The Seed of the Woman: Chapter 21
The Word of God is truly a wonderful book to study. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 - 1109, wrote what has become a classic study of the Atonement. This work, brief as it is, is full of profound insights. It is best known by its Latin title, Cur Deus Horn o, "Why God Man?"
In dealing with the provision of the Lord's body, he said this - in the form of a conversation: *
Anselm: Let us now examine the question, whether the human nature taken by God must be produced from a father and mother, as other men are, or from man alone, or from woman alone. For in whichever of these three modes it be, it will be produced from Adam and Eve; for from these two is every person of either sex descended. And of these three modes, no one mode is easier for God than another, that it should be selected on this account.
His friend: So far, it is well.
Anselm: It is no great toil to show that that man will be brought into existence in a nobler and purer manner if produced either from man alone, or woman alone, than if springing from the union of both, as do all other men.
His friend: I agree with you.
Anselm: Therefore must he be taken either from man alone, or woman alone.
His friend: There is no other source.
Anselm: In four ways can God create man, viz., either of man and woman, in the common way; or neither of man nor of woman, as he created Adam; or of man without woman, as he created Eve; or of woman without man, which thus far he has never done. Wherefore, in order to show that this last mode is also under his power, and was reserved for this very purpose, what more fitting than that he should take that man whose origin we are seeking [i.e., the God-man Redeemer] from a woman without a man? Now whether it be more worthy that he be born of a virgin or one not a virgin, we need not discuss, but must affirm beyond all doubt, that the God-man should be born of a virgin.
His friend: Your words gratify my heart.
* Cur Deus Homo, LaSalle, Ill., Open Court Publ. Co., 1954, p. 248, 249.
Perhaps in the end Anselm came to recognize another reason why the Lord had to be born of a virgin, though we do not have any record of it. For it will be realized that, had Mary given birth to other children before the Lord was born, these children could have contested the Lord's right to the throne of David and therefore his claim to be the Messiah. Mary certainly bore other children later, but when she conceived by the Holy Spirit and bear Jesus, she had known no man previously (Luke 1:34; and cf. Matt. 1:18, "before they came together").
So we have four alternatives for the provision of the body by which the Lord was to become Man and dwell among us: (1) by creation ex nihilo, (2) by normal procreation, (3) by man without woman, and (4) by woman without man. The final alternative was the one chosen, and in fact was the only possible choice for the Saviour.
He must have a real body. It was not enough for Him to come as He had often come to men in the Old Testament in the form of a theophany with a mere appearance of humanness but not the reality. The emphasis which the epistles were to place upon the importance of the Lord's body in reference to his sacrifice on Calvary needs to be noted carefully. The following passages reflect this emphasis.
John 1:14
"The Word became flesh ...Romans 7:4
"...dead to the law, by the body of Christ..."1 Corinthians 11:24
"This is my body which is broken for you...Colossians l:21, 22
"You...hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh through death..."1 Timothy 3:16
"Great was the mystery...God was manifest in the flesh"Hebrews 2:9, 16
"We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death...that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man...For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham."Hebrews 10:5
"A body hast Thou prepared for Me..."Hebrews 10:10
"By whose will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."Hebrews 10:20
"A new and living way...through his flesh"1 Peter 2:24
"...who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree."
It is important to underscore once again the fact that this sacrifice was not merely a spiritual one. As man dies two kinds of death (a spiritual and a physical one), so man stands in need of two kinds of redemption. But we have reached a point in modern preaching where the emphasis has been almost entirely concentrated upon the spirit of man to the virtual ignoring of his body, as if the spirit were the man. This easily tempts us to see the Cross as a spiritual sacrifice, the physical aspects of it contributing only as an exhibition of the love of God (which indeed it is 1 John 4:10,19), an exhibition which is then presented as an appeal to the individual to respond in like spirit. All other aspects of the crucifixion are played down and the "moral influence" is emphasized instead. The Lord's physical suffering has been the subject of eloquent appeal to the artist, but the significance of his physical death, the death of his body, has been largely overlooked. And, not surprisingly, few preachers speak much about the fact of his bodily resurrection either - or ours, for that matter. The whole drama is cast in a spiritual light to the exclusion of what happened to his body - a body so essential to his assumption of a truly human nature.
