Not that there is any confusion or transfusing of the Christian’s person with Christ’s Person, but a real and personal conjunction between them. That conjunction is not a gross, fleshly, corporeal union, but a mystical, spiritual, and inward one. The nature of this union is seen in the bond of it: it is entirely spiritual-the Spirit in Christ, faith in us. The husband and the wife are “one flesh” (Eph. 5:31), but “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17).
4. It is intimate, far closer than that existing between the branches and root of a tree, or that between husband and wife. The union between Christ and His people is so near that we know not how to conceive it, still less express it. We may borrow some light here and there from the different unions in nature, but they all, in point of nearness, fall far short of it. Believers are so united to the Lord as to be “one spirit”-what an expression is that! what could be spoken higher! so intimate is this oneness that in a coming day Christ will say, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Matt. 25:40). So near are the saints to Christ, they are a part of Him, so that He would be incomplete without them-they are His “fullness” (Eph. 1:23).
5. It is indissoluble. The oneness between Christ and His Church is such that it cannot be broken. All the powers of Satan cannot destroy that union. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). “Ye shall abide in Him” (1 John 2:27). It is an inseparable, insuperable union. Death itself, though it break all other unions, does not and cannot put an end to or reach this. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13); “absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8)! And this union pertains to all the redeemed: the least as well as the greatest Christian, the humblest as well as the highest, is equally united to Christ and participates in what belongs to Him.
Union with Christ in glory is the goal toward which we are now moving, but at present we enjoy experimental union with Him in grace. But experimental union with Christ is only possible as there is a practical union with Him, for “can two walk together except they be agreed?” Practical union with Christ presupposes a saving one, whereby the heart is wedded to Christ in faith and love. That, in turn, necessitates a vital union, for only as quickened by the Spirit and made one with Christ can any sinner savingly believe unto Him. And that again denotes a mystical and eternal union, for the Spirit quickens none save those who had a covenant-oneness with Christ before the foundation of the world. Nor could there ever have been any union between the Creator and the creature but for the mediatorial union, whereby the Son united our nature to His own ineffable Person. And the foundation of that was the Divine union, the three Persons in one God. The Lord willing, by His enabling, we shall seek to contemplate separately each of these unions in the articles which follow, taking them up in their inverse order.
Divine Union
That which we shall seek to contemplate in this article is the revelation which God has made of Himself in His inspired Word. This ineffable subject is one which we must ever approach with bowed heads and reverent hearts, for the ground which we are to tread is indeed holy. The subject is transcendently sacred, for it is concerned with the infinite and majestic Jehovah. It is one of surpassing importance, for it is the foundation of all spiritual knowledge and faith. For any real light thereon, we are entirely shut up to what God has made known of Himself in His Word. Neither observation, science or philosophy can, in this exalted sphere, advance our knowledge one iota. We can know no more thereon except what is set forth in Holy Writ, and that must be approached with the deepest humility and reverence, with the earnest prayer, “that which I see not teach Thou me” (Job 34:32).
It is not sufficient to think of God as He may be conceived of in our imagination, instead, our thoughts of Him must be formed by what He has revealed of Himself in His Word. Man, unaided, cannot rightly conceive of God: all speculation concerning Him is utterly vain, yea, profane. The finite cannot comprehend the Infinite. If the “judgments” of God are “unsearchable” and if His “ways” are “past finding out,” how much more so must God Himself be! Even creation cannot fully teach us what God is, because no work is able to perfectly express the worker thereof. The heathen have creation spread before them, but what do they know of God! The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, sought to delve deeply into the marvels and mysteries of “Nature,” but with all their boasted wisdom the Deity was to them “the unknown God”!
It is of vast importance to the souls of God’s believing people that they should have clear, spiritual, and Divine knowledge of the true and living God: without a scriptural acquaintance of the same, we are left without the very supports which are indispensable to found our faith upon. It is impossible to over-emphasise the momentousness of our present theme, for the truth thereon will alone direct us in worshipping God aright. If a person has erroneous thoughts of Deity, then he worships a false god and renders homage to a fictitious being, the figment of his own imagination. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3): that is unspeakably blessed; it is likewise unspeakably solemn-the man who knows not the “only true God” is destitute of eternal life!
Now as we turn to and examine the Holy Scriptures we are at once impressed with their repeated and uniform emphasis upon the unity of God. In contrast from the polytheism (many gods) of the heathen, we read, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deut. 6:4), and, as we have seen above, “this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God.” There can be but one infinite, self-existent Spirit, who reveals Himself as the great “I am,” from whom, and through whom, and to whom, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. To think of two, or more, independent and supreme Beings, would be to suppose a contradiction in terms, an utter impossibility. There can be but one God, with sovereign authority over all the works and creatures of His hands, having but one plan and a single administration. Such is indeed the teaching of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.
But as we continue our examination of what God has revealed of Himself in His Holy Word, it is not long before we reach that which is profoundly mysterious, for side by side with its continuous emphasis on the unity of God it also reveals three distinct Divine Persons, namely, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Here we come to an infinite depth which we have no means of sounding, for while the Scriptures are unmistakably clear in their presentation of three Divine Persons, nevertheless they are equally express in denying that there are three God’s. Though no attempt whatever is made in Scripture to explain this mystery, it is unmistakable in affirming it: in affirming that God is an absolute Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; and all who refuse to bow to and acknowledge this ineffable truth must be eternally damned.
The incomprehensible nature of the truth which is now before us, so far from providing a valid motive for its rejection, supplies a most powerful argument for its being formally received. For if this truth be so sublime and mysterious, that even when revealed, it infinitely surpasses the feeble grasp of our finite powers, then it is very evident that it could never have been invented by men! What human wisdom cannot comprehend, human policy could never have proposed. It must have had some higher projector, and therefore the conclusion is unavoidable: in God alone we behold an adequate cause. “This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working” (Isa. 28:29).
The first great truth, then, which is presented to faith-the foundation of everything-is the fact of the one living, eternal, and true God; and this we know not by any discovery of reason, but because He has Himself revealed it to our hearts through His Word. The next great truth is that the one living and true God has revealed Himself to us under the threefold relation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and this we know upon the same authority as the first. Both of these sublime truths are above reason yet their very transcendency so far from stumbling us, is a necessary condition of our confidence in the Scriptures and our faith in Him who is there revealed. Had the Scriptures professed to present a revelation of God which had no heights beyond our powers to scale, and no depth too deep for mental acumen to fathom, the writer for one would promptly spurn them as the invention of man. Personally, I would no more worship a God that my intellect could measure, than I would an idol which my hands had manufactured.
“Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 18:2, 3). A hard lesson for proud man to learn is that, yet it must be learned (by grace) if any entrance is to be had into the things of God. It is at this point we may perceive one of the radical differences between the regenerate and unregenerate: faith receives what reason is unable to grasp. “Great God, I desire to fall down under the deepest self-abasement, in the consciousness of my own nothingness and ignorance before Thee! I bless the Lord for that degree of information He hath been pleased to give of Himself, while here below. It is enough! O for grace, ‘to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ Colossians 2:2, 3” (Rob. Hawker, 1810)-such is the language of every renewed heart.
Though the doctrine or truth of the Divine Trinity is properly speaking a “mystery,” that affords no ground whatever for it to be disparaged by us. Some people seem to suppose that by the term “mystery,” reference is made to something of which they can at best form only a vague notion, that it pertains to the sphere of half-perceived shadows, in relation to which certainty is impossible, and that it has no practical connection with the solid elements of knowledge and real life. This is a great mistake. The word “mystery” in Scripture is applied to that which cannot be discovered by human reason, or arrived at by any speculation, but which can only be made known by Divine revelation, and which can only be perceived so far as God has been pleased to unveil it. Just so far as spiritual “mysteries” have been disclosed by God, they become part of the real and solid knowledge of those by whom that revelation is humbly received.
It is in the Gospel that the three Persons in the Godhead are most clearly revealed, and Their respective activities in the saving of the elect are most fully made known. “The Gospel represents God the Father as sovereign Lord of Heaven and earth: as righteous Governor of the world: as giving laws to His creatures; as revealing His wrath against all transgressions. He is represented as being injured and offended by our sins, and concerned to maintain the honour of His majesty, of His Law and government, and sacred authority. He is represented as having designs of mercy towards a sinful, guilty, ruined world; and as contriving and proposing a method of recovery. He is represented as one seated on a throne of grace, reconciling the world unto Himself by Christ, ordering pardon and peace to be proclaimed to any and all who will return to Him in the way prescribed.
“The Gospel represents God the Son as being constituted Mediator by His Father, that in and by Him He might open a way to accomplish His designs of mercy towards a guilty world, consistent with the honour of His majesty, of His holiness and justice, of His Law and government. His Father appointed Him to the office, and He freely undertook it. His Father sent Him into this world to enter upon the difficult work, and He willingly came: ‘He was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ Here He lived, and here He died, in the capacity of a Mediator. He arose, He ascended into Heaven, and sits now at His Father’s right hand, God-man Mediator, exalted to the highest honour; made Lord of all things, and Judge of the world. And now we are to have access to God by Him, as our Mediator, High Priest, Intercessor, and Advocate, who has made complete atonement for sins in the days of His abasement, and has now sufficient interest in the court of Heaven.
