Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Calvin’s Institutes. The Person of Jesus Christ Part 4: Very God, very man.

Calvin continued to explain the hypostatic union of Christ in sections 4 to 8 of chapter 14. Why is this doctrine so important? Well, in 1 Jn 4:7; 2:22; and 2 Jn 1:7 we learn that to deny that Christ is both God and man who came in the flesh is to be anti-Christ.

True, Christ was not born the way we were, nor was he sinful in his humanness; yet he was truly human and truly divine.

Here are my points.

1. One of the greatest and longest controversies the church has been the struggle surrounding the doctrine of the Person of Christ. To some, the Scripture verses have been a bad plague, not good revelation. As soon as they read about his humanity, immediately they rob him of his divinity; and as soon as they read of his divinity, immediately they rob him of his true humanity.

2. Arians, Socinians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons etc., do not read the Bible properly. The Bible teaches that Jesus is God and man. “That Christ, as He is God and man, consisting of two natures united but not mingled, is our Lord and the true Son of God even according to, but not by reason of, His humanity” (Pg., 486).

3. These two natures in the one Person of Christ, cannot be so fused or co-mingled so as to come up with only “one” nature; nor can these two natures be so separated so as to come up with two persons; nor can they be a mixture, so as to come up with a half man and half God.

Francis Turretin put it this way. “It is the intimate and perpetual conjunction (coming together) of the nature of God and the nature of man in the unity of a person.” The divine remained divine and the human remained human. The divine nature and human nature are not mixed together like cream is mixed together in coffee, making your drink become part cream and part coffee. Jesus is not half man and half God. Nor is the divine and human nature fused together like a weld making one piece of steel one with another piece of steel. Jesus does not just have one nature. Nor is the divine and human nature so separated from each other like oil and water where the two have no relationship. Jesus is not two persons, a human person and a divine person. No in the hypostatic union the eternal divine Son of God took upon himself a true human nature “essence” and is therefore one holy Person with two natures. [Lk 8:22-25; Lk 2:6-7 with Mt 3:17; Lk 2:40; Php 2:5ff]

4. “The church’s definition stands firm: He is believed to be the Son of God because the Word begotten of the Father before all ages took human nature in a hypostatic union. Now the old writers defined ‘hypostatic union’ as that which constitutes one person our of two natures” (Pg., 488).

5. Scripture points us to the truth that Christ is the eternal Son of God, being the first begotten, being eternally generated by the Father. [Lk 1:35; Heb 13:8; Col 1:15ff; Jn 1:1]

6. Jesus did not become the “Son” of God at his conception in the virgin’s womb. First of all, he is the eternal Word [Jn 1:1]. Secondly, God has eternally been called “Father” [Eph 3:15].

7. Calvin concludes from the above evidence that Christ “was Son of God also under the Law and the Prophets, before this name became illustrious in the church....it is clearly proved that He was eternal God solely because He was the Word begotten by the eternal Father; and that this named belonged to the Person of the Mediator, which He had taken upon Himself, only because He was God manifest in the flesh” (Pg., 491).

8. Jesus Christ was not a mere idea of God’s mind brought into being by his Word as though he were a creature. Nor was Jesus’ body, which he took upon himself, converted from mere flesh to divinity. Jesus Christ our Saviour is God of very God and Man of very man.

9. “It was requisite that the Mediator, who was to reconcile God and man, should Himself be both God and man, and this in one Person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us, and relied on by us, as the works of the whole Person. [WLC.#40]

Early in the 20th century archaeologists where exploring in Asia Minor and they found a Latin inscription chiselled in marble which bears testimony to the clear biblical teaching on the two natures of Christ.
“I am what I was – God
I was not what I am – man
He is now called both, he is God and man.”

God and man for our salvation and God’s glory. The hypostatic union for our salvation and God’s glory.

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