The creation of the body of Adam was nothing less than the first step in the "preparation" of a body for the Lord Jesus. (222) Such a body had to be immortal, since the eternal Lord could not appropriately adopt as a vehicle for the expression of his Person a house that had time limits placed upon it, and which would be progressively wearing out while He dwelt in it. Our bodies, as we have seen, are dying slowly from the day of our birth. Each day brings us nearer to the inevitable total breakdown. We dwell in a doomed house, a house in a state of decay. The body that was to house the spirit of the Lord Jehovah had to be entirely free of such effects of sin. It could only be like our fallen bodies, not identical with them (Rom. 8.3). (223) It must be identical with Adam's body in its unfallen state. In us, mortality is a consequence of sin (Rom. 5:12) and sin is an inherent defect, and such an inherently defective house is unthinkable for the Son of God to occupy as Man.
This body, being prepared in Mary's womb, had to be both truly of Adamic origin and adequate to allow the Lord (who through all eternity had only a divine nature) now to express Himself also in truly human nature. While it therefore contributed nothing to the reality of his existence as a person, it temporarily placed certain new conditions and limitations upon Him. It caused Him to experience physical fatigue to the point of falling asleep in a boat on a storm-tossed sea, to be physically weary enough to rest at a well in the heat of the day, to suffer the physical agony of thirst on the cross, and in a hundred other ways to experience those "vulnerabilities" such as are common to man (like weeping at the grave of a friend) and, in the end, tasting death itself. This vulnerability made his crucifixion possible (2 Cor. 13:4).
Now each man's spirit is a unique creation. (224) The created spirit can be thought of as being given a form or a structure unique to itself. The body which it is to indwell and through which it will find its fulfillment must presumably also be providentially constituted to allow the spirit to express itself in keeping with its specific nature. *
* Abraham Kuyper, using the word soul for spirit, reflects this view by saying, "The soul is indeed directly and instantly created by God, but this does not happen arbitrarily, but rather so that the soul is created in this man, at this time, in this country, in this family, with the characteristics which are suitable" [quoted by G. C. Berkouwer, Man: the Image of God, Grand Rapids, Eerdman's, 1975, p. 290].
The Lord of Glory was not a created spirit. But even as all other created human spirits perform the function of animating every newborn child, so He created for Himself a human spirit (so Augustine, Letter #164) to complete his human nature. And this extraordinary fact required that the vessel which was thus prepared for Him should have an appropriate form in order that He might be free to express both his divine and his human natures without the contamination of original sin. For this reason I believe we must assume that a perfect human body was the only kind of body which could possibly fulfill such a tremendous role. *
* The contamination of the soul by the natural born body was recognized by the Jews: "Only in the last centuries (B.C.) did the soul-body dualism and the concept that the soul was an independent substance joined to the body gain general credence; the soul originates in heaven and descends to earth joining a material body at the moment of conception or birth and losing its original perfection." [Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Cecil Roth, N.Y., Doubleday, 1962, under Soul, p. 1743]. Hence the need of virgin birth. This view was generally adopted by the Church and was widely held by theologians (Augustine, Hugo St. Victor, AnseIm of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, Anselm of Laon, Ulrich Zwingli, Peter Martyr, Martin Chemnitz, Zacharius Ursinus, Andrese Hyperius, Benedictus Aretius, Bartholomew Kerkersnan, Francois Turretin, Amandus Polandus, Johannes Wollebius, J. H. Hottinger, Samuel Endeman). It is still widely accepted that the spirit is corrupted by the body.
Adam's body, as first formed, was structured by the creative providence of God as a first step towards the provision of this body.
