Commentary on Romans; Systematic Theology

The third point in relation to the person of Christ, is that no attribute of the one nature is transferred to the other, This is virtually included in what has already been said. There are those, however, who admit that the two natures in Christ are not mixed or confounded, who yet maintain that the attributes of the one are transferred to the other. But the properties or attributes of a substance constitute its essence, so that if they be removed or if others of a different nature be added to them, the substance itself is changed. If you take rationality from mind it ceases to be mind. If you add rationality to matter it ceases to be matter. If you make that extended which in itself is incapable of extension the identity of the thing is lost. If therefore infinity be conferred in the finite, it ceases to be finite. If divine attributes be conferred on man, he ceases to be man; and if human attributes be transferred to God, he ceases to be God. The Scriptures teach that the human nature of Christ remained in its integrity after the incarnation; and that the divine nature remained divine. The Bible never requires us to receive as true anything which the constitution of our nature given to us by God himself, forces us to believe to be false or impossible.

Thc union of the two natures in Christ is a personal or hypostatic union. By this is meant, in the first place, that it is not a mere indwelling of the divine nature analogous to the indwelling of the Spirit of God in his people. Much less is it a mere moral or sympathetic union; or a temporary and mutable relation between the two. In the second place, it is intended to affirm that the union is such that Christ is but one person. As the union of the soul and body constitutes a man one person, so the union of the Son of God with our nature constitutes Him one person. And as in man the personality is in the soul and not in the body, so the personality of Christ is in the divine nature. Both of these points are abundantly evident from Scripture. The former, or the unity of Christ's person, has already been proved; and the latter is proved by the fact that the Logos, or Son, was from all eternity a distinct person in the Godhead. It was a divine person, not merely a divine nature, that assumed humanity, or became incarnate. Hence it follows that the human nature of Christ, separately considered, is impersonal. To this, indeed, it is objected that intelligence and will constitute personality, and as these belong to Christ's human nature personality cannot be denied to it. A person, however, is a suppositum intelligens, but the human nature of Christ is not a suppositum or subsistence. To personality both rational substance and distinct subsistence are essential. The latter the human nature of Christ never possessed. The Son of God did not unite Himself with a human person, but with a human nature. The proof of this is that Christ is but one person. The possibility of such a union cannot rationally be denied. Realists believe that generic humanity, although intelligent and voluntary, is impersonal, existing personally only in individual men. Although realism may not be a correct philosophy, the fact of its wide and long continued prevalence may be taken as a proof that it does not involve any palpable contradiction. Human nature, therefore, although endowed with intelligence and will, may be, and in fact is, in the person of Christ impersonal. That it is so is the plain doctrine of Scripture, for the Son of God, a divine person, assumed a perfect human nature, and, nevertheless, remains one person.

The facts, therefore, revealed in Scripture concerning Christ constrain us to believe, (1.) That in his person two natures, the divine and the human, are inseparably united; and the word nature in this connection means substance. (2.) That these two natures or substances are not mixed or confounded so as to form a third, which is neither the one nor the other. Each nature retains all its own properties unchanged; so that in Christ there is a finite intelligence and infinite intelligence, a finite will or energy, and an infinite will. (3.) That no property of the divine nature is transferred to the human, and much less is any property of the human transferred to the divine. Humanity in Christ is not deified, nor is the divinity reduced to the limitations of humanity. (4.) The union of the natures is not mere contact or occupancy of the same portion of space. It is not an indwelling, or a simple control of the divine nature over the operations of the human, but a personal union; such a union that its result is that Christ is one person with two distinct natures forever; at once God and man.

§ 4. Consequences of the Hypostatical Union.

The first and most obvious of these consequences is, the koinonia idiomaton, or communion of attributes. By this is not meant that the one nature participates in the attributes of the other, but simply that the person is the koinonos, or partaker of the attributes of both natures; so that whatever may be affirmed of either nature may be affirmed of the person. As of a man can be affirmed whatever is true of his body and whatever is true of his soul, so of Christ may be affirmed whatever is true of his human nature and whatever is true of his divinity; as we can say of a man that he is mortal and immortal; that he is a creature of the dust and the child of God: so we may say of Christ that He is finite and infinite; that He is ignorant and omniscient; that He is less than God and equal with God; that He existed from eternity and that He was born in time; that He created all things and that He was a man of sorrows. It is on this principle, that what is true of either nature is true of the person, that a multitude of passages of Scripture are to be explained. These passages are of different kinds.

