CHAPTER VII: Fit that Christ should be such a man as to be like us in the matter and substance
CHAPTER VII
That it was not only fit that Christ should be man, but such a man as to be like us in the matter and substance of his body—And to be like us in his production and birth, to be born of a woman, as we are.—
What are the reasons of this—What is the reason why Christ, though born of a woman, is yet without sin.—Why he is man, and of the Jewish nation.
Now seeing he was thus to be a man, let us consider what manner or kind of man every way qualified was fittest in this business, and we shall find that such a man did God every way make him; for he must have a human nature fitted for him on purpose: Heb. 10:5,
'Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.' 'A body hast thou fitted me,' so some read it, adaptasti, fitted him with a body for the purpose. And indeed if for all other works God chooseth out fit instruments, then surely for this great work of all works else; and accordingly divines call his human nature instrumentum
Deitatis, the instrument of the Godhead. It is not every kind of body will fit him for this purpose of reconciling. Some schoolmen have thought that not any other human nature but that which was assumed could have been assumed; sure I am a greater fitness could not have been in any, and all to make up this his personal fitness for a mediator full, that in him all fulness might be found to dwell.
Now concerning what qualifications are to be in him for this work, we have this general rule given us here in Heb. 2:17, 'That it became him in all things to be made like to us who were his brethren;' so as the liker he should be to us, the fitter mediator he should be for us, and that for the very reasons before mentioned, that because justice admitted of a commutation, it would yet come every way as nigh to have a full and proportionable satisfaction as could be. As satisfaction must be made in a nature of the same kind, by man, not an angel, so in such a nature a man as should be as near akin to us,
and like us, as the matter would possibly permit, so as the business of reconciliation be not hindered nor evacuated by it; for then he should have lost his end.
First, Whereas he might have been a man of the same nature with us, consisting both of body and soul, and yet have been created immediately, as Adam was, out of nothing, yea, or out of matter in heaven (as some do dream), as his body itself is now heavenly and spiritual, and therefore called 'the heavenly man,' 1 Cor. 15:48, 49: yet that he may be like to us, he will take human nature of the same lump with ours, and out of which ours is taken. So here in Heb. 2:14,
'He took part of the same;' the same flesh and blood that we have; and again, ver. 11, 'Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one:' he says, not only that both are one for nature and kind, but all are 'of one,' that is, one lump and mass, that so he might be a little the more akin to us, our countryman, being made of the same earth we are of. If he had been made of heavenly matter he had been countryman to the angels rather, for heaven is their country; yea, he had been utterly a stranger to us, though of the same nature; as a man dropped from heaven would be, as some conceive Melchisedec his type to have been. And the reason there given is proper and pertinent, for he was to sanctify us; and he that sanctifies and they that are sanctified it is meet they should be 'of one.' The ground of this reason is taken from that of the Levitical law, by which the first-fruits sanctified the whole lump or mass which those fruits were taken out of; and they by this sanctified the rest, because they were of the same lump or mass, as it is expressed,
Rom. 11:16, 'For if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.' They were not only of the same species of creature that the rest were of, but growing out of the same earth that the rest of the fruits did. Now Christ, as he is called 'the fruit of the womb,' Luke 1:42, so the 'first-fruits,': 1 Cor. 15:20, 'But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept;' which, though spoken of the resurrection only, yet holds in all, even to his very nature. He is in all things wherein he is like us the first-fruits, and therefore is to be made like us in all, that
he might be the first-fruits. And he was to sanctify others of mankind; and this he had not so fitly and correspondently, according to the law of nature, done, had not both they and he been all of one.
And besides God meant not to create anew any of mankind, and therefore he made woman of man rather than of nothing, intending to make out of Adam all which he meant to make, even Christ and all. But then, Secondly, He might have been made of the same lump, if made of some man, in that manner as Eve was out of Adam, made of a rib, or some such part of mankind. But he resolves to come nearer yet, and to be made as like in all things as may be, and therefore he will be made of the same kind of matter that we all are made of, even of seed, which is the quintessence, the elixir of man's nature, intimum substantiæ; and therefore the first title and appellation he was known by unto the sons of men was 'the seed of the woman:' Gen.