Had it been God's intention, even Eve's firstborn could have been a perfectly appropriate body for the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ to enter as its animating principle. The Word might indeed have been made flesh and dwelt among men at the very beginning. Had Adam not fallen, no virgin * conception would have been necessary. Then the purpose of the Incarnation would not have been to redeem man, but to reveal God. In any case, a truly Adamic body would have been a fit abode for the Son of God at any time in history, provided it was supernaturally conceived.
* The seed of unfallen Adam, united with the seed of the woman, would have naturally produced a body as perfect as Adam's body when first created. That body would have served as perfectly for the incarnation of the Lord as the body which was prepared in Mary's womb by supernatural conception. The necessity of supernatural conception was occasioned by the fact that fallen Adam's seed would have communicated to it the defect of his own body. It was not that a human body per se would have been an unsuitable habitation for the Person of Jesus Christ, but only that a defective human body would have been unsuitable.
Now the title of this chapter is a quotation from Hebrews 10:5 which reads:
"Wherefore when He [the Lord Jesus] came into the world, He said, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me...Then, said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God."
The wording of this passage is somewhat cryptic but there is little doubt that it refers to the moment of the Lord's incarnation. The words "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not" refer of course to the Old Testament system of animal sacrifices and offerings, a system which had been only a temporary measure and was not intended to be the actual mode of man's redemption. These sacrifices were like a "stay of execution." It was now, at this moment in history, that the Lord in heaven announced his readiness to become Saviour and Redeemer, by incarnation as Man. The circumstance that made his announcement proper at that moment was the fact that a body was ready to receive Him. The time had finally come, in short, for the manifestation of God in human form.
The word prepared in the original Greek (katartidzo) has a special significance in this instance since it is a word which means something more than routine preparation. It means to "prepare perfectly." *
* It is a verb used in a number of contexts, all of which denote a special kind of making ready. It can mean to reconstitute or to restore something as it should be. It is found in Matthew 4:21, for example, applied to the mending of broken nets. Barclay M. Newman gives such meanings as to set right, to make perfect [Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, London, United Bible Societies, 1971]. J. H. Moulton and C. Milligan, on the basis of its use in Greek Papyri of New Testament times, give the meaning as to prepare to perfection [Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, Grand Rapids, Eerdman's, 1972 reprint]. H. G. Liddell and R. Scott in their Greek Lexicon (of Classical and New Testament Greek) give the meaning as to put in order again. to restore, to finish completely. C. Abbott-Smith gives the meaning to render fit or complete, to mend, to repair, to perfect [A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Aberdeen, Clark, 1964, p. 2381]. In the King James Version this Greek verb katartidzo is rendered "to make perfect" (Heb. 13:21; 1 Pet. 5:10), "to perfect" (Matt. 21:16; Luke 6:40; 1 Thess. 3:10), "to be perfectly joined together" (1 Cor. 1:10), "to restore" (Gal. 6:l) and "to frame" (Heb. 11:3 - a passage of special significance for the biblical cosmologist in the light of this particular verb).
In view of our present knowledge of how the seed of the woman may be preserved untouched by accidents that happen to the body (even the ingestion of the forbidden fruit), and in view of the fact that the original seed of the woman was derived from Adam when Eve was first formed out of him in his unfallen state, and in view of the fact that in Adam this same originating germ plasm was exactly as created by God in the first place, we are in a position to see that in Mary was a seed which, energized by the Holy Spirit, would grow into an immortal body such as Adam had as he came from the hand of God. Thus was a body prepared for the Lord Jesus in which there was none of the inherited corruption that renders us mortal creatures and in its subsequent outworking turns us all into sinners. Consequently his body was a body without spot or blemish which, even while it lay in the grave, did not see corruption.