1. Those in which the predicate belongs to the whole person. This is the most numerous class. Thus when Christ is called our Redeemer, our Lord, our King, Prophet, or Priest, our Shepherd, etc., all these things are true of Him not as the Logos, or Son, nor as the man Christ Jesus, but as the Theanthropos, the God-man. And in like manner, when He is said to have been humbled, to have given Himself for us, to be the head of the Church, to be our life, and to be our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, this is true of Christ as a person. The same may be said with regard to those passages in which He is said to be exalted above all principalities and powers; to sit at the right hand of God; and to come to judge the world.

2. There are many passages in which the person is the subject, but the predicate is true only of the divine nature, or of the Logos. As when our Lord said, "Before Abraham was I am;" "The glory which I had with thee before the foundation of the world; or when it is said, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the world, and the heavens are the work of thine hands."

3. Passages in which the person is the subject, but the predicate is true only of the human nature. As when Christ said, "I thirst;" "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." And when we read that "Jesus wept." So all those passages which speak of our Lord as walking, eating, and sleeping; and as being seen, touched, and handled. There are two classes of passages under this general head which are of special interest. First, those in which the person is designated from the divine nature when the predicate is true only of the human nature. "The Church of God which He purchased with his blood." "The Lord of glory was crucified." The Son knows not the time when the final judgment is to come. (Mark xiii. 32.) The forms of expression, therefore, long prevalent in the Church, "the blood of God," "God the mighty maker died," etc., are in accordance with Scriptural usage. And if it be right to say "God died," it is right to say "He was born." The person born of the Virgin Mary was a divine person. He was the Son of God. It is, therefore, correct to say that Mary was the mother of God. For, as we have seen, the person of Christ is in Scripture often designated from the divine nature, when the predicate is true only of the human nature. On this particular form of expression, which, from its abuse, is generally offensive to Protestant ears, Turrettin remarks: "Maria potest dici vere theotokos seu Mater Dei, Deipara, si vox Dei sumatur concrete pro toto personali Christi, quod constat ex persona Logou et natura humana, quo sensu vocatur Mater Domini Luc. i. 43, sed non precise et abstracte ratione Deitatis."¹ The second class of passages under this head are of the opposite kind, namely, those in which the person is denominated from the human nature when the predicate is true only of the divine nature. Thus Christ is called the Son of man who is in heaven. Here the denomination "Son of man" is from the human, while the predicate (ubiquity) is true only of the divine nature. So our Lord says, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" (John vi. 62.) In Romans ix. 5, He who was of the fathers (the seed of Abraham and son of David) is declared to be God over all and blessed forever.

4. There is a fourth class of passages which come under the first general head mentioned above, but have the peculiarity that the denomination is derived from the divine nature, when the predicate is not true of the divine nature itself, but only of the Theanthropos. Thus it is said, "The Son also himself shall be subject to him who put all things under him." Here the designation Son is from the divine nature, but the subjection predicated is not of the Son as such, or of the Logos, nor is it simply of the human nature, but officially of the God-man. So our Lord says, "The Father is greater than I." The Father is not greater than the Son, for they are the same in substance and equal in power and glory. It is as God-man that He is economically subject to the Father. Perhaps the passage in John v. 26 may belong to this class. "As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." This may be understood of the eternal communication of life from the first to the second person of the Trinity (i.e., of eternal generation); or it may refer to the constitution of Christ's person. And then the term Son would designate, not the Logos, but the Theanthropos, and the communication of life would not be from the Father to the Son, but from God to the Theanthropos. It pleased the Father that Christ should have a divine nature possessed of inherent life in order that He might be the source of life to his people.

