The Person of Christ

The Bible is the Holy Spirit's gift to the Church, and in the Church He uses it as His instrument to enlighten the understanding, thus enabling man to enter into God's world of thought, will and purpose. When our Lord Jesus Christ put the question to His disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" Simon Peter answered and said: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Our Lord then revealed how this knowledge was communicated to Peter. "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." So when we seek to answer the question, Who is Jesus Christ? we must go to the testimony that God has been pleased to give of Himself. "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." (Eph. 1:17).

The opening chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke draws our attention to the City of Nazareth, in Galilee (v. 26). Dr. Edershiem tells us "that the people of Nazareth were like those of other little towns similarly circumstanced; with all the peculiarities of the impulsive, straight spoken, hot blooded, brave, intensely national Galileans; with the deeper feelings and almost instinctive habits of thought and life, which were the outcome of long centuries of Old Testament training." (Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah). It was in this town so steeped in nationalism that a maiden named Mary became engaged to a "man whose name was Joseph, and as was the custom some time would intervene between the engagement and the marriage. It was during the period between the engagement, or betrothal, and the marriage that the angel Gabriel suddenly appeared unto Mary, and addressing her, said: "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women. The angelic messenger continues, and informs Mary that she will have a Son and His name shall be called Jesus. Gabriel rapidly outlines the meaning of Jesus' coming, His greatness, and relation to the HIGHEST. When Mary requested evidence for the fulfilment of the promise, Gabriel answered: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee; therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God" (v. 35).

As the object of our study is "The Person of Christ," it is essential that we understand Gabriel's reply to Mary as clearly as possible. In the first place, the angel does not say that Jesus shall be called the "Son of God" because that "Holy thing'' shall be conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost; but He shall be called "the Son of God" by the determinate counsel of Jehovah. "He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end" (v. 32-33).

Secondly, we should notice that Gabriel does not say "that 'Holy Person' which shall be born, but "that 'Holy thing' which shall be born." The angel is not speaking of a person but of a thing, clearly indicating that that which should be generated, or begotten, was humanity: that is, the human nature of our Lord and most certainly not, His person. The Holy Scriptures state emphatically that Christ took unto Himself our nature. "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels but He took on Him the seed of Abraham" (Heb. 2:16). "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy Him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14). The texts clearly teach that a person is making a choice between angelic nature and human nature; and the Person, God the Son, adopts human nature and unites it with His Deity. Therefore, by the operation of the Holy Ghost that "Holy thing" conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary is human nature prepared for adoption by Deity, i.e., God the Son. "Wherefore when He cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me" (Heb. 10:5). It was not a new being that was called into life, as in all other cases of birth; but One who had existed from all eternity, entering into a vital relation with human nature. Thus the work of the Holy Ghost was not the conception of a person but of human nature. The material was natural, the operation was supernatural. It was the work of the Holy Ghost to produce, and maintain in absolute and unalterable perfection, the humanity of Jesus, and as John Owen has said, the Divine act of God the Son was to assume the Manhood, and that Manhood was never to be associated from His Person. "God the Son assumed the Manhood, but no more."

We should also notice that Gabriel was speaking of an event that would take place at a particular time, that was between the engagement and marriage of Mary to Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. The angel is speaking of a supernatural act of God by the power of the Holy Spirit at a given point in time, and he is not making any reference to the future character of that humanity (Holy thing). Gabriel is answering Mary's question: "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." (Lk. 1:35).

Thirdly, we must be careful to distinguish between the Divine and human natures of Christ. Question 36 in the Larger Catechism states: "The Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father, in the fulness of time became man, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures, and one person forever." Dr. G. Vos, commenting on Luke 1:32-33, says: "The implication, therefore, is clearly that God can be called the Father of Jesus, and Jesus can be called the Son of God so far as the origin of His human nature is concerned because this origin was due to a direct act on the part of God," i.e., a parental act. But then He is not simply the Son of God by His miraculous conception and birth. That "Holy thing" is called the Son of God because His humanity (that Holy thing) continues to exist in the Person of God the Son. God, the Son, thus having assumed our nature, took it into indissoluble union with His Person, a true body and a reasonable soul; and His humanity could not continue if separated from His Divinity; His soul was separated from His body, once, at Calvary, and that constituted death.

The union of the two natures in Christ is incomprehensible. His Divine nature is from all eternity and of the same essence as that of God, the Father and God, the Holy Spirit. His human nature had a definite starting point, during the period between the engagement and marriage of Mary to Joseph of Nazareth. His human nature was also subject to all the infirmities of the flesh, yet without sin. In Christ we have one person possessed of a Divine nature that has made the law and of human nature that is subject to the law; but there is no intermingling of the two natures. Athanasias, who lived during the third century, uses the Burning Bush of Exodus 3:2 to illlustrate the union of the two natures of Christ. "The fire signifying the Divine nature, and the bush the human nature. The bush is a branch springing up from the earth, and the fire descends from heaven; as the bush was united with the fire, yet it was not hurt by the flames, nor converted into fire, the properties of the fire shined in the bush, so that the whole bush seemed to be on fire, and yet the bush was not burnt." The Divine nature does not absorb the human nature, but each retains its own properties; one person in two natures forever, even at Calvary the Person of Christ had full control of His humanity. Dr. Hugh Martin describes the Death of Christ on the cross as a sword drawn from its scabbard, both the sword and the scabbard being in the hands of the Person of Christ, or to use the words of the Master Himself: "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it, from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of My Father." (John 10:17-15).