Thus Hebrews 10:5 was not merely an announcement that Mary's 'full-time' had come (Gal. 4:4). It was an announcement that Adam's created body had been recovered as a house for the Lord's immediate possession, thus providing a new and second mode of expression of his Person. God the Son was about to become true Man without jeopardizing his deity. And thereby, because He was now able to experience death, being embodied in a house that was capable of dying, He could become our Redeemer, in his own body bearing our sins on the cross, reconciling us to God in the body of his flesh through death; that we might be sanctified through the offering of his body once for all. It was (and still is) a great mystery - God manifested in the flesh: it provided a new and living way for us to recover our sonship with the Father and our place in glory with exceeding joy. And all this, because his Person was perfectly housed in a perfect body uniquely prepared. Supernaturally conceived, that little body developed in the womb without any violation of the laws of nature that God had originally designed and built into his created order for this very purpose.
The Formula of Concord clearly acknowledges this truth when quoting Luther who, as we have already noted, had said that the Saviour in order to suffer death must become man: "For God, by his very nature, cannot die. However, after God and man were united in one person, it is truly proper to say, 'God has died.'" *
* Formula of Concord, Art. VIII, Section 44, And see further, reference #225.
Only by becoming man could God become subject to death, and this is precisely what we are told He did - He was made in the likeness of man...and He became obedient unto death (Phil. 2:7,8). It is in this sense that T. R. Birks nearly one hundred years ago in his Difficulties of Belief, observed that man, unlike angels, may have been provided with a material body in order "to enable Christ to unite Himself to the race in order to save it." *
* Birks, T. R., quoted by A. H, Strong, Systematic Theology, Phila., Judson Press, 1974, p. 488.
In 1 Peter 3:18 we are told that "Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being delivered up to death * in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit."
* The Greek here, thanatotheis men sarki, often has the meaning of "condemning to death," or "delivering up to death." A good example is in Romans 8:36, and even more explicitly in Mark 14:55, in view of the fact that the Jews did not have this authority. "Delivering him up" was all they could legally do (Acts 3:13). He, as God, did not have his life destroyed by others, for He alone had the power to lay it down (John 10:18).
He thus died as to his humanity, but three days later was quickened again as a Man by the divine nature and energy that resided in his Person. In other words, there was no way in which He might bring us (as composites of body and spirit) back to God except through spiritual and physical death. And there was no way He could experience physical death except by embodiment, by incarnation, or as the Greek of Romans 1:3 has it, "being made according to the flesh" (kata sarka).
Hitherto we have placed considerable emphasis upon the scientific account of the way in which preparation was made for the first coming of the Lord. We now turn, with some relief, to Scripture itself. What we have been dealing with is the scientific account extracted from the data of nature by human ingenuity, as God clearly foresaw it would be. And because He foresaw it would be, it was not necessary that such details should be revealed. But henceforth in this study we must depend more and more upon Revelation for the completion of those details which are inaccessible to us by any other means. And I must confess that it is with a sense of exhilaration because, in spite of all that we can attain for ourselves in the way of understanding by scientific means, we still only see through a glass darkly and need constant correction. The knowledge we gain by Revelation is so much more enduring.
One might ask, Do these scientific details really matter at all? * They were hidden from our brethren in Christ who have gone before us, and clearly therefore they were not necessary to them. Why should they be necessary for us? Have they been omitted from Scripture for this very reason, simply because they are not important?
* It is most important to keep constantly in mind that humanly discovered knowledge is always to minister to, not be master of, our understanding in the things of God. The role of reason and scientific knowledge must always be ministerium, not magisterium.
Not every one will want to know about such things, and certainly no one actually needs to be concerned with them. Those who have a simple faith usually find their faith serving them adequately and well, although analysis often shows that simple faith is, in reality, quite complex, the complexity being concealed by intuitive understanding, and therefore often unrecognized. But there are those who by circumstance and disposition are driven, or drive themselves, to inquire into the how of our redemption in greater depth. Such people have a thirst to know more, and find the quest an exciting one which sometimes amounts almost to an act of worship.
I think Benjamin Warfield has well stated the difference between the desire to know and the need to know. One is as real and undeniable as the other. But it is by no means essential for any man to know how he is saved in order to be saved, nor to know the intricacies of the circumstances by which God made this provision in order to have assurance of salvation. But if he does have the desire to explore the ways of God with man, then the means to do so are becoming increasingly accessible year by year.