It is instructive to notice here how easily and naturally the sacred writers predicate of our Lord the attributes of humanity and those of divinity, however his person may be denominated. They call Him Lord, or Son, and attribute to Him, often in the same sentence, what is true of Him only as God, what is true only of his humanity, and what is true of Him only as the God-man. Thus in the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews it is said, God hath spoken unto us by his Son. Here Son means the incarnate Logos. In the next clause, "By whom he made the world," what is said is true only of the eternal Son. So also what immediately follows, Who is "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things (the universe) by the word of his power." But in the next clause, "When he had by himself (i.e., by his sacrificial death) purged away our sins," the reference is to his human nature, as the body only died. And then it is added, He "sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high," which is true of the God-man.

The second consequence of the hypostatical union relates to the acts of Christ. As a man is one person, and because he is one person all his acts are the acts of that person, so all the acts of Christ are the acts of his whole person. But, as was before remarked, the acts of a man are of three classes: such as are purely mental, as thought; such as belong exclusively to the body, as digestion and assimilation; and such as are mixed, i.e., both mental and corporeal, as all voluntary acts, as speaking, writing, etc. Yet all are equally the acts of the man. It is the man who thinks who digests his food, and who speaks. So of the acts of Christ. Some are purely divine, as creation and preservation; some are purely human, as eating, drinking, and sleeping; some are theanthropic, i.e., those in which both natures concur, as in the work of redemption. Yet all these acts are the acts of Christ, of one and the same person. It was Christ who created the world. It was Christ who ate and drank. And it is Christ who redeems us from the power of darkness.

Here also, as in the case of the attributes of Christ, his person may be denominated from one nature when the act ascribed to Him belongs to the other nature. He is called God, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, when his delivering Himself unto death is spoken of. And He is called man, or the Son of man, when the acts ascribed to Him involve the exercise of divine power or authority. It is the Son of man who forgives sins; who is Lord of the Sabbath; who raises the dead; and who is to send forth his angels to gather his elect.

Such being the Scriptural doctrine concerning the person of Christ, it follows that although the divine nature is immutable and impassible, and therefore neither the obedience nor the suffering of Christ was the obedience or suffering of the divine nature, yet they were none the less the obedience and suffering of a divine person. The soul of man cannot be wounded or burnt, but when the body is injured it is the man who suffers. In like manner the obedience of Christ was the righteousness of God, and the blood of Christ was the blood of God. It is to this fact that the infinite merit and efficiency of his work are due. This is distinctly asserted in the Scriptures. It is impossible, says the Apostle, that the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sin. It was because Christ was possessed of an eternal Spirit that He by the one offering of Himself hath perfected forever them who are sanctified. This is the main idea insisted upon in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This is the reason given why the sacrifice of Christ need never be repeated, and why it is infinitely more efficacious than those of the old dispensation. This truth has been graven on the hearts of believers in all ages. Every such believer says from his heart, "Jesus, my God, thy blood alone has power sufficient to atone."

The Man Christ Jesus the object of Worship.

Another obvious inference from this doctrine is that the man Christ Jesus is the object of religious worship. To worship, in the religious sense of the word, is to ascribe divine perfections to its object. The possession of those perfections, is, therefore, the only proper ground for such worship. The humanity of Christ, consequently, is not the ground of worship, but it enters into the constitution of that person who, being God over all and blessed forever, is the object of adoration to saints and angels. We accordingly find that it was He whom they saw, felt, and handled, that the Apostles worshipped as their Lord and God; whom they loved supremely, and to whom they consecrated themselves as a living sacrifice.

Christ can sympathize with his People.

A third inference which the Apostles drew from this doctrine is. that Christ is a merciful and faithful high-priest. He is just the Saviour we need. God as God, the eternal Logos, could neither be nor do what our necessities demand. Much less could any mere man, however wise, holy, or benevolent, meet the wants of our souls. It is only a Saviour who is both God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever, who is all we need and all we can desire. As God He is ever present, almighty and infinite in all his resources to save and bless; and as man, or being also a man, He can be touched with a sense of our infirmities, was tempted as we are, was subject to the law which we violated, and endured the penalty which we had incurred. In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, in a bodily form, in fashion as a man, so as to be accessible to us, and so that from his fulness we can all partake. We are therefore complete in Him, wanting nothing.