“The Gospel represents God the Holy Spirit as being sent of the Father as prime Agent, and by the Son as Mediator, in the character of an enlightener and Sanctifier, in order to bring sinners effectually to see and be made sensible of their sin, guilt, and ruin; to believe the Gospel, to trust in Christ, and to return home to God through Him. It is His office to dwell in believers; to teach and lead them; to sanctify, strengthen, comfort, and keep them through faith unto salvation.
“The Father is God by nature, and God by office. The Son is God by nature, and Mediator by office. The Spirit is God by nature, and Sanctifier by office. The Father as Governor, Law-Giver, and Avenger, has all power in Heaven and earth, in and of Himself: Matthew 11:25. The Son as Mediator derives all His authority from the Father: Matthew 11:27. The Holy Spirit acts as being sent by them Both: John 14:16. The Father maintains the honour of the Godhead and of His government, displaying His grace while ordaining that sin should be punished, the sinner humbled, and brought back to God and into subjection into His will. Sin is punished in the Son as Mediator, standing in the room of the guilty. The sinner is humbled and brought into subjection to God’s will by the Holy Spirit. Thus the Son and the Spirit honour the Father as supreme Governor, and all join in the same design to discountenance sin, humble the sinner, and glorify grace” (Joseph Bellamy, 1780).
By affirming that the three Divine Persons are more clearly revealed in the Gospel than elsewhere, it is not to be understood that the Old Testament saints were left in ignorance of this blessed and foundation truth. That could not be, or otherwise it had been impossible for them to know God, or to worship Him intelligently and acceptably. God must be revealed before He can (in any measure) be known, and He must be known in the distinctions of His Persons, before He can be loved and adored. Those who find it hard to conceive of the Old Testament saints possessing a clear evangelical knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity, create their own difficulty by supposing the Gospel is peculiar to the New Testament dispensation. This is a serious mistake. Hebrews 4:2 declares, “For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them”-that is, unto Israel in the wilderness: see the closing verses of Hebrews 3. To go back further still, Galatians 3:8 tells us, that God, “preached before the Gospel unto Abraham.”
The glorious truth of the three Persons in the Godhead is to be found as definitely and as frequently in the Old Testament as it is in the New. On the very first page of Holy Writ it is recorded, “And God said, Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness” (Gen. 1:26): how clearly do the plural pronouns there reveal the fact that there is more than one Person in the Godhead! Nor is Genesis 1:26 by any means the only passage in the Old Testament where the plural pronoun is used of God. After Adam had fallen, we find Him saying, “Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:22)-probably that was the language of irony: God’s answer to the Serpent’s lie in 3:5. Again, in response to the impiety of those who had said, “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven” (Gen. 11:4), the Lord said, “Go to, let Us go down, and there confound their language” (Gen. 11:7).
Once more, in that marvelous vision granted unto Isaiah, wherein he saw the Lord “seated upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple,” before whom the seraphim veiled their faces, the Prophet “heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” (Isa. 6:8). Very wonderful is that “I” and “Us,” intimating the Divine unity in Trinity, and the trinity in Unity. It is striking to note that the employment of this plural pronoun in connection with the Godhead, as it is consecrated by the Spirit of truth in use with the Persons in the Divine Essence, is employed by Each of Them to each other. By the Father in Genesis 1:26-cf. Ephesians 3:9, the Father being the Creator “by Jesus Christ”; by the Son in Genesis 11:7, for to Him all judgment is committed (John 5:22); by the Spirit in Isaiah 6:8, see Acts 28:26 and cf. 13:2!
The Hebrew noun is in the plural number in each of these verses: “Remember now thy Creators in the days of thy youth” (Eccl. 12:1); “For thy Makers are thine Husband” (Isa. 54:5); “Let the children of Zion be joyful in their Kings” (Psa. 149:2); “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy Ones is understanding” (Prov. 9:10)-according to the rule of Hebrew parallelism, it is obvious that “Holy Ones” is exegetical of “Jehovah.” Surely there is more than a hint of the Divine Trinity in the benediction of Numbers 6:24-26, “The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: the LORD make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the LORD lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” Also in the “Holy, holy, holy” of the seraphim in Isaiah 6:3. In Isaiah 48:16 we hear the Messiah saying, “Come ye near unto Me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the (1) Lord GOD, and (2) His Spirit, hath sent (3) Me.” “So the Spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house. And I heard Him speaking unto me out of the house; and the Man stood by me” (Ezek. 43:5, 6). While the Prophet was adoring the manifest glory of God, the Spirit conducted him into the inner chamber, while beside him stood the One who had been instructing him-”The Man”: see 40:3. Thus the Prophet had a vision of the three Persons in the Godhead, manifesting in different ways Their presence with him.
A plurality of Persons in the Godhead was also indicated in such passages as, “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of Heaven” (Gen. 19:24); “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at My right hand” (Psa. 110:1); “And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee” (Zech. 3:2). “Be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts: the Word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you” (Hag. 2:4, 5). The first Person in the sacred Trinity was known to the Old Testament saints as the Father: from a number of passages we select the following, “But now, O LORD, Thou art our Father” (Isa. 64:8). The second Person in the Trinity was revealed as the Son: “The LORD hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son” (Psa. 2:7), and also as the Word: “By The Word of the LORD were the heavens made” (Psa. 33:6) and cf. Genesis 15:1 and 1 Kings 19:9 where the essential and personal “Word” is in view. The third Person in the Trinity was revealed as The Holy Spirit: “The Spirit of the LORD” (1 Sam. 16:13).
“Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show Us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be, that We may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare Us things for to come” (Isa. 41:21, 22). A truly remarkable passage is that; with it may be compared, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Isa. 57:15): the “high and lofty One”-one in the inseparable unity of the Divine Essence; “that inhabiteth eternity”-thus distinguished from all creatures; “dwelling in the high and lofty place”-true of the Father (1 Kings 8:27), of the Son (Jer. 23:24-see v. 6), of the Spirit (Psa. 139:7, 8); indwelling His people-true of the Father (2 Cor. 6:16, 18), of the Son (Col. 1:27), of the Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19).
The title “Jehovah”-applied to the Father (Psa. 110:1), the Son (Jer. 23:6), and the Holy Spirit (2 Sam. 23:2)-is always in the singular number, having no plural form, being expressive of the Unity of the Divine nature. Yet we frequently find it employed with the plural “Elohim” (God), and with plural pronouns and verbs-a thing which could never have been done consistent with the laws of grammar, except for the purpose of proving thereby, what all the parts of Scripture concur in, that Jehovah though but One in the essence of the Godhead, is nevertheless existing at the same time in a plurality or trinity of Persons. That the great God should subsist in a way entirely different and perfectly distinguished from all His creatures in a trinity of Persons in the unity of His essence should not stagger us, but should bow our hearts before Him in adoring wonder and worship.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deut. 6:4). This very verse which is quoted so much by “Unitarians,” in their hatred of the blessed truth which we are here endeavouring to set forth, would be quite meaningless were there no Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. It is self-evident that there is no need whatever for any Divine revelation to teach us that one is one: had this text meant nothing more than that, it had been superfluous information. But inasmuch as “Elohim” (God) is in the plural number, it was necessary for the Deity to make known unto His people that the three Divine Persons are but one “Lord” or Jehovah. That Israel apprehended (in some measure, at any rate) this mystery of the great One in Three, is strikingly manifested by the fact that when Aaron made the single golden calf, the people addressed it in the plural number: “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (Exo. 32:4)!!
Part 2
Right views of the Divine Being and Character lie at the foundation of all genuine and vital godliness. It should, then, be our supreme quest to seek after the knowledge of God. Without the true knowledge of Him, in His nature, Persons, attributes, we can neither worship Him acceptably nor serve Him aright. The unity of the Godhead is an essential part of His character. The God whom the Scriptures command us to adore and serve, love and obey, is the one only living and true God. There cannot be but one First Cause of all things, absolutely, independent, necessarily existent, and infinite in all perfections. But this one God subsists in a threefold, though to us incomprehensible, manner. Though He is one simple, undivided essence, yet in the mode of His existence He subsists in three Persons. Incomprehensible as this is, yet it is no more so than as uncaused and eternal existence: God is infinitely above all creatures, and exists in a manner peculiar to Himself.
This truth of three Persons in the Godhead is basic, being essential to the very scheme of Salvation itself, and it has been accounted the catholic doctrine of the whole Christian Church in all ages. In Scripture, the work of our salvation is represented as engaging the joint-agency of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father it was who, in infinite wisdom planned the amazing scheme, providing Himself a Lamb to purge away sin. God the Son, in His own Person, executed the plan, by submitting to be “delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.” God the Spirit secures an effectual reception of this scheme of salvation, sanctifying the souls of the elect unto eternal happiness, in which it finally issues.