Throughout the centuries, many of the great theologians of the past struggled with the problem of the provision of a perfect body out of the sinful flesh that was Mary's (for she too needed a Saviour: Luke 1:47). Roman Catholic theology evolved the dogma of Immaculate Conception. But I believe such a dogma is not necessary and that many who sought to solve the problem by such means would have reveled in the kind of understanding which is now open to us and would have made the greatest possible use of it. Such knowledge has been acquired almost entirely by those who are not at all concerned with the doctrines of the Christian faith. Yet whether they know it or not, they are God's servants, even as Cyrus was a servant of God but knew it not (Isa. 45:1,5). And I am convinced we should respect this service by making use of it, not merely to improve our lot in life but also to increase our understanding of the things we most surely believe. We should not depend upon the findings of science to confirm our Faith, though this may well happen; but it is certainly proper to use these findings to explore that Faith.
In his essay, "The Supernatural Birth of Jesus," Warfield points out that there are really two supernatural events involved in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. First, there is supernatural conception: and secondly, there is supernatural provision of the spirit to animate that little body. These were the truly supernatural aspects of the Incarnation: the actual birth itself was almost certainly quite natural. * But while the creation of a human spirit to complete its humanness was indeed a supernatural event, do we need to suppose it was different in any way from the mode of provision of our spirits by which we achieve personhood? In fact, only one miracle was really involved that was exceptional in nature, namely, the supernatural fertilization of the woman's seed.
* This is implied by Galatians 4:4, "made of a woman, made under the law" - not merely birth but even prenatal development was normal according to natural law.
The importance of the Virgin Conception in relation to the Christian doctrine of Redemption was abundantly clear to Warfield. He wrote: *
It is only in its relation to the New Testament doctrine of redemption that the necessity of the virgin birth of Jesus comes to its complete manifestation. For in this (Christian faith of ours) the redemption that is provided is distinctly redemption from sin; and that he might redeem men from sin it certainly was imperative that the Redeemer himself should not be involved in sin...
* Warfield, Benjamin B., Biblical and Theological Studies, Phila., Presbyterian & Reformed Publ. Co., ed., Samuel G. Craig, 1968, p. 165.
The sinlessness of Jesus, in the sense of freedom from subjective corruption as well as from overt acts of sin, seems to be involved in the incarnation itself, purely and simply; and in point of fact, those who imagine it was in principle sinful flesh which was assumed by the Son of God are prone to represent his flesh as actually being cleansed of its sinfulness, either by the act of incarnation itself or by the almighty operation of the Spirit of God as a condition precedent to incarnation. *
* Perhaps he had in mind the Roman Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception. On this issue, see further reference #228. Many other theologians of the past have shared the view that Christ's body had to be supernaturally protected somehow during gestation besides being virginly conceived.
In other words, the body which the Redeemer was to assume had to be provided in some very special way if He was to fulfil the conditions of his office. He must be born humanly, and yet He could not be born as we are born because He must then be as we are - defiled with the entail of sin. But we know that He was not defiled as we are. We know from Scripture that the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted as we are (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 22:28), but He was always tempted apart from sin (Heb. 4:15). For in Him was no inherited defect such as we are born with (contrast Psa. 51:5 and Rom. 7:8 with l John 3:5). When we are tempted, we are tempted from within, (James 1:13-16), but when Satan came to tempt Jesus Christ he had to work entirely from outside, for he found nothing in the Lord that could possibly serve as a point of leverage (John 14:30). The phrase "apart from sin" has in most translations, early and late, been rendered "without sin" or "without committing sin." This is undoubtedly a truth, but I believe that the original supports an even more profound truth. It is the root of sin, the inherited defect that gives Satan a head start with us. Jesus was born without this defect in his body, and therefore although tempted with the kind of temptations that may come to us, it was always from without, never from within. The basic inward root of sin was not there. When we are told (in Heb. 4:15) that He was tempted in all points like as we are, the Greek is careful to use the word which (as we have already noted, reference #223) means only in a similar way, not in the identical way that we are tempted. His temptations were real enough but not stemming from the same root cause as lies within us.