The Scriptures teach that the Logos is everlasting life, having life in Himself, and the source of life, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. They further teach that his incarnation was the necessary condition of the communication of spiritual life to the children of men. He, therefore, is the only Saviour, the only source of life to us. We become partakers of this life, by union with Him. This union is partly federal established in the councils of eternity partly vital by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; and partly voluntary and conscious by faith. It is to those who believe, to those who receive Him as God manifest in the flesh, that He becomes eternal life. For it is not they who live, but Christ who liveth in them. (Gal. ii. 20.) The life of the believer is not a corporate life, conditioned on union with any outward organization, called the Church, for whosoever calls on the name of the Lord, that is, whosoever religiously worships Him and looks to Him as his God and Saviour, shall be saved, whether in a dungeon or alone in a desert.

Another consequence of the hypostatical union is the exaltation of the humanity of Christ. As the human body in virtue of its vital union with an immortal soul, is immeasurably exalted above any mere material organization in the universe (so far as known or revealed), so the humanity of Christ in virtue of its union with his divine nature is immeasurably exalted in dignity and worth, and even power over all intelligent creatures. The human body, however, is not now, and will not be, even when made like to Christ's glorious body, so exalted as to cease to be material. In like manner the humanity of Christ is not so exalted by its union with his divine nature as to cease to be human. This would break the bond of sympathy between Him and us. It has been the pious fault of some Christians that they merge his humanity in his Godhead. This is as real, if not so fatal an error, as merging his Godhead in his humanity. We must hold fast to both. "The Man Christ Jesus," and "The God over all blessed forever," is the one undivided inseparable object of the adoration, love, and confidence of the people of God; who can each say, —

§ 5. Erroneous and Heretical Doctrines on the Person of Christ.

Plainly as all the truths above mentioned concerning the person of Christ, seem now to us to be revealed in the Holy Scriptures, it was not until after the conflict of six centuries that they came to be fully stated so as to secure the general assent of the Church. We must indeed always bear in mind the difference between the speculations of theologians and the faith of the great body of the people if God. It is a false assumption that the doctrines taught by the ecclesiastical writers of a particular age, constituted the faith of believers of that age. The doctrines of theologians are largely determined by their antecedents and by the current philosophy of the day in which they live. This is unavoidable. The faith of the common people is determined by the Word of God, by the worship of the sanctuary, and by the teachings of the Spirit. They remain in a great measure ignorant of, or indifferent to, the speculations of theologians. It cannot be doubted that the great body of the people from the beginning believed that Christ was truly a man, was truly God, and is one person. They could not read and believe the Scriptures without having these truths engraved on their hearts. All the records of their confessions, hymns, and prayers, prove them to have been the worshippers of Him who died for their sins. And in this light they were regarded and described by all contemporary heathen writers. But while the people thus rested in these essential facts, the theologians were forced from without and from within, to ask, How can these things be? How can the same person be both God and man? How does the Godhead in the person of Christ stand related to his humanity? It was in the answers given to these questions that difficulty and controversy occurred. To avoid the great and obvious difficulties connected with the doctrine of the incarnation of God, some denied his true divinity; others denied the reality or completeness of his human nature; others so explained the nature and effects of the union as to interfere either with the integrity of the divine or of the human nature of Christ or with the unity of his person.

