Belgic Confession of Faith: Article XVIII

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ

Our confession speaks here of the fulfillment of the promise which the Lord had given unto the fathers. He came already to Adam and Eve with the promise of the seed of the woman. He spoke to Abram that in him all the nations, all the families of the earth, would be blessed. The Lord gave this promise, but it took forty centuries before it was fulfilled. The promise was that “at the time appointed by Him” He would send into the world “His own, only-begotten and eternal Son, who took upon Him the form of a servant, and became like unto man.” This promise speaks to us about Christ’s incarnation.

The word “incarnation” means “coming in the flesh.” “And the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). Articles 18 to 21 of the Confession deal with Christology, the doctrine of Christ; Article 22 is about faith in Christ, and Article 23 is about justification and its benefits. First then, in Article 18 we are dealing with Christ’s incarnation.

Why did our fathers devote such a long article to this doctrine? It shows that they knew the times in which they were living, and they tried to arm the people of their days against errors. They wanted to publish to the outside world what the biblical doctrine was and is regarding Christ’s birth. First of all, they stressed that the One who was born in the flesh is the Son of God. He is God’s “only-begotten and eternal Son.” They stated that He is the real Son of God — eternal, not a mere creature adopted to be the Son of God, as Arius taught. No, He is co-essential with the Father and the Holy Ghost. He is the Son of God. He is also truly very man. He is very God and very man.

This is a mystery. We read in 1 Timothy 3:16, “Great is the mystery of godliness.” Yet the Lord revealed something of that mystery — God became man. He remained what He was, and He became what He was not before. He remained God, and He became man.

This article speaks not only about a mystery and the revelation of it, but also about the fountain from where this comes. It says that God sent His only-begotten and eternal Son, and thus it speaks about God’s good pleasure, about His eternal council, His eternal love. It points out the unspeakable gift of God. It says that this gift was very God and also very man.

Why did Christ become man? Why did He have to take upon Himself the form of a servant? First, because He had to pay a price. He had to satisfy the justice of God. The nature which had sinned was obliged to pay; the human nature had become the transgressor. Christ assumed our human nature because it was in that nature that we had sinned.

Secondly, Christ became man in order to pay the price, the punishment due for sin. He had to suffer and die. Since God cannot suffer and die, Christ had to assume the human nature. We might say that God can do everything, for He is almighty, but God cannot suffer or die, or He would cease to be God. Christ therefore assumed the human nature in order to suffer and die for the sins committed by His people.

Thirdly, He became very man in order to place Himself under the law. God is the Lawgiver, the One who gave the law. But only in His human nature could Christ be placed under the law. Christ’s mother, Mary, had to follow the regulations of the law. She had to go to the temple to present Him to the Lord and to bring an offering for Him. There also He had to be circumcised. Truly He was made of a woman, made under the law.

Another reason that Christ had to be very man was so that He could be a near kinsman, the greater Boaz; He had to be related to us. He had to come, so to speak, into our family and thus be truly man.

Christ also had to be the covenant Head, the second Adam. For this He also needed to have a human nature, the same as Adam, yet without sin. Thus Christ became the second covenant Head. He had to be the Redeemer, the High Priest who had to be taken from among the people. For these reasons He had to be truly man. Yet He remained also what He is, that is, very God.

Again we ask the question, why? Why must the Mediator be very God? Why was it necessary for God to send His own Son into this world to go the way of deep humiliation and pay such a price? He must be very God, first of all, in order to sustain His human nature, for this nature had to suffer, die, and bear God’s wrath. This was a wrath which the human nature in itself could never have borne to the end. It would have been consumed by God’s wrath. Therefore Christ’s human nature needed to be sustained and upheld by His divine.

“No one will pluck them out of My hand”

Secondly, the Mediator needed to be God in order to give an infinite value to this work. If He had only been man, how long would He have needed to suffer? If the Lord could have found a human being who would have been able to carry His wrath and would also have been sinless, then the suffering would have been an eternal punishment. Now because a divine Person performed this work, it gave an infinite, eternal value to it.

