A Divine nature to communicate to man, and a human nature {a564} to
carry up to God. [1.] He had a nature whereby to suffer for us, and a
nature whereby to be meritorious in those sufferings. A nature to make
him capable to bear the penalty, and a nature to make his sufferings
sufficient for all that embraced him. A nature, capable to be exposed
to the flames of Divine wrath, and another nature, incapable to be
crushed by the weight, or consumed by the heat of it: a human nature
to suffer, and stand a sacrifice in the stead of man; a Divine nature
to sanctify these sufferings, and fill the nostrils of God with a sweet
savor, and thereby atone his wrath: the one to bear the stroke due to
us, and the other to add merit to his sufferings for us. Had he not
been man, he could not have filled our place in suffering; and could
he otherwise have suffered, his sufferings had not been applicable to
us; and had he not been God, his sufferings had not been meritoriously
and fruitfully applicable. Had not his blood been the blood of God,
it had been of as little advantage as the blood of an ordinary man,
or the blood of the legal sacrifices (Heb. ix. 12). Nothing less than
God could have satisfied God for the injury done by man. Nothing less
than God could have countervailed the torments due to the offending
creature. Nothing less than God could have rescued us out of the hands
of the jailor, too powerful for us. [2.] He had, therefore, a nature
to be compassionate to us, and victorious for us. A nature sensibly
to compassionate us, and another nature, to render those compassions
effectual for our relief; he had the compassions of our nature to pity
us, and the patience of the Divine nature to bear with us. He hath the
affections of a man to us, and the power of a God for us: a nature to
disarm the devil for us, and another nature to be insensible of the
working of the devil in us, and against us. If he had been only God, he
would not have had an experimental sense of our misery; and if he had
been only man, he could not have vanquished our enemies; had he been
only God, he could not have died; and had he been only man, he could
not have conquered death. [3.] A nature efficaciously to instruct us.
As man, he was to instruct us sensibly; as God, he was to instruct us
infallibly. A nature, whereby he might converse with us, and a nature,
whereby he might influence us in those converses. A human mouth to
minister instruction to man, and a Divine power to imprint it with
efficacy. [4.] A nature to be a pattern to us. A pattern of grace as
man, as Adam was to have been to his posterity:[795] a Divine nature
shining in the human, the image of the invisible God in the glass
of our flesh, that he might be a perfect copy for our imitation (Col.
i. 15), “The image of the invisible God, and the first‑born of every
creature” in conjunction. The virtues of the Deity are sweetened and
tempered by the union with the humanity, as the beams of the son are by
shining through a colored glass, which condescends more to the weakness
of our eye. Thus the perfections of the invisible God, breaking through
the first‑born of every creature, glittering in Christ’s created state,
became more sensible for contemplation by our mind, and more imitiable
for conformity in our practice. [5.] A nature to be a ground of
confidence in our approach to God. A nature wherein we may behold him,
and wherein we may approach {a565} to him. A nature for our comfort,
and a nature for our confidence. Had he been only man, he had been too
feeble to assure us; and had he been only God, he had been too high
to attract us: but now we are allured by his human nature, and assured
by his Divine, in our drawing near to heaven. Communion with God
was desired by us, but our guilt stifled our hopes, and the infinite
excellency of the Divine nature would have damped our hopes of speeding;
but since these two natures, so far distant, are met in a marriage‑knot,
we have a ground of hope, nay, an earnest, that the Creator and
believing creature shall meet and converse together. And since our sins
are expatiated by the death of the human nature in conjunction with
the Divine, our guilt, upon believing, shall not hinder us from this
comfortable approach. Had he been only man, he could not have assured
us an approach to God: had he been only God, his justice would not have
admitted us to approach to him; he had been too terrible for guilty
persons, and too holy for polluted persons to come near to him: but by
being made man, his justice is tempered, and by his being God and man,
his mercy is ensured. A human nature he had, one with us, that we
might be related to God, as one with him. [6.] A nature to derive all
good to us. Had he not been man, we had had no share or part in him:
a satisfaction by him had not been imputed to us. If he were not God,
he could not communicate to us divine graces and eternal happiness;
he could not have had power to convey so great a good to us, had he
been only man; and he could not have done it, according to the rule of
inflexible righteousness, had he been only God. As man, he is the way
of conveyance; as God, he is the spring of conveyance. From this grace
of union, and the grace of unction, we find rivers of waters flowing
to make glad the city of God. Believers are his branches, and draw sap
from him, as he is their root in his human nature, and have an endless
duration of it from his Divine. Had he not been man, he had not been
in a state to obey the law; had he not been God as well as man, his
obedience could not have been valuable to be imputed to us. How should
this mystery be studied by us, which would afford us both admiration
and content! Admiration, in the incomprehensibleness of it; contentment,
in the fitness of the Mediator. By this wisdom of God we receive the
props of our faith, and the fruits of joy and peace. Wisdom consists
in choosing fit means, and conducting them in such a method, as may
reach with good success the variety of marks which are aimed at. Thus
hath the wisdom of God set forth a Mediator, suited to our wants,
fitted for our supplies, and ordered so the whole affair by the union
of these two natures in the person of the Redeemer, that there could be
no disappointment, by all the bustle hell and hellish instruments could
raise against it.
4. The wisdom of God is seen in this way of redemption, in vindicating
the honor and righteousness of the law, both as to precept and penalty.
The first and irreversible design of the law was obedience. The penalty
of the law had only entrance upon transgression. Obedience was the
design, and the penalty was added to enforce the observance of the
precept (Gen. ii. 17): “Thou shalt not eat;” there is the precept:
“In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die;” {a566} there is the
penalty. Obedience was our debt to the law, as creatures; punishment
was due from the law to us, as sinners: we are bound to endure the
penalty for our first transgression, but the penalty did not cancel
the bond of future obedience; the penalty had not been incurred
without transgressing the precept; yet the precept was not abrogated
by enduring the penalty. Since man so soon revolted, and by this revolt
fell under the threatening, the justice of the law had been honored
by man’s sufferings, but the holiness and equity of the law had been
honored by man’s obedience. The wisdom of God finds out a medium to
satisfy both: the justice of the law is preserved in the execution of
the penalty; and the holiness of the law is honored in the observance
of the precept. The life of our Saviour is a conformity to the precept,
and his death is a conformity to the penalty; the precepts are exactly
performed, and the curse punctually executed, by a voluntary observing
the one, and a voluntary undergoing the other. It is obeyed, as if it
had not been transgressed, and executed as if it had not been obeyed.
It became the wisdom, justice, and holiness of God, as the Rector of
the world, to exact it (Heb. ii. 10), and it became the holiness of the
Mediator to “fulfil all the righteousness of the law” (Rom. viii. 3;
Matt. iii. 15). And thus the honor of the law was vindicated in all
the parts of it. The transgression of the law was condemned in the
flesh of the Redeemer, and the righteousness of the law was fulfilled
in his person: and both these acts of obedience, being counted as
one righteousness, and imputed to the believing sinner, render him a
subject to the law, both in its perceptive and minatory part. By Adam’s
sinful acting we were made sinners, and by Christ’s righteous acting
we are made righteous (Rom. v. 19): “As by one man’s disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous.” The law was obeyed by him, that the righteousness of it
might be fulfilled in us (Rom. viii. 4). It is not fulfilled in us, or
in our actions, by inherency, but fulfilled in us by imputation of that
righteousness which was exactly fulfilled by another. As he died for us,
and rose again for us, so he lived for us. The commands of the law were
as well observed for us, as the threatenings of the law were endured
for us. This justification of a sinner, with the preservation of the
holiness of the law in truth, in the inward parts, in sincerity of
intention, as well as conformity in action, is the wisdom of God, the
gospel wisdom which David desires to know (Ps. li. 6): “Thou desirest
truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me
to know wisdom;” or, as some render it, “the hidden things of wisdom.”