The errors which disturbed the peace of the early Church on this, as on other subjects, arose either from Judaism or from heathen philosophy. The Jews who professed themselves Christians, were not able, in many instances, as we learn from the New Testament itself, to emancipate themselves from their former opinions and prejudices. They had by the misinterpretation of their Scriptures been led to expect a Messiah who was to be the head of their nation as David and Solomon had been. They, therefore, as a body, rejected Christ, who came as a man of sorrows, not having anywhere to lay his head. And of those who were constrained by his doctrines and miracles to acknowledge Him as the promised Messiah, many believed Him to be a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, distinguished from other men only by his holiness and his extraordinary endowments. This was the case with the sect known as Ebionites. Why so called is a matter of doubt. Although as a body, and characteristically, they entertained this low, humanitarian view of the person of Christ, yet it appears from the fragmentary records of the ancient writers, that they differed much among themselves, and were divided into different classes. Some had mingled with their Jewish opinions more or less of the elements of the Gnostic philosophy. This was the more natural, as many of the teachers of Gnosticism were Jews. The fathers, therefore, speak both of Jewish, and of Gnostic Ebionites. So far as their views of Christ's person were modified by Gnosticism, they ceased to be distinctly the views of the Ebionites as a body.

Another class of nominal Jewish Christians is known as Nazarenes. They differed but little from the Jewish Ebionites. Both insisted on the continued obligation of the Mosaic law, and both regarded Christ as a mere man. But the Nazarenes acknowledged his miraculous conception, and thus elevated Him above all other men, and regarded Him as the Son of God in a peculiar sense. The acknowledgment of the divinity of Christ, and the ability and willingness to unite in worship of which He was the object, was from the beginning the one indispensable condition of Christian fellowship. These Jewish sects, therefore, who denied his divinity, existed outside of the Church, and were not recognized as Christians.

As the Ebionites denied the divinity, so the Gnostics in different ways denied his humanity. They were led to this denial by their views of the origin of evil. God is the source only of good. As evil exists it must have its origin not only outside of Him, but independently of Him. He is, however, the source of all spiritual existences. By emanation from his substance spiritual beings are produced; from them other emanations proceed, and from those still others in ever increasing deterioration according to their distance from the primal fountain. Evil arises from matter. The world was created, not by God, but by an inferior spirit, the Demiourgos, whom some sects of the Gnostics regarded as the God of the Jews. Man consists of a spirit derived from God combined with a material body and an animal soul. By this union of the spiritual with the material, the spirit is defiled and enslaved. Its redemption consists in its emancipation from the body, so as to enable it to reenter the sphere of pure spirits, or to be lost in God. To effect this redemption, Christ, one of the highest emanations from God (or Æons), came into the world. It was necessary that He should appear "in fashion as a man," but it was impossible He should become a man, without subjecting Himself to the pollution and bondage from which He came to deliver men. To meet this difficulty various theories were adopted. Some held that Christ had no real body or human soul. His earthly manifestation is human form was a phantasm, a mere appearance without substance or reality. Hence they were called Docetæ, from the Greek verb dokeo, which means to appear, to seem to be. According to this class of the Gnostics, Christ's whole earthly life was an illusion. He was not born, nor did he suffer or die. Others admitted that he had a real body, but denied that it was material. They taught that it was formed of some ethereal or celestial substance, and brought by Christ into the world. Although born of the virgin Mary, it was not of her substance, but only through her as the mould in which this ethereal substance was cast. Hence in the ancient creeds it is said that Christ was born, not per, but ex Maria virgine, which is explained to mean ex substantia matris suæ. It was also in opposition to this Gnostic heresy that the ancient creeds emphasized the declaration that Christ, as to his human nature, is consubstantial with us. Others, as the Cerinthians, held that Jesus and Christ were distinct. Jesus was an ordinary man, the son of Joseph and Mary. Christ was a spirit or power which descended on Jesus at his baptism, and became his guide and guardian, and enabled Him to work miracles. At the time of his passion, the Christ departed, returning into heaven, leaving the man Jesus to suffer alone. As nothing is more distinctly revealed in Scripture, and nothing is more essential to Christ's being the Saviour of men, than that he should be truly a man, all these Gnostic theories were rejected as heretical.

