Christ Is God and Man in One Person. F.E.Pasche

"Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen." Rom. 9:5.

 Every creature has but one nature. An animal has an animal nature. Man has a ' human nature. An angel has an angelic nature. But our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. Yet we do not believe in two Lords Jesus Christ, the one

being God, the other man, but we confess: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.” There is but one Lord Jesus Christ. He is God and man in one person, the God-man. “ In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” says St. Paul, Col. 2, 9. The divine nature and the human nature of Christ are united in one divine-human Person.

The two natures of Christ are not mixed in Him; they are, and always remain, entirely different, as God is different from man. His divine nature is not created; it is purely spiritual, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; and it is holiness, justice, mercy, and truth itself. His human nature, however, is created, is temporal, and has body and soul; it is neither omnipo­ tent nor omniscient nor omnipresent; and what it has in itself of holiness and other goodness it has only because God has created it after His own image. Note this difference between the divine and the human nature of Christ. You must not think that the two are mixed, as if Christ were a being midway between God and man. N o ; these two natures in Christ are so intimately united that the man Jesus is God and the eternal Son of God is man. Isaiah calls the child born unto us “The Mighty God.” John says: “ The Word,” the eternal Son of God, “ was made flesh.” In Christ, therefore, the properties of each nature are common to the whole Person.

Just such a Savior we needed. As the God-man He could appease the wrath of God in our stead.

Prayer.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art God and man in one person; Thou art seated upon the throne of glory, at the right hand of the majesty of God; Thou hearest our prayers and art with us always, even unto the end of the world. We return unto Thee honor and praise for Thy great love to us. We thank Thee for Thy Word, by which Thou givest us the knowledge of Thee. And we beseech Thee, let our knowledge be not only of the head, but also and above all of the heart. Amen.

Let us all with gladsome voice  

Praise the God of heaven,

Who, to bid our hearts rejoice, 

His own Son hath given.

To this vale of tears He comes,

Here to serve in sadness,

That with Him in heaven’s fair homes 

We may reign in gladness.