Each of these sacred Persons, who thus co-operate in our salvation, must of necessity be really and truly God, for none less could possibly execute any part of that grand scheme. Who, but the supreme Lord Himself, could admit an innocent Substitute to become Surety for criminals and bear their curse! What being beneath the dignity of Deity could possibly offer a satisfaction of infinite sufficiency to the Divine government, possessing such merits that, by obeying and suffering the penalty of the law, full atonement should be made for all innumerable offences committed against the Majesty of Heaven by the entire election of grace! And unto whom beside God Himself, the eternal and blessed Holy Spirit, doth such power belong as to change the darkness of human depravity into ineffable light, subdue rebellious wills, and bring them into loving obedience unto the Lord!
All that pertains to salvation is the gift of the Father, through the incarnate Son, by the Holy Spirit: and it is inexpressibly blessed to find in so many Scriptures how all the Persons in the Godhead are individually as well as unitedly concerned in the grand matter of the Church’s redemption. This ought ever to be viewed as the standard of orthodoxy. Whatever is presented from pulpit or press which does not give equal place and ascribe equal honour to each of the Eternal Three is the doctrine of demons. There is not a vestige of real “Christianity” where this foundation truth of the Trinity is not known, acknowledged, and magnified. Nor is there a vestige of true piety in any heart where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do not dwell. Furthermore, it is not possible to obtain a clear and full view of any doctrine of the Word, unless the telescope of this transcendent truth be applied to the eye of faith and be viewed through it.
Now if the Holy Scriptures be so plain and full in declaring in the interposition and operations of each Person in the blessed Trinity in the work of our salvation, it must of necessity be the bounden duty as well as the precious privilege of each Christian to pay a becoming attention to and endeavour by devout meditation and prayerful searching of the Word, to get impressed on his mind and heart what God has revealed on the subject. It most certainly behooves each one of us to spare no pains in endeavouring to attain unto a full spiritual knowledge of how the Divine Three stand related to us, how They are severally interested in us, and what we are to expect from Them. This will lead us to render unto Each Divine Person that honour and praise, that loving obedience, which is His distinctive due. For “this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God” (John 17:3).
“The knowledge of God here spoken of, must include in it such a knowledge of the Holy Trinity as is revealed in the blessed gospel. The divine persons in their essential and distinctive relation to each other, and to us, must be so far known as to be believed, and acknowledged by us. The truth of their existence (not the knowledge of their subsisting in the infinite essence), is most essential to the being and to the well-being of our faith. As also how they are related unto us, and have acted for us in the everlasting covenant, in and by which they are and have revealed themselves to be the Lord our God. To know the Father, to be our Father in Christ Jesus, that He hath loved with an everlasting love, is life eternal. To know the Son, as one with the Father, of the same essence with the Father, and that He was set up to be God-man, from everlasting, this is life eternal. To know the Holy Spirit, to be personally distinct from the Father and the Son, yet of the same essence, glory, perfections and blessedness with the Father and the Son, is life eternal” (S.E. Pierce).
A distinction in the Divine nature inconceivable by us, but plainly revealed in Holy Writ, must be acknowledged by us on the all-sufficient testimony of Him who alone can instruct us in what we are concerned to know of His ineffable essence and being. “For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one” (1 John 5:7). To each of these three Persons the perfections of Deity are attributed and ascribed in hundreds of passages of Scripture. Each of Them, therefore, is God, and yet it is equally clear that there is but one Jehovah. Nor is there the slightest ground for us to demur in the face of this insuperable and insoluble mystery. “Let us first if we can, account for the nature, essence, and properties of the things with which, as to their effects, we are familiarly acquainted. Let us explain the growth of a blade of grass, or the virtues of the lodestone. Till we are able to do this, it becomes us to lay our hands upon our mouths, and our mouths in the dust” (John Newton).
A plurality of Persons does not mean that the Godhead is divided, so that the Father is one part of deity, the Son another part, and the Spirit still a third part. “The Divine nature IS the Godhead, simply and absolutely considered; a person is that which subsisteth IN the Godhead, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (W. Perkins, 1595). It is the Divine Persons in the union of the Divine Essence which are to be distinguished, and not the Essence itself. Jehovah is to be worshipped as a Unity in Trinity, and a Trinity in Unity: one God is to be acknowledged in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When Scripture is compared with Scripture it is plain to be seen that the Divine Unity is not a unity of Persons, but of nature and essence. Though there are three in the Godhead, who are dignified with the incommunicable name of Jehovah, possessing the same attributes and perfections and entitled to the same adoration, yet Holy Writ does not exhibit a plurality of Deities.
That each of the Eternal Three partakes of the one Divine Essence is proved by Their names. Each is called “God”: the Father in Hebrews 1:1, the Son in Hebrews 1:8, the Spirit in Acts 5:4-see verse 3. Each of them is designated “Jehovah”: the Father is Psalm 110:1, the Son in Psalm 23:1, the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11:2. Each of them is denominated “The Living God”: the Father in Matthew 16:16, the Son in Hebrews 3:12 and 1 Timothy 4:10, the Spirit in 2 Corinthians 6:16-cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16. Each of them is addressed as “The Almighty”: the Father in 2 Corinthians 6:18, the Son in Revelation 16:7, the Spirit in Job 32:8. Each of them is set forth as a “Fountain”: the Father in Jeremiah 2:13, the Son in Zechariah 13:1, the Spirit in John 7:38. In Ephesians 1:17 the first Person is termed “the Father of Glory”; in James 2:1 the second Person is termed “the Lord of Glory,” while in 1 Peter 4:14 the third Person is termed “the Spirit of Glory.”
That these three names-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-are not so many diverse titles for one and the same august Person, but instead, belong to three distinct but equally Divine Persons, is clear from the fact that in Scripture they are frequently represented as speaking to one another. Thus, in the 2nd Psalm the Messiah declares, “The LORD hath said unto (not “of”) Me, Thou art my Son . . . Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance” (vv. 7, 8). In the 40th Psalm the Son is heard speaking to the Father, saying “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within My heart” (vv. 7, 8). In the 45th Psalm the Father says to His Son, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre” (v. 6). And again in the 110th Psalm, “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (v. 1). What could possibly set forth more clearly the distinction of Persons in the Godhead!
In the previous section of this article we called attention to a number of passages in the Old Testament where the Eternal Three are all mentioned together: the same blessed phenomenon is presented again and again in the New Testament. “When the (1) Comforter is come, whom (2) I will send unto you from (3) the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of Me” (John 15:26). “I beseech you, brethren, for (1) the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for (2) the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers (3) to God” (Rom. 15:30). “For through Him (Christ) we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:18). “To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God (the Spirit), and of the Father, and of Christ” (Col. 2:2). “The Lord (the Spirit) direct your hearts into the love of God (the Father), and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thess. 3:5). “Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” (Heb. 9:14). “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2).
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). In the name of the Triune God believers are to be baptized. What a conclusive confirmation of the blessed doctrine of the Holy Trinity is this! Here are three Divine Persons, but with one “Name”-note carefully it is not “names!” The absolute Deity of the Son and of the Spirit are here unmistakably intimated by their conjunction with the Father, since baptism is administered equally in the name of all Three as a religious ordinance, yea, as a part of Divine worship, which could never be were either of the Three merely a creature. Not only is there a profession of faith in the three Divine Persons made by those who are Scripturally baptized, but there is a solemn dedication unto Their service and worship, being laid under obligation of obedience unto Each.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God (the Father), and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). This passage contains another clear proof of a trinity of Persons in the Godhead, for here distinct things are ascribed and of Them asked, as equal Objects of prayer and worship. That comprehensive benediction includes all the prime blessings and benefits of redemption: the “grace” of our adorable Saviour, the “love” of our heavenly Father, and the “communion” of our Divine Comforter. Unto what wretched shifts are the enemies of the Truth put, who would reduce the meaning of this verse unto “the grace of a creature and the love of the Creator be joined with the communion of an energy of Deity, be with you all!” Unspeakably solemn is 1 John 2:23, “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father”: a denial of the Trinity is a repudiation of the Deity of the Son and the Spirit, and he who is guilty of that most awful sin knows not, hath not “the Father!” In denying one they equally deny all.
“And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo a voice from Heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16, 17). Let it be carefully observed here were presented all three Persons of the Godhead, clearly distinguished from each other and manifested severally, and that, in such a way and manner as is needed to define the Persons of Each. Here was the Person of the Father, manifested by a voice from Heaven. Here was the Person of the Son, manifested in our nature, coming up from the water. Here was the Person of the Holy Spirit manifested in the form of a dove, lighting upon the Son. What could more clearly distinguish the Eternal Three-the Father speaking, the Son spoken of, and the Spirit manifested apart from Both! Forever be His name praised that the Triune God there so gloriously revealed Himself.
