Just as my soul could never suffer the pains of fire if it were only soul, but can suffer those pains in union with the body, so the otherwise impassible God can suffer mortal pangs through his union with humanity, which he never could suffer if he had not joined himself to my nature. The union between the humanity and the deity is so close, that deity itself is brought under the curse and penalty of the law. Because Christ was God, did he pass unscorched through the fires of Gethsemane and Calvary? Rather let us say, because Christ was God, he underwent a suffering that was absolutely infinite. Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:300 sq.; Lawrence, in Bib. Sac., 24:41; Schöberlein, in Jahrbuch für deutsche Theologie, 1871:459-501.
A. J. F. Behrends, in The Examiner, April 21, 1898—“Jesus Christ is God in the form of man; as completely God as if he were not man; as completely man as if he were not God. He is always divine and always human.... The infirmities and pains of his body pierced his divine nature.... The demand of the law was not laid upon Christ from without, but proceeded from within. It is the righteousness in him which makes his death necessary.”
(h) Necessity of the union.—The union of two natures in one person is necessary to constitute Jesus Christ a proper mediator between man and God. His two-fold nature gives him fellowship with both parties, since it involves an equal dignity with God, and at the same time a perfect sympathy with man (Heb. 2:17, 18; 4:15, 16). This two-fold nature, moreover, enables him to present to both God and man proper terms of reconciliation: being man, he can make atonement for man; being God, his atonement has infinite value; while both his divinity and his humanity combine to move the hearts of offenders and constrain them to submission and love (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 7:25).
Heb. 2:17,18—“Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted”; 4:15,16—“For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need”; 1 Tim. 2:5—“one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus”; Heb. 7:25—“Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
Because Christ is man, he can make atonement for man and can sympathize with man. Because Christ is God, his atonement has infinite value, and the union which he effects with God is complete. A merely human Savior could never reconcile or reunite us to God. But a divine-human Savior meets all our needs. See Wilberforce, Incarnation, 170-208. As the high priest of old bore on his mitre the name Jehovah, and on his breastplate the names of the tribes of Israel, so Christ Jesus is God with us, and at the same time our propitiatory representative before God. In Virgil's Æneid, Dido says well: “Haud ignara malí, miseris succurrere disco”—“Myself not ignorant of woe, Compassion I have learned to show.” And Terence uttered almost a Christian word when he wrote: “Homo sum, et humani nihil a me alienum puto”—“I am a man, and I count nothing human as foreign to me.” Christ's experience and divinity made these words far more true of him than of any merely human being.
(i) The union eternal.—The union of humanity with deity in the person of Christ is indissoluble and eternal. Unlike the avatars of the East, the incarnation was a permanent assumption of human nature by the second person of the Trinity. In the ascension of Christ, glorified humanity has attained the throne of the universe. By his Spirit, this same divine-human Savior is omnipresent to secure the progress of his kingdom. The final subjection of the Son to the Father, alluded to in 1 Cor. 15:28, cannot be other than the complete return of the Son to his original relation to the Father; since, according to John 17:5, Christ is again to possess the glory which he had with the Father before the world was (cf. Heb. 1:8; 7:24, 25).
1 Cor. 15:28—“and when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all”; John 17:5—“Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”; Heb. 1:8—“of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever”; 7:24—“he, because he abideth forever, hath his priesthood unchangeable.” Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:281-283 (Syst. Doct. 3:177-179), holds that there is a present and relative distinction between the Son's will, as Mediator, and that of the Father (Mat. 26:39—“not as I will, but as thou wilt”)—a distinction which shall cease when Christ becomes Judge (John 16:26—“In that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not onto you, that I will pray the Father for you”) If Christ's reign ceased, he would be inferior to the saints, who are themselves to reign. But they are to reign only in and with Christ, their head.
The best illustration of the possible meaning of Christ's giving up the kingdom is found in the Governor of the East India Company giving up his authority to the Queen and merging it in that of the home government, he himself, however, at the same time becoming Secretary of State for India. So Christ will give up his vicegerency, but not [pg 699]his mediatorship. Now he reigns by delegated authority; then he will reign in union with the Father. So Kendrick, in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1890:68-83. Wrightnour: “When the great remedy has wrought its perfect cure, the physician will no longer be looked upon as the physician. When the work of redemption is completed, the mediatorial office of the Son will cease.” We may add that other offices of friendship and instruction will then begin.
Melanchthon: “Christ will finish his work as Mediator, and then will reign as God, immediately revealing to us the Deity.” Quenstedt, quoted in Schmid, Dogmatik, 293, thinks the giving up of the kingdom will be only an exchange of outward administration for inward,—not a surrender of all power and authority, but only of one mode of exercising it. Hanna, on Resurrection, lect. 4—“It is not a giving up of his mediatorial authority,—that throne is to endure forever,—but it is a simple public recognition of the fact that God is all in all, that Christ is God's medium of accomplishing all.” An. Par. Bible, on 1 Cor. 15:28—“Not his mediatorial relation to his own people shall be given up; much less his personal relation to the Godhead, as the divine Word; but only his mediatorial relation to the world at large.” See also Edwards, Observations on the Trinity, 85 sq. Expositor's Greek Testament, on 1 Cor. 15:28, “affirms no other subjection than is involved in Sonship.... This implies no inferiority of nature, no extrusion from power, but the free submission of love ... which is the essence of the filial spirit which actuated Christ from first to last.... Whatsoever glory he gains is devoted to the glory and power of the Father, who glorifies him in turn.”
Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:402 (Syst. Doct., 3:297-299)—“We are not to imagine incarnations of Christ in the angel-world, or in other spheres. This would make incarnation only the change of a garment, a passing theophany; and Christ's relation to humanity would be a merely external one.” Bishop of Salisbury, quoted in Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man, XX—“Are we permitted to believe that there is something parallel to the progress of our Lord's humanity in the state of humiliation, still going on even now, in the state of exaltation? that it is, in fact, becoming more and more adequate to the divine nature? See Col. 1:24—‘fill up that which is lacking’; Heb. 10:12, 13—‘expecting till his enemies’; 1 Cor. 15:28—‘when all things have been subjected unto him.’ ” In our judgment such a conclusion is unwarranted, in view of the fact that the God-man in his exaltation has the glory of his preëxistent state (John 17:5); that all the heavenly powers are already subject to him (Eph. 1:21, 22); and that he is now omnipresent (Mat. 28:20).