Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The dual nature of Christ is such a grand, intimate, indescribable communion that the angels are astonished by and delighted in it...

The human nature, after the resurrection from the dead, is exalted above all creatures in heaven and on earth.  This is nothing other than that He entirely laid aside the form of a servant.  He did not lay aside His human nature, but retains it to eternity.  He has the full possession and use of the divine majesty according to His received human nature.  However, He had His majesty immediately at His conception, even in His mother's womb.  As the apostle testified, He laid it aside.  As Dr. Luther explains, He kept it concealed in the state of His humiliation and did not always use it, but only when He wanted to use it.

Now He has ascended to heaven, not merely as any other saint, but as the apostle testifies, above all heavens.  He also truly fills all things, being present everywhere, not only as God, but also as man.  He rules from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth, as the prophets predict and the apostles testify.  He did this everywhere with them and confirmed their word with signs.  This did not happen in an earthly way. As Dr. Luther explains, this happened according to the way things are done at God's right hand.  "God's right hand" is no set place in heaven, as the Sacramentarians assert without any ground in the Holy Scriptures.  It is nothing other than God's almighty power, which fills heaven and earth  Christ is installed according to His humanity (in deed and truth), without confusing or equalizing the two natures in their essence and essential properties.  By this communicated divine power, according to the words of His testament, He can be and is truly present with His body and blood in the Holy Supper.  He has pointed this out for us by His Word.  This is possible for no other man, because no man is united with the divine nature the way Jesus, the Son of Mary, is.  No man is installed in such divine almighty majesty and power through and in the personal union of the two natures in Christ.  For in Him the divine and the human nature are personally united with each other.  So in Christ "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9).  In this personal union the two natures have such a grand, intimate, indescribable communion that even the angels are astonished by it.  As St. Peter testifies, they have their delight and joy in looking into it.
~BOC, FSD, VIII, 26-30

Saturday, May 11, 2013

To Christ everything is possible and everything is known...

We believe, teach, and confess that the Son of Man really is exalted.  He is (in deed and truth) exalted according to His human nature to the right hand of God's almighty majesty and power.  For He was received into God when He was conceived of the Holy Spirit in His mother's womb, and His human nature was personally united with the Son of the Highest.

Christ always had this majesty according to the personal union.  Yet He abstained from using it in the state of His humiliation, and because of this He truly increased in all wisdom and favor with God and man.  Therefore, He did not always use the majesty, but only when it pleased Him.  Then, after His resurrection, He entirely laid aside the form of a servant, but not the human nature, and was established in the full use, manifestation, and declaration of the divine majesty.  In this way He entered into His glory.  So now not just as God, but also as man He knows all things and can do all things.  He is present with all creatures, and has under His feet and in His hands everything that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth, as He Himself testifies, in Matthew 28:18, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me."  And St. Paul says in Ephesians 4:10, "He ... ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things." Because He is present, He can exercise His power everywhere.  To Him everything is possible and everything is known.
~BOC, FSD, VIII, 15-16

Friday, May 3, 2013

Christ's divine and received human natures are and exist at the same time...

We believe, teach, and confess that now, since the incarnation, each nature in Christ does not exist by itself so that each is, or makes up, a separate person.  These two natures are so united that they make up one single person, in which the divine and the received human nature are and exists at the same time.  So now, since the incarnation, there belongs to the entire person of Christ personally not only His divine nature, but also His received human nature.  So without His divinity, and also without HIs humanity, the person of Christ or the incarnate Son of God is not complete.  We mean the Son of God who has received flesh and become man.  Therefore, Christ is not two distinct persons, but one single person, even though two distinct natures are found in Him, unconfused in their natural essence and properties.
~BOC, FSD, VIII, 11