CHAPTER VI
Col_1:27 To
whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among
the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
“MADE OF A WOMAN”
BY what means was
Christ made flesh? Through what means was He partaker of human nature? —Exactly
the same means as are all of us partakers: all of the children of men. For it
is written: “As the children [of the man] are partakers of flesh and blood, He
also Himself likewise took part of the same.” Likewise signifies “in the like
way,” “thus,” “in the same way.” So He partook of “the same” flesh and blood
that men have in the same way that men partake of it. Men partake of it by
birth. So “likewise” did He.
Accordingly, it is
written, “Unto us a Child is born.” Accordingly, it is further written: “God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” Gal. 4:4. He, being made of a woman in
this world, in the nature of things He was made of the only kind of woman that
this world knows. But why must He be made of a woman? why not of a man?—For the
simple reason that to be made of a man would not bring Him close enough to
mankind as mankind is, under sin.
He was made of a
woman in order that He might come, in the very uttermost, to where human nature
is in its sinning. In order to do this, He must be made of a woman; because the
woman, not the man, was first and originally, in the transgression. For “Adam
was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” 1
Tim. 2:14.
To have been made
only of the descent of man would have been to come short of the full breadth of
the field of sin, because the woman had sinned, and sin was thus in the world,
before the man sinned. Christ was thus made of a woman in order that He might
meet the great world of sin at its very fountain head of entrance into this
world. To have been made otherwise than of a woman would have been to come
short of this and so would have been only to miss completely the redemption of
men from sin. It was “the Seed of the woman” that was to bruise the serpent’s
head; and it was only as “the seed of the woman” and “made of a woman” that He
could meet the serpent on his own ground, at the very point of the entrance of
sin into this world. It was the woman who, in this world, was originally in the
transgression. It was the woman by whom sin originally entered. Therefore, in
the redemption of the children of men from sin, He who would be the Redeemer
must go back of the man, to meet the sin that was in the world before the man
sinned.
This is why He who
came to redeem was “made of a woman.” By being made of a woman He could trace
sin to the very fountain head of its original entry into the world by the
woman. And thus, in finding sin in the world and uprooting it from the world
from its original entrance into the world till the last vestige of it shall be
swept from the world, in the very nature of things He must partake of human
nature as it is since sin entered. Otherwise, there was no kind of need
whatever that He should be “made of a woman.” If He were not to come into
closest contact with sin as it is in the world, as it is in human nature; if He
were to be removed one single degree from it as it is in human nature, then He
need not have been “made of a woman.” But as He was made of a woman,—not of a
man; as He was made of the one by whom sin entered in its very origin into the
world,—and not made of the man, who entered into the sin after the sin had
entered into the world; this demonstrates beyond all possibility of fair question
that between Christ and sin in this world and between Christ and human nature
as it is under sin in the world there is no kind of separation, even to the
shadow of a single degree.
He was made flesh;
he was made to be sin.
He was made flesh as
flesh is and only as flesh is in this world; and was made to be sin only as sin
is.
And this must He do
to redeem lost mankind. For Him to be separated a single degree or a shadow of
a single degree in any sense from the nature of those whom He came to redeem
would be only to miss everything.
Therefore, as He was
made “under the law,” because they are under the law whom He would redeem; and
as He was made a curse, because they are under the curse whom He would redeem,
and as He was made sin, because they are sinners, “sold under sin,” whom He
would redeem,— precisely so He must be made flesh and “the same” flesh and
blood, because they are flesh and blood whom He would redeem; and must be made
“of a woman,” because sin was in the world first by and in the woman.
Consequently, it is
true, without any sort of exception, that “in all things it behooved Him to be
made like unto His brethren.” Heb. 2:17. If He were not of the same flesh as
are those whom He came to redeem, then there is no sort of use of His being made
flesh at all.
More than this:
Since the only flesh that there is in this wide world which He came to redeem
is just the poor, sinful, lost, human flesh that all mankind have; if this is
not the flesh that he was made, then He never really came to the world which
needs to be redeemed.
For if he came in a
human nature different from that which human nature in this world actually is,
then, even though He were in the world, yet for any practical purposes in
reaching man and helping him, he was as far from him as if He had never come,
for, in that case, in His human nature He was just as far from man and just as
much of another world as if He had never come into this world at all.
It is thoroughly
understood that in His birth Christ did partake of the nature of Mary—the
“woman” of whom He was “made.” But the carnal mind is not willing to allow that
God in His perfection of holiness could endure to come to men where they are in
their sinfulness. Therefore endeavor has been made to escape the consequences
of this glorious truth, which is the emptying of self, by inventing a theory
that the nature of the virgin Mary was different from the nature of the rest of
mankind; that her flesh was not exactly such flesh as is that of all mankind.