Not only are the Eternal Three in one God plainly revealed in Scripture in their distinctive personalities, but Their absolute equality One with the Other is also clearly made known. It would extend this article unto too great a length were we to present a small part of the proof that each One is possessed of the same Divine perfections, and quote some of the texts which affirm that Father, Son and Spirit are alike eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Instead, we will here simply point out how Their equality is evidenced by the order in which They are mentioned in various Scriptures. In Matthew 28:19 it is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 13:14 it is the Son, the Father, and the Spirit. In Ephesians 4:4 it is the Spirit, the Son, and the Father. In Colossians 2:2 it is the Spirit, the Father, and the Son. In Revelation 1:4, 5 it is the Father, the Spirit, and the Son. What could more definitely intimate Their equality than this variation of order!
Infidels have sought to turn into ridicule the fact of Christ praying to the Father, arguing that if both were Divine and there be only one God, then God was praying to Himself. In this they betray their ignorance, failing to discern the distinctions in the Godhead: though the Divine Essence be one, there is a distinction of Persons in the undivided nature. “The language of I and Thou, and Me and Thee, so often used by Christ in John 17, are so many proofs of the Divine personalities of Himself and of the Father. The word personalities is expressive of the mode of existing in the Divine nature. The word person, besides that, implies the nature and substance in whom He subsists. A person is an individual that subsists and lives of itself, endowed with will and understanding, who is neither sustained by, nor is part of another. Such is the Father, therefore a Person; such is the Son, therefore a Person; such is the Holy Spirit, therefore a Person. The great and incommunicable name of Jehovah is always in the singular number, because it is expressive of His essence, which is but one; but the first name we meet with in the first verse of Scripture is plural” (S.E. Pierce).
Scripture does not present the doctrine of the sacred Trinity in any way of contradiction, and affirms that God is one and three, three and one, in the same manner: instead, it reveals that God is one in nature, but three in His Persons. When Christ said “I and (My) Father are one” (John 10:30), He signified one in nature, not one in Person. The word “God” is sometimes expressive of the Divine Essence, and sometimes of one of the Persons in that Essence. The three Persons are one in substance, one in the depths of a common consciousness, one in purpose, and with absolute equality in power and glory. “They agree with one another in nature, being, life, time, dignity, glory, or anything else pertaining to the Divine Essence: for in all these They are one and the same, and consequently co-essential, co-equal, co-eternal” (J. Usher, 1640).
The Divine Persons are not only one, but they are in one Another: “As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee” (John 17:21)-there is an intimate inhabitation without any confusion of the three Subsistences. They enjoy perfect, absolute, and Divine union and communion with Each Other. In the Scriptures we hear Them speaking to Each Other, and of Each Other in such a way as to clearly show a distinction of Persons, while constituting one Jehovah in the indivisible Essence of the Godhead. The ineffable union between the Eternal Three is such that Each One is in and with the Others; Each One loves, possesses, glories, in the Other, and works the same thing. “The Father loveth the Son” (John 3:35); “the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19); “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” (John 14:10).
“The union of the Trinity in Godhead is an essential one. There can be no greater unity. Nothing can be more one than the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. Yet it is a unity which consists with order and distinction: the Unity of the Trinity does not take away the distinction of the Persons, nor confuse Their order. They are one, yet three. They keep Their distinct Personalities, and Their distinct Personal operations, and Their different manner and order of acting. It is an eternal and inseparable union, for in the Divine nature or Essence there can be no change. It is from the unity of the Persons in the same Essence ariseth their essential In being in Each Other. All the Persons having the same Essence and being in the one Essence, it follows that in respect of the Essence, one Person is as Another.
“The great and incomprehensible God is essentially and infinitely holy, happy, blessed, and glorious. His nature is a fountain of infinite perfection. He is life itself, eternity itself, love itself, and blessedness itself. His happiness arises from the knowledge which He hath of His own essential nature, Persons and perfections. Nothing can be added unto Him, for ‘of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things’ (Rom. 11:36). From the in-being, society, and mutual intercourse held between the Eternal Three in the one Jehovah, flows that life of joy and bliss which belongs to God alone. The essential union between the Persons in the Eternal Godhead is incommunicable, and the communion which They had from everlasting with Each Other is incomprehensible. Yet we may venture to say, Their communion consisteth in the eternal life of the three Persons among Themselves, in the common interests and propriety which They have in Each Other, in reciprocal affections, communion and enjoyment; in an equal knowledge of Each Other; in an alternate communication of Each Other’s mind in mutual love and delight, and in Their possession of one common glory and blessedness.
“There is an incomprehensible love borne by the Three in Jehovah to Each Other: it is a part of Their essential perfection and blessedness. Whilst the Scripture is not altogether silent on this most sublime truth, yet it speaks but sparingly of it, because it exceeds all created conceptions; it can no more be comprehended than the life and self-sufficiency of Jehovah can. Yet, as in the order in which the Essential Three exist and co-exist in the incomprehensible Jehovah, They have been pleased to make known and manifest Their Personalities in all Their eternal, internal and external acts of grace in election, regeneration, sanctification, preservation and eternal glorification. So Their love to Each Other is intimated in those distinct displays of grace which are attributed to Each of Them in the sacred Word. It is expressly said, ‘The Father loveth the Son’ (John 3:35), ‘I love the Father’ (John 14:31). And from the co-equality of the Father, Son and Spirit, in the Essence or Godhead, and from the unity of the Holy Ones in the whole revelation of grace, it is evident that the Spirit loves the Father and the Son” (S.E. Pierce, 1810).
We have written of the union of the Eternal Three. It is the union of distinct Persons in the unity of a single nature. It is an union which is absolute, essential, eternal, incomprehensible, ineffable. It is not only futile, but grossly impious, to attempt any illustration of it, for there exists no analogy in all the universe. GOD is unique! But though profoundly mysterious, every truly regenerated soul has proof of this truth in his own inward experience. He knows that he has access through Christ, by the Spirit unto the Father. He knows that the Man who has saved him from Hell is indwelt by “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” He knows that the invincible power which subdued his enmity and caused him to throw down the weapons of his rebellion, was exercised by God the Spirit. And he knows that he has received the spirit of adoption whereby he cries “Abba, Father.”
Mediatorial Union
That which is now to engage our attention is the constitution of the Person of Christ, not as He existed from all eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but as He was upon earth working out the salvation of His Church, and as He now is in Heaven at God’s right hand. It was an essential part of His covenant-engagement that the beloved Son should become the Surety of His people, and in order thereto, assume their nature into union with His Divine Person, and thus become God and man in the Person of one Christ. In consequence of that union all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily or personally, in a manner and to an extent it does not, will not, and cannot, in any other. This is the next greatest mystery which is revealed in Holy Writ, being the foundation upon which the Church is built (Matt. 16:18), and concerning which a belief thereof is absolutely essential unto salvation. It is therefore impossible to over estimate the importance, blessedness, and value of this truth.
This Mediatorial union-denominated the “Hypostatic (personal) union” by theologians-or the conjunction of the Divine and human natures in the God-man Mediator, is based upon that infinitely higher union which we sought to contemplate in the last two articles. Divine union-between the Eternal Three-was the foundation of the Mediatorial union. Had there been only one Person in the Divine Essence or Godhead, our salvation had been utterly impossible: we could not be joined to the very nature or essence of God, without either ungodding Him or deifying us. For the elect to have been taken into immediate union with God would produce a change in the Divine nature-an addition to it-something which can never be. Even the Man Christ Jesus could not be taken into immediate union with the Divine Essence absolutely considered, though He could and was with One in that Essence.
We are conscious of the fact that we have just stepped into deep water, and perhaps those who are accustomed to paddle in the shallows will be unwilling to follow; but for the sake of the few who desire, by grace, to believe, and as far as God now permits, to understand the mysteries of our faith, we deemed it expedient to touch briefly upon this profound depth-not in a spirit of unholy boldness, but in fear and trembling. As it was impossible that the Divine nature should suffer and die, so it was for us to be joined thereto. But we could become one with a Divine Person who Himself subsisted in the Divine Essence, and Omniscience found a way whereby that should be effected. By virtue of the Son’s assuming our humanity the elect have been taken into union with a Divine Person, yet not into union with the Divine nature or Essence itself. Thus we have sought to point out an error against which we need to carefully guard, lest we entertain thoughts grossly dishonouring to the Godhead.
The highest union of all is that incomprehensible and yet ineffable union which exists between the three Divine Persons in the one Divine Essence. The next great union-founded, as we have briefly intimated above, upon that essential one-is the union of our nature unto the second Person in Jehovah, so that the Word made flesh is both God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ. This too is a profound and unfathomable mystery, yet is it revealed as a cardinal chapter of our faith. It is a subject of pure revelation, and only from the sacred Scriptures can we obtain any light thereon. It falls not within our province to explain this mystery, yet it is our privilege and duty to spare no pains in prayerfully seeking sound and clear views of the same, for there can be no true growing in grace except as we grow in the scriptural and Spirit-imparted knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Right thoughts of Him are to be esteemed far above all silver and gold.