3:15, 'And 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.' So Acts 17:26. God hath made mankind all of one blood, that so they might love one another; and he will have this man that is to be our redeemer to be of the same blood, that is, of seed, which is the blood of man concocted to an height, and therefore he is not only called a man, but the 'Son of man,' Mat. 17:12. Eve, though made out of man, was not filia hominis, a daughter of man; nor Adam, though a man, yet not a son of man; no. In the genealogy,
Luke 3:38, Adam is called the son of God; but Christ is to be the Son of man as well as man, and that by being made of seed, which all men are made of; and so in Heb. 2:16, 'He took not the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham.' And the reason is given in the next verse here, that he might call us brethren, and not be ashamed of us. A brother is more than of the same nature, it notes one made out of the same blood. And God would have the same blood run in his veins that runs in ours. And this fitted him the more to be a redeemer, and to have right to do it by the Levitical law also, for it was proper to a brother to redeem, and a stranger could not: Levit. 25:25, 'If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession,
and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.' So that the church comes to have her wish:
Cant. 8:1, 'Oh that thou wert as my brother,' &c. For so Christ is. Yea, Thirdly, He will come yet nearer, even in the manner of his production, or being made a man, as like as may be to that of ours, as near as possibly might be, so as not to take infection. He will be made of seed, even by a conception, and lie in the womb, and grow up there, from a tear, a drop, by degrees, as man doth, and be born, and be a suckling as we, as Ps. 8:2 speaks of him, and therefore he is called the fruits of the womb: Luke 1:42, 'And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.' And more expressly, Luke 1:31, 'Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son,' speaking to Mary. You see Christ is like to us in being produced both by the same way, and to lie in the same place, that secret and dark chamber that all mankind lies in. Conception is the groundseil (as I may call it) of our nature, which sin had infected, and it was rotten and corrupted, and from it the leprosy was spread over all the walls of this building: 'In sin my mother conceived me,' says David, Ps. 51:5, and Christ coming to repair and restore us from the very foundation, sanctifies that very way of production, conception, and consecrates the curious room and privy chamber that all mankind lies in. Man is said by the psalmist to be curiously wrought 'in the lower parts of the earth,' Ps.
139:15; and Christ descends even thither, that so he may ascend the higher. He takes his flight thus low, in that he ascended, he descended first into these lower parts of the earth, which surely is part of the apostle's meaning, in comparing it with that psalm: Eph.
4:9, 10, 'Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?' ver. 10, 'He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.' And that we may be where he is, as he prays, John
17:24, he will condescend for a while to be where we were, enclosed in the womb. And that we may come to his place, his mansion-house in heaven, his Father's house, he will first come down to our place, our mother's house, for such is the womb. And therefore he is still
called 'the seed of the woman,' and 'made of a woman;' Gal. 4:4, 5, 'But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law;' ver. 5, 'To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons;' to the end that he might be fitted to redeem us. This reason is expressly added there, 'that he might redeem us that were under the law.' And this woman was yet a virgin, as you shall see by and by, 'A virgin shall conceive:' Isa. 7:14, 'Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.' One reason of it, besides that which I shall anon give, might be, that God would take a new course in the rearing up this human nature, differing from what was taken afore. If he had made him out of man, or the rib of a man, so he had made the woman before; if out of nothing, so he had made the first man before. But to make him of a woman, and the seed of the woman, by conception, without man, this was a new thing in the earth, as the prophet speaks, Isa. 43:19. And God herein kept some further correspondency also with man's sinning, that (as was observed before) as by a man came death, so by man should come the resurrection; God observed a proportion in it. So here, a woman afore destroyed us, and was 'first in the transgression;' nevertheless, both she and we shall be saved by her child-bearing, or that childbearing (as some interpret that place, 1 Tim. 2:15). And Adam laid all the blame on the woman (reflecting withal on God): Gen. 3:12, 'And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' And therefore God presently, to meet with him, says, 'The seed of the woman,' not the man, shall break the serpent's head; as if he had said, Thou hast laid the fault on me for giving thee a woman, because she hath been the occasion of thy fall; but I will be even with thee (but it is in mercy, as God's revenges on his children are). Thou shalt have cause to thank me more for this woman, than thou now hast done; for 'the seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head;' and so doth God reprove him, and for his unthankfulness puts the honour upon the woman.
