IN HIS CONDESCENSION AS MEDIATOR. 329
(5.) This condescension of Christ was not by a phantasm or an ap- pearance only. One of the first heresies that pestered the church immediately after the dajj's of the apostles was this, that all that was done or suffered by Christ as a man were not the acts, doings, or sufferings of one that was truly and really a man, but an outward representation of things, like the a]Dpearance of angels in the shape of men, eating and drinking, under the Old Testament; and suitably liereunto some in our days have spoken, — namely, that there was only an appearance of Christ in the man Jesus at Jerusalem, in whom he suffered no more tlian in other believers.^ But the ancient Christians told those men the truth, — namely, that " as they had feigned unto themselves an imaginary Christ, so they should have an imaginary salvation only."
But the true nature of tliis divine condescension doth consist in these three things: —
J. That "the eternal person of the Son of God, or the divine nature in the person of the Son, did, by an ineffable act of his divine power and love, assume our nature into an individual subsistence in or with himself ; that is, to be his oiun, even as the divine nature is his." This is the infallible foundation of faith, even to them who can comprehend very little of these divine mysteries. They can and do believe that the Son of God did take our nature to be his own ; so as that what- ever was done therein was done by him, as it is with every other man. Every man hath human nature appropriated unto himself by an individual subsistence, whereby he becomes to be that man which he is, and not another ; or that nature which is common unto all, be- comes in him to be peculiarly his own, as if there were none partaker of it but himself Adam, in his first creation, when all human nature was in him alone, was no more that individual man Avhich he was, than every man is now the man that he is, by his individual subsis- tence. So the Lord Christ taking that nature which is common unto all into a peculiar subsistence in his own person, it becometh his, and he the man Christ Jesus. This was the mind that was in him.
2. By reason of this assumption of our nature, with his doing and suffering therein, whereby he was found in fashion as a man, the glory of his divine person was veiled, and he made himself of no re- putation. This also belongs unto his condescension, as the first general effect and fruit of it. But we have spoken of it before.
3. It is also to be observed, that in the assumption of our nature
1 Tlie DocETiE, to whom Dr Owen refers, were a sect of the Asiatic Gnosticfa. The founder of the sect was Marcion, who was horn in Pontiis, near the begin- ning of the second century. He held that Christ was a manifestation of God under the appearance of man. The name was applied to some who, in the begin- ning of the sixth century, held that the body of Christ was not created, and tliere- fore, that he only appeared to sleep, hunger, thirst, and suifei-. — Ed.
830 THE GLOllY OF CHRIST
to he his oiun, he did not change it into a thing divine and spiritual ; but preserved it entire in all its essential properties and actings. Hence it really did and suffered, was tried, tempted, and forsaken, as the same natvire in any other man might do and be. That nature (as it was peculiarly his, and therefore he, or his person therein) was exposed unto all the temporary evils which the same nature is subject unto in any other person.
This is a short general view of this incomprehensible condescension of the Son of God, as it is described by the apostle, Phil. ii. 5-8. And tliis is that wherein in an especial manner we are to behold the glory of Christ by faith whilst we are in this world.
But had we the tongue of men and angels, we were not able in any just measure to express the glory of this condescension ; for it is the most ineffable effect of the divine wisdom of the Father and of the love of the Son, — the highest evidence of the care of God to- wards mankind. What can be equal unto it? what can be like it? It is the glory of Christian religion, and the animating soul of all evangelical truth. This carrieth the mysteiy of the wisdom of God above the reason or understanding of men and angels, to be the ob- ject of faith and admiration only. A mystery it is that becomes the greatness of God, with his infinite distance from the whole creation, — which renders it unbecoming him that all his v/ays and works should be comprehensible by any of his creatures, Job xi. 7-9 ; Rom. xi. 83-36.
He who was eternally in the foi-m of God, — that is, was essentially so, God by nature, equally participant of the same divine nature mth God the Father ; " God over all, blessed for ever ; " who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth, — he takes on him the nature of man, takes it to be his own, whereby he was no less truly a man in time than he was truly God from eternity. And to increase the wonder of this mystery, because it was necessary unto the end he designed, he so humbled himself in this assumption of our nature, as to make himself of no reputation in this world; — yea, unto that degree, that he said of himself that he was a worm, and no man, in comparison of them Avho were of any esteem.