Rightly did the Puritan John Flavell say of this subject, “We walk upon the brink of danger; the least tread awry may engulf us in the bogs of error.” There are certain vital postulates which are necessary to the scriptural setting forth of “the doctrine of Christ” (2 John 9), if the truth about His wondrous and glorious Person is to be maintained; such as the following. First, that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God, possessing the Divine nature and all its essential attributes. Second, that He is also true Man, possessing human nature in all its essential properties and sinless infirmities. Third, that those two diverse natures are united in His unique Person, yet ever remain distinct and unmixed, so that the Divine is not humanized, nor the human deified. Fourth, that both of those natures were and are operative in all of His mediatorial acts, so that while they may be distinguished, they cannot be separated. These great verities must be held firmly by us if we are to believe in and worship the Christ of God.
“The Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon Him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures-the Godhead and the manhood-were inseparably joined together in one Person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which Person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man” (Westminster Catechism). This is a clear and helpful setting forth of the constitution of Christ’s theanthrophic Person, i.e., His Person as the God-man.
Let it not be supposed that because this is one of the deep mysteries of Christianity, it is a subject in which only theologians are interested, or that it is a matter upon which Christians may lawfully differ. Not so: it is a vital truth which is to be held fast at all costs, a precious truth revealed for the nourishing of faith. Only as the Holy Spirit enables us to receive into our minds and hearts the revelation which the Father has so graciously made of His Son shall we be effectually preserved from the subtle errors of Satan. The value of what Christ did depended entirely upon who He was, and therefore it is of the very first importance we should attain unto right views of the constitution of His wondrous Person. If the angels “desire to look into” these things (1 Peter 1:12)-figured by the cherubim with their faces turned toward the mercy-seat on the Ark (Exo. 25)-how much more should we who are chiefly concerned therein.
The “doctrine of Christ” or the truth concerning the constitution of His Person is of such fundamental and vital concern that without the belief of it no man can be a Christian: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2), that is, born of God, one of His people, and on the side of His truth. On the other hand, “every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God” (1 John 4:3). As John Newton well put it,
“What think ye of Christ? is the test
To try both your state and your scheme,
You cannot be right in the rest,
Unless you think rightly of Him.”But the great majority of people have no desire to meditate upon Him, wishing rather to banish all thoughts of Him from their minds, and even among those who sing, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,” few are willing to read and re-read the deeper things about His Person.
That which determines our interest in a person is our love for him. I am not much concerned about the ancestry and history of one who is a stranger to me, but when it comes to a person who is an object of my affections, then the smallest details about him are welcomed by me. A letter filled with little items about the person and doings of her absent son would be dearly treasured by his fond mother, but would be pointless and wearisome to one not acquainted with him. Does not the same principle hold good regarding the blessed Person of our Lord and Saviour? One who is, experimentally, a stranger to Him, cannot be expected to relish a setting forth of the mysterious constitution of His Person, but those who, by grace, esteem Him as the Fairest among ten thousand to their souls, are ready to read, meditate upon, and study, if thereby they may be favoured with clearer and fuller views of Him.
Surely this is a subject of thrilling interest, for it is one in which the infinite wisdom of God is most gloriously exhibited. “To unite finite and infinite, almightiness and weakness, immortality and mortality, immutability with a thing subject to change; to have a nature from eternity and yet a nature subject to the revolutions of time; a nature to make a law, and a nature to be subjected to the law; to be God blessed forever in the bosom of His Father, and an infant exposed to calamities from the womb of His mother: terms seeming most distant from union, most incapable of conjunction, to shake hands together, to be most intimately conjoined; glory and vileness, fullness and emptiness, Heaven and earth; He that made all things, in one Person with a nature that is made; Immanuel, God and man in one; that which is most spiritual to partake of that which is carnal flesh and blood; one with the Father in His Godhead, one with us in His manhood; the Godhead to be in Him in the fullest perfection, and the manhood in the greatest purity; the creature one with the Creator, and the Creator one with the creature. Thus is the incomprehensible wisdom of God declared in the Word being made flesh.
“The terms of this union were infinitely distant. What greater distance can there be than between the Deity and humanity, between the Creator and the creature? Can you imagine the distance between eternity and time, infinite power and miserable infirmity, and immortal Spirit and dying flesh, the highest being and nothing? Yet these are espoused. A God of unmixed blessedness is linked personally with a man of perpetual sorrows; life incapable to die joined to a body in that economy incapable to live without dying first; infinite purity and a reputed sinner, eternal blessedness with a cursed nature, omniscience and ignorance; that which is entirely independent and that which is totally dependent, met together in a personal union, the eternal Son, the seed of Abraham (Heb. 2:16). What more miraculous than for God to become man, and man to become God! That a Person possessed of all the perfections of the Godhead should inherit all the imperfections of the manhood in one Person, sin only excepted; a holiness incapable of sinning to be made sin. Was there not need of an infinite power to bring together terms so far asunder, to elevate the humanity to be capable of, and disposed for, a conjunction with the Deity?” (S. Charnock).
The regulation of our thoughts about Him who is Divinely denominated “Wonderful,” is what every believer should pray and earnestly aim at. It is of deepest importance that we should have scriptural views concerning Him, not only in general, but in detail; not only that we may be fortified against pernicious errors touching His Person, which are now so rife, but also that we may be enabled to appreciate those particular instances in which the Divine wisdom shines forth with greatest splendour. This it is which will give Christ the “pre-eminence” in our minds, revealing how high above the relation and union which exists between Christians and God, is the relation and union between Christ Himself and God. Yes, nothing short of this should be our aim and quest “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13).
Before seeking to contemplate, separately, the various aspects of and elements in the great mystery of “God manifest in flesh,” we will devote the remainder of this article unto a consideration of some of the reasons why it was needful for the Son of God to become the Son of man. The union of two distinct natures in the Person of the Lord Jesus was a fundamental requisite for the union of sinners to God in Christ. We were once with God in Adam, but when he fell, a breach was made: as it is written, “They are all gone out of the way” (Rom. 3:12), which clearly implies that they were once found in “the way.” That breach being made, we cannot be restored unto God, unless and until He came to us. A Divine Person must take our nature in order to reconcile our persons to God, and therefore do we read of Christ that He “once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). But let us enter a little into detail, even though the ground here be familiar to most of our readers.
First, it was requisite that one of the Divine Persons should be made under that very law which was originally given to man, and which man transgressed. “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Gal 4:4). Observe the order: He was “made of a woman” in order to be “made under the law.” He who was “in the form of God” took upon Him “the form of a servant,” that is, entered the place of subjection. He came to repair our lost condition, and in order thereto it was needful that He submit Himself unto the Divine precepts, that by His obedience He might recover what by their disobedience His people had lost. And by the perfect obedience of this august Person, the law was more “magnified” than it had been insulted by our rebellion.
Second, it was requisite that He who would save His people from their sins should suffer the penalty of that law which they had broken. There was an awful curse pronounced upon those who broke the law, and the Saviour must take His peoples’ place and undergo it: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). That curse was death, but how could God the Son die? Only by assuming a mortal nature. Third, it was requisite that in delivering Satan’s captives the great Enemy should be conquered by One in the same nature as had been defeated by him. Accordingly it is written, “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, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).
Fourth, it was requisite that the Redeemer should take possession of Heaven for us in our nature, and therefore did He say, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). Blessed indeed is that word in Hebrews 6, “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus” (vv. 18-20). Fifth, it was requisite that the mighty Redeemer should also be capable, experimentally, of having compassion on the infirmities of His people, and how could this be had He never encountered them in His own person? “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).
Not only was it necessary for God the Son to assume a human nature, but also that His humanity should be derived from the common root of our first parents. It would not suitably have answered the Divine purpose that Christ’s humanity should be created immediately out of nothing, because there had then been no such alliance between Him and us as to lay a foundation of hope of salvation by His undertaking. No, it was essential that He should sustain the character and perform the work of a redeemer, that He should be our Goal or near Kinsman, for to Him alone belonged the right of redemption: see Leviticus 25:48, 49; Ruth 2:20 and 3:9, margin. So it was declared at the beginning: He was to be the woman’s “Seed” (Gen. 3:15), and thus become our Kinsman. “For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one (i.e., one stock): for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:11).
Yet, it was also absolutely necessary, notwithstanding, that the nature in which redemption was to be performed should not only be derived from its original root, but also by such derivation that it should not be tainted by sin or partake in any degree of that moral defilement in which every child of Adam is conceived and born. It was requisite that our High Priest should be “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” “If the human nature of Christ had partook, in any measure, of that pollution which, since the Fall, is hereditary to us, it would have been destitute of the holy image of God, as we are prior to regeneration: and, consequently, He would have been rendered incapable of making the least atonement for us. He who is himself sinful, cannot satisfy Divine justice on the behalf of another; because, by one offence, he forfeits his own soul. Here, then, the adorable wisdom of God appears in its richest glory. For though it was necessary our Surety should be man, and the seed of the woman, yet He was conceived in such a manner as to be entirely without sin” (A. Booth).