Obj. Yea, but now in the fourth place, you will say, this kindred is too nigh, he had better have married our nature further off, and at a greater distance; for thus he is in danger to be made sinful. Doth not the psalmist say, 'In sin my mother conceived me,' Ps. 51:5. Doth not the apostle say, 'And such an high priest became us as was separated from sinners'? Heb. 7:26. Why, then, the work of our redemption will be spoiled by this way of conception of Christ, and he be unfitted for the work.
But for answer, though there is a concipiet, yet not a genitus est; though there is a conception, yet not a generation. It is conception upon generation defiles. Man begets in his image, but Christ was not begotten, but conceived only. He comes so near, you see, that it is but the cutting of a hair keeps him from being infected; and so though he will have the same substance, yet separate from sinners, as there the separation means quantum ad culpam, as to sin; non naturam, as to nature. And therefore though he will be conceived in the same place we are, and be of the same substance with us, yet not after the same way; and it is not the substance that defiles, or the place, but the way of framing our natures. We are framed by generation of man and woman, he but by conception only of a woman, but made by the Holy
Ghost; so in our Creed, 'conceived by the Holy Ghost;' so in Luke 1:25, 'The Holy Ghost shall overshadow thee;' and Mat. 1:20, 'That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.' Not σπερματικῶς, but δημιουργικῶς, as the builder framing and forming his body.
Therefore it is not said he was begotten of a woman, but made of a woman, non genitus, sed factus, and therefore he is called 'The man from heaven,' though the matter of his body was from earth, 1 Cor.
15:47, 48. And to this purpose it is observable, that Heb. 10:5 is with difference spoken of Christ's; human nature and ours, 'A body hast thou prepared me;' that is, God did it, and not man by generation, which is the ordinary way of producing men, and the only way of conveying sin. The parents, they are therefore said to beget a man, not because they afford matter and stuff, but because there goes a forming power, vis plastica, as philosophers call it, that doth prepare the matter, form it, and, to use the word which is here, doth
καταρτὶζει, articulate it for the soul, which is the utmost they do, and for which they are said to beget, and wherein the very formalis ratio of generation lies. Accurately therefore to distinguish this production of the human nature of Christ from the ordinary, though he useth the same word, that signifies the manner of making our bodies by way of articulation, yet he expresseth it as done by another hand, 'Thou hast prepared it,' the Holy Ghost performing that which the vis plastica, or forming power, in all other generations useth to do. Luke 1:35,
'And the angel answered and said unto her, 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.' That though the matter is the same, and this formed by articulation, as ours is, yet it is done by the power of the Most High, and therefore exempted from sin; therefore he adds,
'That holy one that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' For because generation by men is the only way of conveying sin, and the formalis ratio of generation lies in that vis plastica, whereby a parent forms the birth (as philosophy teacheth), therefore his body, though made of the same matter, seed, that ours is, and that seed articulated into the same shape ours is, yet because by another hand, 'the power of the Most High,' therefore he is a holy one separate from sinners, his body being a tabernacle which 'God pitched, not man,' Heb. 8:2. Not of this building, not built as man's is, not by the same hands, as Heb. 9:11, 'But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.'
Man reared it not, nor jointed it, nor framed it, but 'A body hast thou (O God) prepared.' And therefore this body was of a virgin without a father, that as Melchisedec is said, Heb. 7:3, to be without father and mother, so Christ as man was without father, and as God without a mother, who is therefore the stone cut out of the same quarry with us, but 'without hands,' Dan. 2:45, that is, the help of nature, or by a man. And it was necesssary; for, 1. Otherwise his human nature had been a person (the inconvenience of which you heard afore) for terminus generations est persona.
What is produced by generation is a person. And, 2. He had otherwise had two fathers, which nature abhors, that one person should have two fathers.
And in preparing this nature of Christ, the Holy Ghost sanctified that matter, and purified it, as goldsmiths do gold from the dross. And his business being to part sin and our flesh, it was fit he should take such flesh as, though once sinful, yet now sin was parted from it. It is generation defiles, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh, John
3:6, and that as from a man, by whom sin is conveyed; but it follows in the same place, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Now, of Christ it is said that which is conceived in thee is of the Holy Ghost:
Mat. 1:20, 'But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.' It is not the matter nor the place we are conceived in defiles, but the being begotten by a man in the ordinary way of nature, upon which the law of nature seizeth, by which a man is to beget in his own likeness. And therefore the difference of the phrase used here in Heb. 2:11, of Christ and us; and that in Rom. 5:12, speaking of our coming from Adam, is observable.
