Necessary for Us

Friday in Pentecost 23
13 November 2009

"What He has not assumed He has not healed," was the principle enunciated in regard to the relationship of the human and divine natures in Christ by St. Gregory Nazianzen. His point was that a faulty doctrine of the incarnation will not merely rip apart the two natures in Christ, but call into question the completeness of the redemption that Christ has won for sinners like us.

It was necessary that Christ be man to heal human sin. It was necessary for Christ to be God so that He would have the power to do what human flesh alone could not. Sometimes people mock this kind of speech saying that nothing is necessary for God. Nothing binds Him. Couldn't God have found some other way of saving the world from its sin than through the incarnation of Christ of Mary? Well, yes. But He didn't. The necessity, then, is really ours. Either Christ saves us by taking our flesh and as the God-Man redeeming us, or we are thrown upon our own paltry spiritual resources to be saved. What He did assume He did heal. That was necessary for us.

Martin Luther

"This circumstance, 'in Himself,' makes the duel more amazing and outstanding; for it shows that such great things were to be achieved in the one and only Person of Christ-namely, that the curse, sin, and death were to be destroyed, and that the blessing, righteousness, and life were to replace them-and that through Him the whole creation was to be changed. If you look at this Person, therefore, you see sin, death, the wrath of God, hell, the devil, and all evils conquered and put to death. To the extent that Christ rules by His grace in the hearts of the faithful, there is no sin, death, or curse. But where Christ is not known, there these things remain. And so all who do not believe lack this blessing and this victory. 'For this,' as John says, 'is our victory, faith' (1Jn 5:4).

"This is the chief topic of Christian doctrine. The legalists have completely obliterated it, and today the fanatics are obscuring it once more. Here you see how necessary it is to believe and confess the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. When Arius denied this, it was necessary also for him to deny the doctrine of redemption. For to conquer the sin of the world, death, the curse, and the wrath of God in Himself, this is the work, not of any creature but of the divine power. Therefore it was necessary that He who was to conquer these in Himself should be true God by nature. For in opposition to this mighty power: sin, death, and the curse, which of itself reigns in the whole world and in the whole creation, it is necessary to set an even higher power, which cannot be found and does not exist apart from the divine power. Therefore to abolish sin, to destroy death, to bear away the curse in Himself, to grant righteousness, to bring life to light (2Ti 1:10), and to bring the blessing in Himself, that is, to turn into nothing these things and to create those, all these are works solely of the divine power. Since Scripture attributes all these to Christ, therefore He Himself is life, righteousness, and blessing, that is, God by nature and in essence. Hence those who deny thedivinity of Christ lose all Christianity and become Gentiles and Turks through and through.

"As I often warn, therefore, the topic of justification must be learned diligently. For in it are included all the other articles of our faith; and if it is safe, all the others are safe as well. Therefore when we teach that men are justified through Christ and that Christ is the Victor over sin, death, and the eternal curse, we are testifying at the same time that He is God by nature."

Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, loc. cit.