God brought a clean thing out of an unclean. The manhood of Christ was derived from the common stock of our humanity, yet was it neither begotten nor conceived by carnal concupiscence. Original sin is propagated by ordinary generation, but the Son of man was produced by extraordinary generation. It is by the father’s act that a child is begotten in the image and likeness of our first fallen and corrupted father. But though a real Man, Christ was not begotten by a man. His humanity was produced from the substance of Mary by an extraordinary operation of the Holy Spirit above nature, and hence His miraculous and immaculate conception is far above the compass of human reason to either understand or express. Through the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of Christ was conceived by a virgin who had never known a man. It was an act of Omnipotence to produce it; it was an act of Divine holiness to sanctify it; it was an act of Omniscience to unite it unto the Person of the eternal Son of God.
Part 2
We shall now endeavour to consider the nature of the Divine incarnation itself-exactly what took place when the Word became flesh. Here it behooves us to tread with the utmost reverence and caution, for the ground is truly holy. Only by adhering closely to the Scriptures themselves can we hope to be preserved from error; only as the Holy Spirit Himself is pleased to be our Guide may we expect to be led into the truth thereof; and only as we attend diligently to every jot and tittle in the revelation which God has graciously vouchsafed, will it be possible to obtain anything approaching a complete view of the same. May the Lord enable us to gird up the loins of our mind, and grant that in His light we may see light, as we approach our happy but difficult task.
In Old Testament times God granted various intimations that the coming Deliverer should be both Divine and human. At the beginning God announced to the Serpent (not “promised” unto Adam, be it noted), “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). This was a clear indication that the Saviour should be human, for He would be the woman’s “Seed”; yet it as definitely intimated that the Saviour would be more than a man, for it is the work of Omnipotence to destroy Satan’s power, hence we read, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20). Expressly was it revealed that “a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14), “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God” etc., (Isa. 9:6). In the ancient “Theophanies” such as in Genesis 18:1, 2; 32:24; Joshua 5:13, 14, etc., the Divine incarnation was anticipated and adumbrated, for in each case the “man” was obviously the Lord Himself in temporary human form.
Now there were three distinct things which belonged to the Word’s becoming flesh: the actual production of His humanity, the sanctifying thereof, and His personal assumption of it. The production of it was by miraculous conception, whereby His human nature was under the supernatural operation of God the Spirit framed of the substance of Mary, without man’s help: “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” (Luke 1:35). But let it here be pointed out that in no sense was the Spirit the “father” of Jesus, for He contributed no matter to the making of His manhood, but only miraculously fashioned it out of the seed of His virgin mother. “Although the human nature of Christ was individualized and personalized by a miraculous conception, and not by ordinary generation, yet there was as really and truly a conception and birth as if it had been by ordinary generation. Jesus Christ was really and truly the Son of Mary. He was bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh. He was of her substance and blood. He was consubstantial with her, in as full a sense as an ordinary child is consubstantial with an ordinary mother” (W. Shedd, 1889).
That which was conceived by Mary, under the mighty power of the Holy Spirit was not a human person, but a human nature; hence was it said “that holy thing which shall be born” (Luke 1:35). It is most important to clearly grasp this fact if we are to be preserved from error. When contemplating the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity, we saw how necessary it was to distinguish sharply between nature and person, for while there are three Persons in the Godhead, Their essence or nature is but one. In like manner, it is equally essential that we observe the same distinction when viewing the Person of the Mediator, for though He assumed human nature, He did not take a human person into union with Himself. Thus, we may correctly refer to the complex person of Christ, but we must not speak of His dual personality.
At the first moment of our Lord’s assumption of human nature, that human nature existed only as the “seed” or un-individualized substance of the Virgin. But it was not for that reason an incomplete humanity, for all the essential properties of humanity are in the human nature itself. Christ assumed the human nature before it had become a particular person by conception in the womb: He “took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16). The personalizing of His humanity was by its miraculous union with His Deity, though that added no new properties to human nature, but gave it a new and unique form. Nor was it simply a material body He assumed, but a human spirit and soul and body; for He was made “in all things like unto His brethren, sin excepted.”
That it was an impersonal human nature which the Son of God assumed is clear from His own words in Hebrews 10:5: “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” The “body,” put metonymically for the entire human nature was not the “Me” or “Person,” but something which He took unto Himself. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14): note carefully it is one who died: though possessing two natures, there was but a single Person. The humanity of Christ-consisting of spirit, and soul and body-had no subsistence in itself or by itself, but only as it was taken into union with a Divine Person. In answering the question, “What was the cause that the Person of the Son of God did not join Himself to a perfect person of man,” the renowned James Usher (1654) replied, “1. Because then there could not be a personal union of both to make one perfect Mediator. 2. Then there should be four Persons in the Trinity. 3. The works of each of the natures could not be counted the works of a whole Person.”
“The personality of Jesus Christ is in His Divine nature, and not in His human. Jesus Christ existed a distinct, Divine Person from eternity, the second Person in the adorable Trinity. The human nature which this Divine Person, the Word, assumed into a personal union with Himself, is not and never was a distinct person by itself, and personality cannot be ascribed to it, and does not belong to it any otherwise than as united to the Logos” (S. Hopkins, 1795). As a woman has no wifely personality until she is married, so the humanity of Christ had no personality till it was united to Himself: “that holy thing which shall be born of thee (Mary) shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35)-receiving its name from the Divine Person with which it was made one. Just as my personality and your personality, from first to last, centres in our highest part-the soul-and is only shared in by the body, so the personality of the Mediator centres in His highest part-His Deity-His humanity only sharing in it.
The second thing pertaining to the Mediatorial union was the sanctifying of that “seed” which was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin. To sanctify signifies to set apart unto God. For that two things are required: the cleansing of the object or person from pollution, and the enduing it with excellency fit for the Divine service-typified under the ceremonial economy by the washing and then the anointing of the priests, and the sacred vessels. In connection with the humanity of our Lord, the first was secured by God’s miraculously preserving it from the slightest taint of defilement, so that the Lamb was “without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). Nothing with the least trace of corruption in it could be joined to the immaculate Son of God. Original sin could not be transmitted to Him, because He was never in Adam nor begotten by a man. The immediate interposition of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) prevented all possibility of any corruption being transmitted through Mary.
The enduing of Christ’s humanity was also by the gracious operation of the Spirit: see Isaiah 11:1, 2. “God, in the human nature of Christ, did perfectly renew that blessed image of His on our nature, which we lost in Adam; with an addition of many glorious endowments which Adam was not made partaker of. God did not renew it in His nature, as though that portion of it whereof He was partaker, had ever been destitute or deprived of it, as it is with the same nature in all other persons. For He derived not His nature from Adam in the same way that we do; nor was He ever in Adam as the public representative of our nature as we were. But our nature in Him had the image of God implanted in it, which was lost and separated from the same nature, in all other instances of its subsistence. It pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell, that He should be ‘full of grace and truth,’ and in all things have the pre-eminence.
“The great design of God in His grace is, that as we have borne the ‘image of the first Adam’ in the depravation of our natures, so we should bear ‘the image of the second’ in their renovation. As we have borne ‘the image of the earthy,’ so we shall bear ‘the image of the heavenly’ (1 Cor. 15:49). And as He is the pattern of all our graces, so He is of glory also. All our glory will consist in our being ‘made like unto Him,’ which what it is doth not yet appear (1 John 3:2). For He shall ‘change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body’ (Phil. 3:21). Wherefore the fullness of grace was bestowed upon the human nature of Christ, and the image of God gloriously implanted thereon, that it might be the prototype and example of what the church was through Him to be made partaker of” (John Owen).
The Holy Spirit infused into our Saviour’s humanity every spiritual grace in its fullness and perfection. Each child of God is lovely in His sight because of some spiritual excellence which has been imparted to him-in one it is faith, in another courage, in another meekness; but the humanity of Christ was “altogether lovely.” This was foreshadowed of old in the meal offering (Lev. 2): not only was the fine flour “unleavened” (v. 5), but the fragrant “frankincense” was put thereon as a “sweet savour to the LORD” (v. 2). Christ was more holy in His human nature than was Adam when he was first created, and than are the unfallen and pure angels in Heaven, for it received the Spirit “without measure” (John 3:34), and because it was taken into personal union with the Son of the Living God. “His body and mind were the essence of purity. His heart was filled with the love of God, His thoughts were all regularly acted on what was before Him, His will was perfectly sanctified to perform the whole will of God. His affections were most correctly poised and properly fixed on God” (S.E. Pierce).
The third thing pertaining to the Mediatorial union was the actual assumption of that human nature which the Holy Spirit framed in the womb of the Virgin, and which He endowed with a fullness of grace and truth, whereby the eternal Son took the same upon Him, that it might have a proper and personal subsistence. A remarkable adumbration of this mystery seems to have been made in the natural world for the purpose of aiding our feeble understandings. This was set forth by one of the earlier Puritans thus: “As the plant called mistletoe has no root of its own, but grows and lives in the stock or body of the oak or some other tree, so the human nature having no personal subsistence, is, as it were, ingrafted into the Person of the Son, and is wholly supported and sustained by it, so as it should not be at all, if it were not sustained in that manner” (W. Perkins, 1595).