Why must He be very God? In order to have power to lay down His life and to take it again. No human being may or can lay down his life. Christ would lay down His life for His sheep. He also would take that life again after having laid it down.

He must be very God, not only to pay the price and satisfy God’s justice, but also to deliver the sinner out of his prison. Without this, no one could ever have come out of it, but each would have stayed in the darkness. It was necessary not only that the price be paid, the people bought with a precious price, but that they also be delivered out of the prison house. They would be taken out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out of the power of the strong man armed. Christ had to deliver His people, and therefore He needed to be God. He must be very God not only to deliver them, but also to preserve their salvation — to preserve them against all the power of hell. He only could say, “No one will pluck them out of My hand.” Oh, Church of God, there is a divine Mediator! Help is laid upon One that is mighty, also to preserve you.

He must be very God not only to merit but also to apply salvation. Let us never separate these two tasks of Christ: meriting and applying. They belong together. The Remonstrants and all that teach free will separate them. They say that Christ made salvation possible and one has to accept it, to apply it. But only Christ can do this.

It was for all these reasons that He, the Mediator, must be very God and real man. Can we prove that He was very God, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God? Can we prove that against Arius, Socinus, and against liberal theologians? All might say He was a very special man, and there was never a man as He was. But at the same time they deny His God-head and His Deity. No, Christ was not the first of all creatures. He was and is the Son of God.

We can prove that He has a divine nature by His divine names. He is called the mighty God, everlasting Father, the Lord our righteousness.

He also does divine works. Did not He create the very heavens and the earth? He is also the One who provides. Providence is one of His works. He forgives sin and raises the dead. He will be the judge at the last day. These are all divine works.

“Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11b).

Divine attributes are also ascribed to Him. He is the omnipresent God. He saw Nathaniel under the fig tree. He is also the omniscient God, for He knew what was in the heart of Simon the Pharisee. He knew what was in the heart of the disciples, proving that time and time again. Are you happy about His omniscience? He is also eternal, for He is the everlasting Father. He could say, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58b). He is also omnipotent. He quickened the dead; He cured the blind. He is also immutable; He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Christ also has divine honor. We are baptized in His name. The benediction is also in His name. He Himself was baptized, and there came a voice from heaven saying, “Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11b). He receives divine worship. We may not worship angels or saints, but He is the Mediator, the Son of God.

Christ also had a true human nature. Scripture proves this. In this article we read that He assumed the human nature, a true human soul and body. We read of His body in 1 Peter 2:24, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body.” He also had a soul. We read of Him as He was in Gethsemane, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38). Christ had a true human nature. He slept; He hungered; He thirsted. He wept, and He was tired. He was tempted in all points, and yet was without sin.

Christ was the promised Immanuel, “God with us,” who was born in the fullness of time. The scepter had not yet departed from Judah. There was still a king on the throne, an Edomite. Although this was a humiliation for the Jews, there was still a king on the throne. It was the time of the fourth monarch, the fourth kingdom. First there was Syria, then Babel, Persia, and finally the Roman empire. At that time the Mediator had to be born. It was during this time; the second temple had not yet been destroyed. In this temple He would come, as Malachi said, “And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple” (Malachi 3:1). The seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24 were not yet ended. Seventy times seven is 490. These 490 years were still to come when Daniel was told this, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness” (Daniel 9:24). Oh, what a wonder of grace! As Daniel spoke, seventy weeks “to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” They were seventy weeks, not of days, but of years. When those 490 years had transpired, this all happened. Then the time was full.

Christ became flesh. We might mention some heretics who denied this. The Gnostics denied that Christ had a real human nature. The Docetes said it just looked like a human nature. They said it was but an appearance of human nature, just like a garment. But Christ had a true human nature indeed.

The Arians denied both natures. In their view He was no God, for He was the first creature. They said He also was not the Son of Mary, for He was a creature before Mary was born. The Arians deny both natures, the divine and the human.

Nestorius denied the union of both natures. He separated them. The Mediator was but one Person. The divine nature was united with the human in one Person.

