ShawWCF 8

Robert Shaw’s Exposition of the Westminster Confession: Chapter 8

Article 2
This section relates to the constitution of the person of the Mediator. In opposition to Socinians and Unitarians, who maintain that Christ was merely a man, and had no existence before he was born of Mary; and in opposition to Arians, who, though they admit the pre-existence of Christ, maintain that he is a creature, and existed prior to his incarnation only as a super-angelic spirit; our Confession teaches, that Christ not only existed before his incarnation, but was from all eternity the Son of God, of one substance, and equal with the Father; and that, in the fullness of time, he assumed a complete human nature into union with the divine, so that he is both very God and very man, having two distinct natures, yet but one person.
I. Jesus Christ not only existed prior to his incarnation, but is the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father. The pre-existence of Christ is confirmed by numerous testimonies of Scripture. That he existed before John the Baptist, is affirmed by John himself, who “bare witness of him,” saying, “He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.”
John 1:15
. That he existed before Abraham is affirmed by Christ himself, who told the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
John 8:58
. That he existed before the flood is evident from the words of the Apostle Peter, who affirms, that by the Spirit Christ “went and preached unto the Splits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing.” -
1 Pet. 3:19–20
That he existed before the foundation of the world is no less evident, for the Scripture teaches us that all things were created by him, and in his valedictory prayer he thus expressed himself: “Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”—
John 17:5
. Christ also declares that he “came down from heaven,” and speaks of his a ascending up where he was before” (
John 3:15
,
John 6:62
); which clearly imports, that he had a residence in heaven before he took our nature.
We are not left to conjecture what that nature was in which Christ subsisted prior to his incarnation. We are assured that “he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God ,” that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”—
Phil. 2:6
,
John 1:1
. But the supreme Deity of Christ has been established in a preceding chapter, and we shall not now resume that subject. It will be proper, however, in this place, to offer a few remarks concerning the Sonship of Christ. The title of sons of God is applied in Scripture to various orders of beings, but Christ is styled the Son of God in a sense altogether peculiar to himself; hence he is called God’s own Son - his proper Son - the only begotten of the Father. His Sonship is not founded upon his mission, nor upon his miraculous conception, nor upon his resurrection, as is supposed by many; but he is the Son of God by an eternal, necessary, and ineffable generation. This truth is confirmed by many passages of Scripture, the application of which to the eternal generation of the Son of God has been vindicated by many learned divines. We can only refer the reader to
Ps. 2:7
,
Prov. 8:24–25
,
Mic. 5:2
,
John 1:14
. The denial of our Lord’s eternal Sonship tends to subvert the doctrine of the Trinity; it also throws a veil over the glory of the work of redemption; for the grace of the second person in becoming incarnate, obeying, and suffering—the love of the first in sending him, and delivering him up to sufferings and death for us—and the infinite value of his atonement, are all in Scripture made to turn upon his essential dignity as the Son of God. We cannot pretend to explain the manner of the eternal generation of the Son; but to deny it upon the ground that it is incomprehensible by us would be preposterous; for, upon the same ground, we might as well deny the subsistence of three distinct persons in one Godhead. Though the eternal generation of the Son be to us an inconceivable mystery, yet of one thing we are certain, that it necessarily implies the Son’s equality with the Father. The Jews understood our Lords claim to Sonship as a claim to equality with the Father, and consequently to proper Deity; and he sanctioned the interpretation which they put upon his words, by declaring, “I and my Father are one.”
John 10:30
,
John 10:33
.
II. In the fullness of time, the Son of God assumed a complete human nature into union with his divine person. This article of our faith has been opposed by heretics of various descriptions, and the statements of our Confession are intended to meet the heresies which have been broached in different periods.
1. The Son of God took upon him man’s nature—a real and perfect humanity. In the primitive times of the Christian Church this was denied by various sects, called Docetae, who held that Christ had not a real, but a mere shadowy body; while others, in later times, affirmed that Christ had a body, but not a soul. But the Scriptures declare that “the Word was made flesh,” - that “God sent forth his son, made of a woman”—and that, “forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same.” It would be impossible to find language that could more explicitly assert the reality of Christ’s human nature. His apostles, who were admitted to familiar converse with him, were certain that it was not a mere phantom which they beheld, and were as fully persuaded of the reality of his body as of their own. “We have looked upon, and our hands have handled the Word of life.”—
1 John 1:1
. That Christ had a human soul is equally unquestionable. He “increased in wisdom and stature;” the one in respect of his body, the other in respect of his soul. In his agony, he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;” and on the cross, he committed it to his Father, saying, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”
2. Christ was subject to the common infirmities of our nature, but was altogether without sin. He was subject to hunger and theft, to weariness and pain, and other natural infirmities. On this account, he is said to have been sent into the world “in the likeness of sinful flesh.”—Rom. Viii. 3. But it was only the likeness of sinful flesh, for he had no sin in reality; hence he is called “the holy one,” “the holy child Jesus,” and “a lamb without blemish and without spot.” The perfect purity of our Lord’s human nature was necessary to qualify him for his mediatory work; for if he had been himself a sinner, he could not have satisfied for the sins of others. “such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separated from sinners.”—
Heb. 7:26
.
3. The human nature of Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and was formed of her substance. The body of Christ was not created out of nothing, neither did it descend from heaven, but was formed, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, of the substance of the Virgin; hence Mary is called the mother of Jesus, and he is called “the fruit of her womb,” and “the seed of the woman.”—
Luke 1:42–43
,
Gen. 3:15
.
4. The Son of God assumed the human nature into union with the divine, so that two distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, are inseparably joined together in one person. This is asserted in opposition to certain errors which were broached in the fifth century. The Nestorians held that in Christ, “there were two persons, of which the one was divine, even the eternal Word; and the other, which was human, was the man Jesus.” A strong aversion to this error led the Eutychians into the opposite extreme. They taught that in Christ “there was but one nature;” his human nature being absorbed by the divine. That the Godhead and the manhood are united in the one person of Christ, is confirmed by all those passages of Scripture which speak of two natures as belonging to our Saviour –
Isa. 9:6
,
Rom. 9:5
,
Matt. 1:18
. The human nature of Christ never had a separate subsistence or personality of its own, but, from its first formation, was united to, and subsisted in, the person of the Son of God. This is called the hypostatical or personal union. Though this is an intimate union, yet the two natures are not confounded, but each retains its own essential properties. But, in consequence of this union, the attributes and acts which are proper to one nature are ascribed to the person of Christ. He could only obey and suffer in the human nature, but his obedience and sufferings are predicated of him as the Son of God—as the Lord of glory –
Heb. 5:8
,
1 Cor. 2:8
. To represent our Saviour as having a human person distinct from his Godhead, is to divest his obedience and sufferings of their inherent value, and consequently, to subvert the grand doctrine of the redemption of the Church by his blood. It is, therefore, a most important article of our faith, that our blessed Saviour is “very God and very man, yet one Christ.” To this it is subjoined, that he is “the one mediator between God and man.” The Papists would associate saints and angels with Christ in the work of mediation. They allow, indeed, that Christ is the only mediator of redemption, but they allege that there are other mediators of intercession. But the Scripture makes no such distinction; on the contrary, it expressly asserts that there is only one mediator, as there is only one God –
1 Tim. 2:5
.
ShawWCF 8