We believe this act of assumption took place at the very first moment of conception in the Virgin’s womb: certainly it was months before the birth, as is clear from Luke 1:43, where Elizabeth, “filled with the Holy Ghost” (v. 41), exclaimed “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” This assumption was purely a voluntary act on the part of the Son of God: He did not assume human nature from any necessity, but freely; not out of indigence, but bounty; not that He might be perfected thereby, but to perfect it. It was also a permanent act, so that from the first moment of His assumption of our humanity, there never was, nor to all eternity shall there be, any separation between His two natures. Therein the Hypostatic union differs from the conjunction between the soul and body in us: at death this conjunction is severed in us; but when Christ died, His body and soul were still united to His Divine Person as much as ever.
As to how this act of assumption took place, we cannot say. The Scriptures themselves draw a veil over this mystery: “the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee” (Luke 1:35), so that from Mary and from us was hidden that ineffable work of the Most High, forbidding us to make any curious and unholy attempts to pry into it. The Divine transaction occurred, the amazing work was performed, and we are called upon to believe and adore. That unique act whereby the Maker of all things “took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16), when the Sovereign over angels “took upon Him the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), was the foundation of the Divine relation between the Son of God and the man Christ Jesus. Concerning the blessedness, the marvel, the unfathomable depths, the transcendent wisdom and glory of the act of assumption, we cannot do better than quote again from that prince of theologians, John Owen:
“His conception in the womb of the Virgin, as unto the integrity of human nature, was a miraculous operation of the Divine power. But the prevention of that nature from any subsistence of its own, by its assumption into personal union with the Son of God, in the first instance of its conception, is that which is above all miracles, nor can be designed by that name. A mystery it is, so far above the order of all creating or providential operations, that it wholly transcends the sphere of them that are most miraculous. Herein did God glorify all the properties of the Divine nature, acting in a way of infinite wisdom, grace, and condescension. The depths of the mystery hereof are open only unto Him whose understanding is infinite, which no created understanding can comprehend.
“All other things were produced and effected by an outward emanation of power from God: He said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. But this assumption of our nature into hypostatical union with the Son of God, the constitution of one and the same individual person in two natures so infinitely distinct, as those of God and man, whereby the eternal was made in time, the infinite became finite, the immortal mortal, yet continuing eternal, infinite, immortal, is that singular expression of Divine wisdom, goodness, and power, wherein God will be admired and glorified unto all eternity. Herein was that change introduced into the whole first creation, whereby the blessed angels were exalted, Satan and his works ruined, mankind recovered from a dismal apostasy, all things made new, all things in Heaven and earth reconciled and gathered into one Head, and a revenue of eternal glory raised unto God, incomparably above what the first constitution of all things in the order of nature could yield unto Him.”
“And the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14): not by His Deity being converted into matter, nor simply by His appearing in the outward semblance of man; but by actually assuming that “holy thing” which was framed by the Spirit and conceived by the Virgin. The Word “flesh” in John 1:14 includes more than a physical body-compare Romans 3:20 and 1 Corinthians 1:29 for the scope of this term. The eternal Word took upon Him a complete and perfect human nature, with all the faculties and members pertaining to such. “Choosing from the womb of the Virgin a temple for His residence, He who was the Son of God became also the Son of man: not by confusion of substance, but by a unity of person. For we assert such a connection and union of the Divine with the humanity, that each nature retains its properties entire, and yet both together constitute one Christ” (John Calvin, “Institutes”).
This union of the Divine and human natures in the Mediator is not a consubstantial one such as pertains to the three Persons in the Godhead, for They are united among Themselves in one Essence: They all have but one and the same nature and will; but in Christ there are two distinct natures and wills. Nor is the Mediatorial union like unto the physical, whereby a soul and body are united in one human being, for that constitution is dissolved by death; whereas the Hypostatic union is indissoluble. Nor is the Mediatorial union analogous unto the mystical, such as exists between Christ and His Church, for though that be indeed a most glorious union, so that we are in Christ and He in us, yet we are not one person with Him; and thus the mystical union falls far below that ineffable and incomprehensible oneness which exists between the Son of God and the Son of man.
Thomas Goodwin, of blessed memory among lovers of deep expository works, was wont to call this Mediatorial union “the middle union,” coming in as it does between the union of the three Divine Persons in the Godhead, and the Church’s union with God in Christ. We may also perceive and admire the wisdom of the eternal Three in selecting the middle One to be the Mediator; as we may also discern and adore the propriety of choosing the Son to be the one who should enter the place of obedience. He who eternally subsisted between the Father and the Spirit, has, by virtue of His incarnation, entered the place of “Daysman” between God and men; for in consequence of His union with the Divine Essence, He is able to “take hold” of God on the one side, and in consequence of His union with our humanity, He is able to take hold of us on the other side; so that He “takes hold of both” as Job desired (9:33).
Part 3
Christ is not now two persons combined together, but one Person having two natures. He is both God and man, as many Scriptures plainly affirm, possessing in Himself both Deity and humanity. “Unto us a child is born,” there is His humanity; “Unto us a Son is given: and His name shall be called The mighty God” (Isa. 9:6), there is His Deity. “That holy thing which shall be born of thee,” there is His humanity; “shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35), there is His Deity-”called the Son of God” means He shall be owned as such: “all shall so acknowledge Him: either here in gracious confession, or in glorious confusion hereafter” (Thomas Adam’s, 1660). “God sent forth his Son,” there is His Deity; “made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4), there is His humanity. “Made of the seed of David according to the flesh,” there is His humanity; “And declared to be the Son of God” (Rom. 1:3, 4), there is His Deity, both making up the one Person of “Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Having considered the needs-be for the Divine incarnation, having sought to contemplate the nature thereof, we now turn unto some of the effects and consequences of the same. We shall seek to examine, first, the effects of the Mediatorial union with respect unto the Divine nature of Christ; second, with respect unto His human nature; and third with respect unto His complex Person.
When the eternal Word became flesh, His Divine nature underwent no change whatsoever. Such a thing could not be: God is no more subject to alteration or variation than He is to death. Being God the Son, the Word was immutable, and must remain forever the same. To say that His Deity was humanized is to assert an utter impossibility. The incarnation of the Beloved of the Father, despoiled Him of none of His perfections. Had He lost (or “emptied” Himself of) any of those attributes proper to the Divine nature, He could not have been a sufficient Mediator. That is properly a “change,” when anything ceases to be what it was before; but such was not the case with Immanuel. It was none other than God who was “manifest in flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16), so that the incarnate Son could say, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).
When it is affirmed “The Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us,” the Spirit was careful to move John to at once add, “and we beheld His glory.” What “glory”? the “glory” of His meekness, gentleness, compassion? No, but “the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father.” Though He now became what He was not previously-united to manhood-yet He ceased not to be in Himself all that He was before. “He assumed our nature without laying aside His own. When the soul is united to the body, doth it lose any of those perfections that are proper to its nature? Is there any change either in the substance or qualities of it? No; but it makes a change in the body; and of a dull lump it makes a living mass, conveys vigour to it, and by its power quickens it to sense and motion. So did the Divine nature and human remain entire: there was no change of the one into the other, as Christ by a miracle changed water into wine, or men by art change sand or ashes into glass” (S. Charnock).
During the days of His humiliation, the Divine glory of the Mediator was partly veiled. There was no halo of Divine light encircling His head, to mark Him out as Immanuel. There was no visible retinue of angels in attendance upon Him, to signify the Lord of Heaven was tabernacling upon earth. Instead, He was born in a manger, grew up in the home of a peasant family, and when He began His public ministry His forerunner was clothed in a garment of camel’s hair and His ambassadors were humble fishermen. Yet even then His Divine glory was not completely eclipsed. The character He displayed was “Fairer than the children of men” (Psa. 45:2). His teaching was such that even the officers sent to arrest Him testified, “never man spake like this Man” (John 7:46). His miracles witnessed to His Almightiness. Even in death He could not be hid: the centurion exclaiming, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. 27:54).
Yet the partial veiling of His Divine glory in nowise wrought any change in, still less did it injure the Divine nature itself, any more than the sun undergoes any change or is to the slightest degree injured when it is hid by the interposition of a cloud. “When He prays for the glory He had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5), He prays that a glory He had in His deity might shine forth in His Person as Mediator, and be evinced in that height and splendour suitable to His dignity, which had been so lately darkened by His abasement; that as He had appeared to be the Son of man in the infirmity of the flesh, He might appear to be the Son of God in the glory of His Person, that He might appear to be the Son of God and the Son of man in one Person” (S. Charnock). At His ascension, nothing was added to His essential Person: His Divine glory did but shine forth more distinctly when He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
We turn next to consider the consequence of His human nature being taken into union with the Son of God. And, first, negatively. His humanity was not invested with Divine attributes. As the Divine nature was not humanized at the incarnation, neither was the humanity deified: there was no communication of properties from one to the other; both preserved their integrity, and remained in possession of their distinctive qualities. “I do not hereby ascribe the infusion of omniscience, of infinite understanding, wisdom, and knowledge into the human nature of Christ. It was and is a creature, finite and limited, nor is a capable subject of properties absolutely infinite and immense. Filled it was with light and wisdom to the utmost capacity of a creature. But it was so, not by being changed into a Divine nature or essence, but by the communication of the Spirit unto it without measure. The Spirit of the Lord did rest upon Him: Isaiah 11:1-3” (John Owen).