As the Gnostic doctrine which denied entirely the human nature of Christ was rejected, the next attempt was directed against the integrity of that nature. Many of the early fathers, especially of the Alexandrian school, had presented views of this element of Christ's person, which removed Him more or less from the class of ordinary men. They nevertheless maintained that He was truly a man. The Apollinarians, so called from Apollinaris, a distinguished bishop of Laodicea, adopting the Platonic distinction between the soma, psuche, and pneuma, as three distinct subjects or principles in the constitution of man, admitted that Christ had a true body (soma) and animal soul (psuche), but not a rational spirit, or mind (pneuma or nous). In Him the eternal Son, or Logos, supplied the place of the human intelligence. The Apollinarians were led to the adoption of this theory partly from the difficulty of conceiving how two complete natures can be united in one life and consciousness. If Christ be God, or the divine Logos, He must have an infinite intelligence and an almighty will. If a perfect man, He must have a finite intelligence and a human will. How then can He be one person? This is indeed incomprehensible; but it involves no contradiction. Apollinaris admitted that the psuche, and pneuma in ordinary men, although two distinct principles, are united in one life and consciousness. The psuche, has its own life and intelligence, and so has the pneuma, and yet the two are one. But a second and strong inducement to adopting the Apollinarian theory, was the doctrine then held, by many, at least, of the Platonizing fathers, that reason in man is part of the divine Logos or universal reason. So that the difference between man and God, so far as man's intelligence is concerned, is merely quantitive. If this be so, it is indeed difficult to conceive how there should be in Christ both a part of the Logos and the entire Logos. The part would be necessarily superseded by the whole, or comprehended in it. But notwithstanding the force of this ad hominem argument as directed against some of his opponents, the conviction of the Church was so strong that Christ was a perfect man, possessing within Himself all the elements of our nature, that the Apollinarian doctrine was condemned in the general council held in Constantinople, A.D. 381, and soon disappeared.

The integrity of the two natures in Christ having been thus asserted and declared to be the faith of the Church, the next question which arose concerned the relations of the two natures, the one to the other, in the one person of Christ. Nestorianism is the designation adopted in church history, for the doctrine which either affirms, or implies a twofold personality in our Lord. The divine Logos was represented as dwelling in the man Christ Jesus, so that the union between the two natures was somewhat analogous to the indwelling of the Spirit. The true divinity of Christ was thus endangered. He was distinguished from other men in whom God dwelt, only by the plenitude of the divine presence, and the absolute control of the divine over the human. This was not the avowed or real doctrine of Nestorius, but it was the doctrine charged upon him, and was the conclusion to which his principles were supposed to lead. Nestorius was a man of great excellence and eminence; first a presbyter in Antioch, and afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople. The controversy on this subject arose from his defending one of his presbyters who denied that the Virgin Mary could properly be called the Mother of God. As this designation of the blessed Virgin had already received the sanction of the Church, and was familiar and dear to the people, Nestorius's objection to its use excited general and violent opposition. He was on this account alone accused of heresy. As, however, there is a sense in which Mary was the Mother of God, and a sense in which such a designation is blasphemous, everything depends on the real meaning attached to the terms. What Nestorius meant, according to his own statement, was simply that God, the divine nature, could neither be born nor die. In his third letter to Coelestin, Bishop of Rome, he said, "Ego autem ad hanc quidem vocem, quæ est theotokos, nisi secundum Apollinaris et Arii furorem ad confusionem naturarum proferatur, volentibus dicere non resisto; nec tamen ambigo quia hæc vox theotokos illi voci cedat, quæ est christotokos, tanquam prolatæ ab Angelis et evangelistis." What he asserted was, "Non peperit creatura creatorem, sed peperit hominem deitatis instrumentum..... Spiritus sanctus... Deo Verbo templum fabricatus est, quod habitaret, ex virgine." Nevertheless, he obviously carried the distinction of natures too far, for neither he nor his followers could bring themselves to use the Scriptural language, "The Church of God which he purchased with his blood." The Syriac version used by the Nestorians, reads Christos instead of Theos in Acts xx. 28. The principal opponent of Nestorius was Cyril of Alexandria, who secured his condemnation by violent means in the Synod of Ephesus in A.D. 431. This irregular decision was resisted by the Greek and Syrian bishops, so that the controversy, for a time at least, was a conflict between these two sections of the Church. Ultimately Nestorius was deposed and banished, and died A.D. 440. His followers removed eastward to Persia, and organized themselves into a separate communion, which continues until this day.