This invention sets up that by some special means Mary was made different from
the rest of human beings, especially in order that Christ might be becomingly
born of her. This invention has culminated in what is known as the Roman
Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
Many Protestants, if
not the vast majority of them as well as other non-Catholics, think that the
Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Jesus by the virgin Mary. But
this is altogether a mistake. It refers not at all to the conception of Christ
by Mary but to the conception of Mary herself by her mother. The official and
“infallible” doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as solemnly defined as an
article of faith, by Pope Pius IX, speaking ex cathedra, on the 8th of December
1854 is as follows:— By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ of the blessed
apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we declare, pronounce, and
define that the doctrine which holds that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the
first instant of HER conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty
God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was
preserved free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and
therefore is to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faithful.
Wherefore, if any shall presume, which may God avert, to think in their heart
otherwise then has been defined by us, let them know, and moreover understand,
that they are condemned by their own judgment, that they have made shipwreck as
regards the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the Church.—“Catholic
Belief,” page 214.
This conception is
defined by Catholic writers thus:— The ancient writing, “De Nativitate
Christi,” found in St. Cyprian’s works says: Because (Mary) being “very
different from the rest of mankind, human nature, but not sin, communicated
itself to her.” Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem, said in the second council of
Nice, that Mary “is truly the mother of God, and virgin before and after
childbirth; and she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than
that of all natures, whether intellectual or corporeal.”—Id., pages 216, 217.
This plainly puts
the nature of Mary entirely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind
or human nature as it is. Having this clearly in mind, let us follow this
invention in its next step. Thus it is, as given in the words of Cardinal
Gibbons:— We affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of
God, who in His divine nature is, from all eternity, begotten of the Father,
consubstantial with Him, was in the fulness of time again begotten, by being
born of the virgin, thus taking to himself from her maternal womb a human
nature of the same substance with hers. As far as the sublime mystery of the
incarnation can be reflected in the natural order, the blessed Virgin, under
the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of
the adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the same substance
with her own, is thereby really and truly His mother.—“Faith of Our Fathers,”
pages 198, 199.
Now put these two
things together. First, we have the nature of Mary defined as being not only
“very different from the rest of mankind,” but “more sublime and glorious than
all natures:” thus putting her infinitely beyond any real likeness or
relationship to mankind as we really are. Next, we have Jesus described as
taking from her a human nature of the same substance as hers. From this theory
it therefore follows as certainly as that two and two make four, that in His
human nature the Lord Jesus is “very different” from the rest of mankind:
indeed, His nature is not human nature at all. Such is the Roman Catholic
doctrine concerning the human nature of Christ. The Catholic doctrine of the
human nature of Christ is simply that that nature is not human nature at all,
but divine: “more sublime and glorious than all natures.” It is that in His
human nature Christ was so far separated from mankind as to be utterly unlike
that of mankind, that His was a nature in which He could have no sort of
fellow-feeling with mankind. But such is not the faith of Jesus.
The faith of Jesus
is that “as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself
likewise took part of the same.” The faith of Jesus is that God sent “His own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The faith of Jesus is that “in all things
it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren. The faith of Jesus is that
He “Himself took our infirmities” and was touched “with the feeling of our
infirmities,” being tempted in all points like as we are. If He was not as we
are, He could not possibly be tempted “like as we are.” But He was “in all
points tempted like as we are.” Therefore He was “in all points” “like as we
are.”
In the quotations of
Catholic faith which in this chapter we have cited, we have presented the faith
of Rome as to the human nature of Christ and of Mary. In the second chapter of
Hebrews and kindred texts of Scripture there is presented, and in these studies
we have endeavored to reproduce as there presented, the faith of Jesus as to
the human nature of Christ. The faith of Rome as to the human nature of Christ
and Mary and of ourselves springs from that idea of the natural mind that God
is too pure and too holy to dwell with us and in us in our sinful human nature:
that sinful as we are, we are too far off for Him in His purity and holiness to
come to us just as we are.
The true faith—the
faith of Jesus—is that, far off from God as we are in our sinfulness, in our
human nature which He took, He has come to us just where we are; that,
infinitely pure and holy as He is, and sinful, degraded, and lost as we are, He
in Christ by His Holy Spirit will willingly dwell with us and in us to save us,
to purify us, and to make us holy. The faith of
Rome is that we must be pure and holy in order that God shall dwell with us at
all. The faith of Jesus is that God must dwell with us and in us in order that
we shall be holy or pure at all.
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