There were three respects in which the humanity of Christ underwent no change by virtue of its union with His Divine Person. First, with respect to its essence: intrinsically and integrally it was and forever remains a real and true humanity. Second, in respect to its properties: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52); when He prayed “not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), it was the subjecting of the human unto the Divine. Third, with respect to its operations: every human faculty was normally exercised by “the man Christ Jesus.” He hungered and thirsted, ate and drank; He wearied and slept; He sorrowed and wept; He suffered and died. Some things as a man He knew not (Mark 13:32), except as they were given Him by revelation (Rev. 1:1).
Positively, the humanity was elevated unto a state infinitely surpassing that of every other creature in earth and Heaven. Though the Godhead received nothing from the manhood, yet the manhood itself-taken into union with the second Person in the Trinity-was immeasurably enriched and exalted to unspeakable dignity, infinitely above that of the angels. He who is Head of the Church has, in all things, “the pre-eminence.” Not only was the Divine wisdom more illustriously displayed in the wondrous constitution of the Mediator than in any or all the other works of God, but His grace was also more gloriously evidenced unto the man Christ Jesus than it was in the saving of sinners. The highest act of Divine favour was exercised when the woman’s “Seed” was raised high above all other creatures, and made Jehovah’s “Fellow.” Wherein could the Seed of Abraham merit such an inestimable honour! It was grace, pure and simple, grace in its most superlative exercise, which conferred upon the humanity of Christ a dignity and glory immeasurably exceeding that possessed by the cherubim and seraphim.
The Man Christ Jesus was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20) unto union with the second Person in the Godhead, and therefore the Divine grace shown unto Him in His predestination was greater far than that shown unto us, by how much more the privileges ordained were greater. Marvelous grace indeed is it that we should be elevated unto a place in the family of God and “made neigh” (Eph. 2:13) unto Him; but that falls far, far short of the Man Christ Jesus being actually united to the immediate Person of the Son of God; and in consequence thereof being not only “the Firstborn (Chief) of every creature,” but “the Man that is My Fellow, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 13:7)-advanced unto a fellowship in the Society of the blessed Trinity. This it was which stamped an infinite worth upon the whole work of the Mediator.
“Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine Elect, in whom My soul delighteth” (Isa. 42:1). God’s “Elect” was the Man whom He eternally chose to taken into personal union with His co-essential and co-equal Son. This is the One in whom He eternally delighted, ever viewing Him in the glass of His decrees. This is “the Man of His right hand, the Son of man whom He madest strong for Himself” (Psa. 80:17). This was indeed grace worthy of God, such as can never be fully conceived by any finite intelligence, no not by the saints in Heaven through the ages of eternity. In the Person of the God-man, grace, sovereign grace, was exercised in its first and greatest act, shining forth in its utmost splendour and discovered in its utmost freeness. For again we say, there could be nothing whatever in the unindividualized “seed” of the woman which could be, to the smallest degree, entitled unto such supernal glory.
It was therefore meet and requisite that grace and glory should be communicated and bestowed upon the humanity of Christ, proportionately to the high dignity of its being taken into union with the Son. “1. Preeminence, to all other individuals of human nature: the humanity of Christ was chosen and preferred to the grace of union with the Son of God, above them all; it has a better subsistence than they had, and has obtained a more excellent name than they, and is possessed of blessings and privileges above all creatures. All which is not of any merit in it, but of the free grace of God. 2. Perfect holiness and impeccability: it is called that holy Thing: it is eminently and perfectly so, without original sin, or any actual transgression; it is not conscious of any sin, never committed any, nor is it possible it should. 3. A communication of habitual grace to it in the greatest degree; it is, in this respect, fairer and more beautiful than any of the sons of men: grace being poured into it in great plenty; it is anointed with the oil of gladness above its fellows; that is, with the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit” (John Gill, 1770).
Consider, briefly, some of the super-excellent perfections of the Man Christ Jesus. There is a wisdom in Him which is far above what all other creatures have attained or can reach unto, so that in Him “Are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). It is true those treasures of wisdom are not of that richness and extent as the wisdom that dwells in God Himself, for the manhood of Christ is not omniscient; yet by virtue of its union with the Son of God, it has been taken into all the counsels of the Godhead, and knows all decrees concerning the past, the present, and the future.
The same holds good of His power. Though the manhood of Christ has not been endowed with omnipotence, yet it approximates as closely thereto, as any creature could, for all power has been given to Him, both in Heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18), so that the rule of the universe is committed to Him, He upholding all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). God “hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man” (John 5:27).
The image of God shines brightly in Christ’s independency and sovereignty. This incommunicable attribute of Deity is reflected to a high degree in Him who has been made “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), being one of the brightest jewels in the crown of His glorified humanity. This personal prerogative of the Son of God is now shared in by the nature which He took into union with Himself, as the queen shares the palace of the king. A dependent “thing” has been made an independent creature-what a marvel of marvels!
So too of His holiness. There is that transcendency of holiness in the Man Christ Jesus that is not found in all other creatures put together, and in this respect also He is “the Image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). There is in Him a holiness over and above that grace communicated to Him “without measure” by the Spirit: it is a relative holiness of a man united to the second Person of the Godhead, which casts the shine of its superlative glory upon that which is habitual or communicated. It is this which gave infinite value to all He did.
Coming now to the consequences of the Divine incarnation as it respects the complex Person of the Mediator. First, there is a communion between the two natures in Him which is far more intimate than that enjoyed by husband and wife, or even that which obtains between Christ and His Church: it is exceeded only by that ineffable fellowship which exists among the eternal Three. While the properties of each several nature preserve their distinctness, yet they are so united to form one Person, who may be denominated according to either nature. Sometimes the Mediator is called “man” as in Acts 17:31, etc., and at others He is designated “God,” as in Romans 9:5, etc. Thus, what cannot be said of Christ in the abstract, can be predicated of Him in the concrete-His Deity could not be tempted, nor is His humanity omnipresent: yet as a Person He was tempted and is omnipresent.
Second, in consequence of the two natures in His Person, Christ holds the office of Mediator. “But He is not Mediator only in His human nature, and only exercises it in that; He took upon Him, and was invested with this office before His assumption of human nature; and could and did exercise some parts of it without it; but there were others that required His human nature; and when, and not before it was requisite, He assumed it; and in it, as united to His Divine Person, He is God-man, is Prophet, Priest, King, Judge, Lawgiver, and Saviour; and has power over all flesh, to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him” (John Gill). This it is which stamped infinite worth, dignity and glory on what He did. He being both God and man in one Person, His love was the love of God (1 John 3:16), His righteousness was the righteousness of God (Phil. 3:9), His blood was the blood of God (Acts 20:28).
Thirdly, there is a communion of operations in both natures to the discharge of His Mediatorial office. The work performed by Christ was the work of the God-man: there was a concurrence of both natures in the performance of it. “In the work of atonement, as well as in all the other parts of His mediatorial activity, Christ acted according to both natures. They ever acted conjointly, but in their several spheres. It is important to keep in mind that they never acted apart in anything that concerned the mediatorial function. And this it is the more necessary to mention, because the notion has obtained currency in modern times that the Divine nature was for the most part in abeyance during His humiliation” (George Smeaton, 1868). “The perfect complete work of Christ in every act of His mediatory office, in all that He did as the King, Priest, and Prophet of the Church, in all that He continueth to do for us, in or by virtue of whether nature soever it be done, is not to be considered as the act of this or that nature in Him alone, but it is the act and work of the whole person” (John Owen).
Fourth, though the human nature of Christ, distinctively considered, is not a formal object of worship, since it is a creature, yet as taken into union with God the Son, and both natures together forming the one Person of the Mediator, Christ is to be adored and worshipped. Thus, at His birth it was said, “Let all the angels of God worship Him” (Heb. 1:6). So at His ascension He was given a name which is above every name, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Phil. 2:9, 10), that is, in a way of religious adoration. Accordingly we read “And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever” (Rev. 5:13).
Fifth, in consequence of the Hypostatic union, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells personally in Jesus Christ, and in Him there is such an outshining of the perfections of Jehovah as contain the utmost manifestation of Deity which can be made either unto the angels or unto men. The “glory of God” shines “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Much may be seen of God, in creation, in providence, in grace, but in and by Jesus Christ alone is He fully and perfectly revealed. Therefore could He say, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).
The particular points which most