Now in Hebrews 4:15 the Greek word for "without" is choris; and its basic meaning, according to Thayer, is "apart from." *
* The Definition of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) clearly recognized this meaning. "Of one substance with the Father as regards his godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin."
This passage therefore tells us that when Jesus was tempted, his temptation was not associated with inborn or original sin but apart from it, i.e., independently of it. It was, to use one of Thayer's alternative meanings, temptation "unconnected with" any internal defect in the one tempted. Unfortunately, Thayer then proceeds to suggest, with reference to Hebrews 4:15, that this means He was tempted "without yielding to sin." But surely the meaning is not this? The meaning is that his temptations arose entirely from a source external to Himself.
It is a pleasure to find that Rotherham in his Emphasized Bible and Robert Young in his Literal Translation have both adopted the rendering "apart from sin": not merely indicating it in the margin as a possible alternative (as some other modern Bibles have done) but incorporating it into their text.
Had the intent of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews been merely to express the idea of never actually committing sin (i.e., of being sinless in act), he would surely have not used the Greek preposition choris, but the normal word for this kind of sinlessness which is anamartetos. This word is found in John 8:7, "Jesus said, He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her." The meaning here is quite clear; "he that has committed no sin." Thus Jesus was not tempted as we are tempted due to the entail of inward defect we acquire by natural generation. He escaped this entail by the very fact of virgin conception, a divine solution the purpose of which was not altogether clear to those who have struggled with this problem in the past. *
* For example, Calvin did not see that the virgin conception made possible the provision of a perfect body. He therefore proposed that the perfect body that the Lord must have was not made perfect merely by being "born of the seed of a woman unconnected with any man but because He was sanctified by the Spirit so that his generation was pure and holy, such as it would have been before the fall of Adam" [Inst. II. xiii. 41]. Calvin is really reiterating the argument put forward by Athanasius in his De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, § 20. The child conceived in Mary's womb would still have been mortal like us, had it not been rendered immortal by the presence of the Logos within, a circumstance which "placed it beyond corruption."
Thus Job foresaw the difficulty of redeeming man. He knew that a man must be redeemed by a man, and that animal sacrifices were only symbolic. But how is one to find a man, born of a woman, who is not under the same death penalty by the very fact of his human birth? Any man born of a woman will be brought into judgment on his own account: for, as Job put it, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one" (Job 14:4). *
* In the Hebrew original, "not one" is literally "not a man" (lo adam). This is a far more significant statement in the light of the virgin conception - which is God's answer to Job's question.
Later on, Bildad faced the same issue and stated the problem even more effectively in the form of a two-sided question: "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4). To be a substitute, the Redeemer must be born of a woman, but somehow He must escape our inherited corruption and be "clean."
The idea of a virgin conception was not revealed till much later in history. We meet it first in Isaiah 7:14, where it is important to note that Isaiah is speaking of a virgin conception (Hebrew harah) and not merely of a virgin birth (Hebrew yaladh). I am well aware that the Hebrew word used in Isaiah 7:14 can signify either a virgin or merely an unmarried woman of marriageable age. The Septuagint took the word to mean simply a virgin and so translated it, using the Greek word parthenas. For myself, the New Testament use of the same word (parthenos) when quoting Isaiah in Matthew 1:23, establishes what was the intent of the Holy Spirit since the same Spirit inspired both Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23.
Bildad's insight is perceptive. To have asked exactly the right question in precisely the right form is a clear indication of his understanding of the problem. Today we can see how Mary might conceive (by some freak accident) and bear a female child. But how she could bear a male child * still remains a total mystery which only Revelation can illuminate for us. It is significant, too, in the light of Job's question (in 14:4) as to how a "clean thing" could be born of a woman, that the angel said to Mary (Luke 1:35) "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." This statement is so explicit that it cannot but be in answer to both Job's and Bildad's question.