Here, in Heb. 2:11, Christ and we are said to be 'of one,' that is, of one lump; but the phrase that is used, Rom. 5:12, when the apostle speaks of the propagation of original sin, runs thus, 'By one man sin entered,' because all came by and of that one man. And therefore though Christ be made a Son of Adam, Luke 3:38, as made of that substance and matter derived from him, yet not in regard of the same way of conveying that matter, by fleshly generation of a man, which is the natural channel of conveying his image and original sin.
And yet, Fifthly, To make up this disproportion, he will in all other respects be yet the more like to us; and seeing he must not take sinful flesh, yet he will take the likeness of sinful flesh, as Rom. 8:3, 'For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his
own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh.' He partakes of flesh and blood, Heb. 2:17; and by flesh and blood are meant infirmities of all sorts, he excepts sin only, a body passible; he might have had a body exempted from all sufferings or misery, but he would not. And this assumption of frail flesh was the first part of satisfaction for sin, and the condemning sin in our flesh is attributed to it, Rom. 8:3. He took not indeed personal infirmities, as sickness, but what were common to man's nature; he did bear dolores nostros, our griefs, not of John or Peter, not such evils as came from the particular sins of men, but such as flowed from the common sin of man; nor such as do spring from sin, as not despair, though fear; and those he took was to shew his love, and as they were part of the curse, that he might be able to pity us, and that he might suffer and die and feel the pains of death, in all which he was left to infirmity; as you have it, 2 Cor. 13:4, 'For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God: for we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.' And so in this text, he was 'partaker of flesh and blood,' that is, of the infirmities of man's nature, as well as of the nature; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. If he had not taken this frail flesh, he could not have died.
Hitherto you have heard every way what manner of man he was, and such as in all respects was fittest for him to be, in all things. But there are two things yet to be added, and both such as will make him yet fitter. I add them that you may every way see a fulness in it.
Therefore, Sixthly, Man's nature, you know, was diversified into two sexes, male and female. Now, which of the two was the fittest for him to assume?
And this is a distinct consideration from all the former. Of the two, a male was fittest; and such was he. It is not so directly in the text, and yet all that is spoken of him runs in the masculine gender, him and he; and so this is included: Mat. 1:21, 'Thou shalt bring forth a son,' and, ver. 25, 'she brought forth her first-born son;' and so Luke 2:22.
For he was to be our high priest, and consecrated to God as holy, and so thereby to sanctify his brethren, as Heb. 2:11 hath it; and so was the first male child by the law, which is on purpose noted, Luke 2:23,
'Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.'
And again, all his other offices required it. He was to be a prophet, and to teach God's will first, Heb. 2:2, 3, and for ever to be in the great congregation; and a woman is not to teach in the church. He was to be a king, and to rule his church; and a woman is not to usurp authority over the man. He was to be a husband, and his church a spouse; and only a male could fitly bear that relation. And besides all this, there was this further harmony in it, that as by the male, the man, not the woman, sin is said to enter into the world, Rom. 5:19; so by the man we should be restored. And thus indeed both sexes came to share in this honour—the male, in that Christ himself is a man; the female, in that she yet was the instrument of bringing him forth into the world. He is of the woman's seed, but of man's sex, that so both male and female might be all one in Christ Jesus.
There is now but one thing left, and that is, seeing God hath appointed several bounds to man's habitation, though all are made of one blood, of what country or kindred of men was it fittest for our
Redeemer to be of? God pitched it on what of all was fittest, that he should be 'of the seed of Abraham.' This Heb. 2:16 you see also hath it; and so I could not but take notice of it. As he took the nature of man, not of angels, so he took the seed of Abraham more eminently than of any other nation; although he had by some of his progenitors
Gentiles' blood in him, yet he was of Abraham in a lineal descent:
Rom. 9:4, 5, 'Who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;' ver. 5, 'Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.' I will not mention any other reason of this, but what is proper to set out his fitness the more for this work. It was well for us that he took Abraham's seed, for so in him all nations were blessed, as was the promise, Abraham being father of all the faithful. But especially he was thereby engaged to keep the whole law