Eutyches denied the distinctiveness of natures. In his view, these natures were just mixed together. The human nature became somewhat divine, and the divine nature received human characteristics. This is also against Scripture. Luther later on taught that the human nature became omnipresent when Christ ascended to heaven. This was also a mixing together of the divine and human natures.

Socinus denied the Godhead of Christ. He said Christ was just a man. He was a perfect person, a prophet, but He was not God.

The Anabaptists, in the days of the Reformation, made a separation between spiritual and natural things, instead of separation between grace and sin! Menno Simon, the Anabaptist leader and a former priest who lived in Friesland, claimed the following: Christ is the Son of God. We esteem Him so highly, more than the Calvinists and the Lutherans, for they pluck a delicious fruit from a very wicked tree. According to the Anabaptists, it was not possible that Christ assumed a human nature out of Mary. No, the human nature in their view was just like having a coat or a dress in a suitcase for a while until you open it and put it on. So Christ’s body remained in heaven until He put it on in the fullness of time. They believe that it did not grow in Mary, but it was taken out of heaven. Others said Christ’s human nature was formed in heaven, made by God, made by the Spirit in heaven, and passed through Mary as water does through a pipe or like the beams of sun through the glass. They said Christ’s human nature came from heaven.

Others say God made the first Adam, and now He made the second Adam. He formed a new Adam. In all these different views, the Anabaptists deny that Christ had our flesh and our blood. They believe He had heavenly flesh and heavenly blood, not like us, but a heavenly human nature. They refer to John 1:14, which states, “And the Word was made flesh.” Some even say that in heaven He was changed into flesh.

The last part of Article XVIII contains many biblical statements and quotations which prove Christ was really our flesh and blood. “Christ is become a partaker of the flesh and blood of the children; that He is a fruit of the loins of David after the flesh; made of the seed of David according to the flesh; a fruit of the womb of the Virgin Mary, made of a woman, a branch of David; a shoot of the root of Jesse; sprung from the tribe of Judah; descended from the Jews according to the flesh; of the seed of Abraham, since He took on Him the seed of Abraham, and became like unto His brethren in all things, sin excepted” (Article XVIII).

Scripture says Christ was the firstborn of Mary. Were there other children of Mary, and was Jesus the first child? We maintain He was born from the Virgin Mary. But didn’t He have brethren later on? Rome says, “No! That cannot be. Mary is too holy for a marital relationship.” Some of our forefathers have also explained the word “brethren” as relatives. In John 7:3, “His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence....” Scripture sometimes uses the word brethren in this sense — as relatives. But why might Mary not have had more children? He was the firstborn. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

However, this is not the most essential point! What is important is that He came in our flesh and blood and made Himself of no reputation. He was born of the Virgin Mary, and He is our near Kinsman. Did we already come as a Ruth in the night to the threshing floor of the greater Boaz, crying, “Spread therefore Thy skirt over Thine handmaid; for Thou art a near Kinsman” (Ruth 3:9b)? He came into our family, our flesh and blood, but do we belong to His spiritual family? Christ had brethren and sisters. He said to Mary, “I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (John 20:17b).

My friends, do we already belong to this family by new birth? Are we partakers of His holy nature? Are we branches of this Tree? Do we know something of the birth from above, of Advent, of that holy longing for the revelation of that precious Immanuel to our soul? Have we been brought, maybe in the middle of the summer — for it does not have to be at Christmas — to the manger in Bethlehem? Were we ever a great beast before God? Have we beheld and tasted the Bread of life in the House of bread — Bethlehem? Oh, I would say, if this has taken place, you will also understand how the shepherds returned and were not able to keep silent, but spoke on their way of these things to all the world. May the Lord grant to us such grace, bowing as poor and needy people before Him.

His Name

’T was God who gave the precious name
Of Jesus to His Son,
Because He knew His gracious work
By Him would well be done.

The name of Jesus Savior means;
And such He is indeed
To all who feel the weight of sin,
And peace and pardon need.

His name was Jesus when on earth,
His name is Jesus now;
And God declares that to that Name
All heaven and earth shall bow.

— Young Peoples’ Hymnal

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