* Only via the male seed can a male child be conceived under normal conditions, for only the male seed carries the Y chromosome required to bring this about. All virgin births (except among birds) result in female offspring. See further on this, reference #198, final paragraph.
Only by revelation do we know that the Holy Spirit supplied that which a human father could not be allowed to supply in this single instance.
It may seem that we're making too much of too little. We are complicating the Gospel unjustifiably and destroying in the process the simplicity of it which makes it so communicable to "all sorts and conditions of men." Are we not then doing the truth a disservice? In answer to this, I think an observation made by Warfield will be more effective than anything I might say. Warfield wrote: "We are discussing not the terms of salvation, but the essential content of the Christian system; not what we must do to be saved, but what it behooved Jesus Christ to be and to do that He might save us." (emphasis mine). * That is to say, we are not talking about what a man must believe but what had to be done to make his salvation possible. On the other hand, Warfield rightly emphasizes that it is no virtue to be deliberately ignorant of these things if one has the opportunity of knowing them, on the ground that such knowledge is not essential to salvation. Thus he went on to say:
* Warfield, Benjamin B., Biblical and Theological Studies, ed. Samuel Craig, Phil., Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968, p. 167, 168.
The act of faith by which (Jesus Christ] is savingly apprehended involves these presuppositions, were its implicates to be soundly developed. But our logical capacity can scarcely be made the condition of our salvation. It will hardly do to represent ignorance or error as advantageous to salvation. It certainly is worthwhile to put our trust in Jesus as intelligently as it may be given us to do.
To which I can only add a fervent Amen! I am always amazed at the insights into truth of which the human mind is capable when relying upon the Word of God and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. In the Prayer Book of Edward VI, issued in 1548, there was read during the evening service a doctrinal statement of which I have extracted the following words, retaining their old spelling for interest's sake: *
Perfecte God, and perfecte man: of a resonable (i.e., rational) soule, and humayne fleshe subsisting.
Equall to the father as touchyng his Godhead: and inferior to the father as touchyng his manhoode.
Who although he be God and man: yet he is not two, but one Christe.
One, not by conuersion of the Godhead into fleshe: but by takyng of the manhoode unto God.
One altogether, not by confusion of substaunce, but by unitie of person.
* The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, Everyman's Library, London, Dent, 1957, p. 31.
Let me give one further example of the elegant working of man's mind when called upon to grapple with the kind of unfathomable mystery here involved in the manifestation of God in human flesh, in what has aptly been called the "objectification of God." This is to be found in the Tome of Leo. Leo was Bishop of Rome from 440 - 461 A.D. and in his 28th epistle to Flavian, dated June 13,449, he wrote: *
The Son of God therefore came down from his throne in heaven without withdrawing from his Father's glory, and entered this lower world, born after a new order, by a new mode of birth. After a new order, in as much as he is invisible in his own nature and he became visible in ours; he is incomprehensible and he willed to be comprehended; continuing to be before time he began to exist in time. By a new mode of birth, in as much as virginity inviolate which knew not the desire of the flesh supplied the material of the flesh. From his mother the Lord took nature, not sin. Jesus Christ was born from a virgin's womb by a miraculous birth. And yet his nature is not on that account unlike ours, for he that is true God is also true man.
* Bettenson, Henry, Documents of the Christian Church, Oxford, 1950, p. 72.
It seems presumption to seek to amend a statement which has so many wonderful turns of thought in it, but I think it is true to say that we need not to speak of the birth itself as a miracle, only the conception. To this extent, our understanding has perhaps been enlarged a little since Leo's time. We now know more about the Creator's reasons for designing the mode of human reproduction in its initial stages in order to make his own incarnation possible.
It is clear that the Lord Jesus Christ could not become Man without embodiment. And because He was God, He could not be embodied appropriately except in a housing that was altogether without corruption or defect. Such a body, to be human, must be woman-born, but to be without corruption cannot be man-begotten. All these conditions were perfectly fulfilled at the time of his incarnation, and yet the order of nature was not violated - only drafted to serve an even higher purpose than before. Such is the wisdom of God, and such was his forethought in creating Adam and forming Eve as He did.
On the following pages we have summarized in word and diagram the substance of what has preceded in terms of the unfolding of the plan for the redemption of man by the Incarnation of the Son of God, though it seems almost presumption to attempt representation of any kind of such a profound mystery. Nevertheless the following may help to show the continuity of events from the first to the last Adam.
Turning, then, to Figure 17 , we start at the top, level (1), with the creation of Adam represented as containing within himself both seeds, male and female, symbolized by open circles marked M and F.
We move down to level (2) and observe that Adam has now been separated into two halves of himself, each of which contains one seed.
We drop down from these two representative figures to the next stage (3) which signifies their fallen state. Both figures are therefore shaded. But they are shaded differently and the difference is important. In Adam's case the shading includes the circle which is the seed of the man. In the woman's case the circle is not shaded, signifying that it was still untouched by the poison and has therefore all the potential of the female seed in Adam as first created.
At level (4) sons and daughters are born from the union of Adam and Eve. It will be noticed that they are all shaded but that the shading in the male seed is total, whereas the female seed is still not shaded. For the seed of the woman is preserved untouched.
From level (5) we have simply marked successive generations in the female line in which the seed of the woman continues untouched by the stream of the poison which nevertheless destroys the woman's body. Throughout this line of successive generations the germ plasm retains the perfection that marked the female seed in Adam. The continuity of the germ plasm is indicated.
At level (6) we arrive at Mary's generation. The time has come for the appearing of the Lord: and from heaven the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, perhaps to provide the male component for her seed, a component therefore untouched by the poisoned stream that has been contributed in each generation by the male seed. And out of this fusion, a body of a second Adam is in due time brought to birth. This is represented at level (7).
It is at this time that a human spirit is added to the body to complete it, while at the same moment the Logos declared, "Lo, I come," and took up residence in it, in order to assume a perfect human nature. Thus He became what He was not before; while never ceasing to be what He had always been. God had now become objectified in the only kind of body that was fitting, a body with the same potential of physical immortality originally enjoyed by the first Adam. Accordingly He is called a last Adam. At levels (7) and (8) the figure is thus no longer shaded.
Several significant passages of Scripture can be set forth sequentially in a way that may be helpful to show the parallelisms and yet the differences between our birth as mortal men and the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ as perfect man with the potential of endless life (Heb. 7:l6).
In natural generation:
1. The father begets (Isa. 45:10; Jer. 16:3).
2. The woman brings forth (Isa. 45:10).
3. God gives the spirit (Eccl. 12:7).
4. And so emerges the person or soul (Gen. 2:7).
In the generation of the Lord Jesus Christ:
1. The Father, through the Holy Spirit, begets (Luke 1:30-35; John 3:16).
2. A virgin conceives (Isa. 7:14) and a child is born (Isa. 9:6).
3. The Logos creates a human spirit to complete a man-child nature; and then, sent by the Father (John 17:18; Rom. 8:3) the Son is given (Isa. 9:6) to assume that nature and to become the seat of its self-consciousness.
4. And so the Word became flesh (John 1:14; 1 Tim. 3:16), one Person in two natures, human and divine.
The seed of the woman has fulfilled its highest appointed role. It is in this sense that the embodiment of Adam in the first place was nothing less than a first step in "the preparation" of a body for the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Lord.
We turn now to a question that must often have been asked in private
but never seems to have been discussed in public - except by Roman Catholic
theologians but from a perspective unacceptable to evangelicals as a whole.
The question in its simplest form is, Why did God specifically choose Mary
to be the woman whose seed should become a foundation of the Lord's humanity?
Corrections, May 20, 1997.
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