Not an inherent wisdom in the acknowledgments of his sin, which he had
confessed before, but the wisdom of God in providing a medicine, so as
to keep up the holiness of the law in the observance of it in truth,
and the averting the judgment due to the sinner. In and by this way
methodized by the wisdom of God, all doubts and troubles are discharged.
Naturally, if we take a view of the law to behold its holiness and
justice, and then of our hearts, to see the contrariety in them to the
command, and the pollution repugnant to its holiness; and after this,
cast our eyes upward, and beholding a flaming sword, edged with curses
and wrath; {a567} is there any matter, but that of terror, afforded by
any of these? But when we behold, in the life of Christ, a conformity
to the mandatory part of the law, and in the cross of Christ, a
sustaining the minatory part of the law, this wisdom of God gives a
well‑grounded and rational dismiss to all the horrors that can seize
upon us.
5. The wisdom of God in redemption is visible in manifesting two
contrary affections at the same time, and in one act: the greatest
hatred of sin, and the greatest love to the sinner. In this way he
punishes the sin without ruining the sinner, and repairs the ruins of
the sinner without indulging the sin. Here is eternal love and eternal
hatred; a condemning the sin to what it merited, and an advancing the
sinner to what he could not expect. Herein is the choicest love and
the deepest hatred manifested: an implacableness against the sin, and
a placableness to the sinner. His hatred of sin hath been discovered
in other ways: in punishing the devil without remedy; sentencing man
to an expulsion from paradise, though seduced by another; in accursing
the serpent, an irrational creature, though but a misguided instrument.
The whole tenor of his threatenings declare his loathing of sin,
and the sprinklings of his judgments in the world, and the horrible
expectations of terrified consciences confirm it. But what are all
these testimonies to the highest evidence that can possibly be given
in the sheathing the sword of his wrath in the heart of his Son? If
a father should order his son to take a mean garb below his dignity,
order him to be dragged to prison, seem to throw off all affection of
a father for the severity of a judge, condemn his son to a horrible
death, be a spectator of his bleeding condition, withhold his hand from
assuaging his misery, regard it rather with joy than sorrow, give him a
bitter cup to drink, and stand by to see him drink it off to the bottom,
dregs and all, and flash frowns in his face all the while; and this
not for any fault of his own, but the rebellion of some subjects he
undertook for, and that the offenders might have a pardon sealed by the
blood of the son, the sufferer: all this would evidence his detestation
of the rebellion, and his affection to the rebels; his hatred to their
crime, and his love to their welfare. This did God do. He “delivered
Christ up for our offences” (Rom. viii. 32); the Father gave him the
cup (John xviii. 18); the Lord bruised him with pleasure (Isa. liii.
10), and that for sin. He transferred upon the shoulders of his Son
the pain we had merited, that the criminal might be restored to the
place he had forfeited. He hates the sin so as to condemn it forever,
and wrap it up in the curse he had threatened; and loves the sinner,
believing and repenting, so as to mount him to an expectation of a
happiness exceeding the first estate, both in glory and perpetuity.
Instead of an earthly paradise, lays the foundation of an heavenly
mansion, brings forth a weight of glory from a weight of misery,
separates the comfortable light of the sun from the scorching heat
we had deserved at his hands. Thus hath God’s hatred of sin been
manifested. He is at eternal defiance with sin, yet nearer in alliance
with the sinner than he was before the revolt; as if man’s miserable
fall had endeared him to the Judge. This is the wisdom {a568} and
prudence of “grace wherein God hath abounded” (Eph. i. 9): a wisdom in
twisting the happy restoration of the broken amity, with an everlasting
curse upon that which made the breach, both upon sin the cause, and
upon Satan the seducer to it. Thus is hatred and love, in their highest
glory, manifested together: hatred to sin, in the death of Christ, more
than if the torments of hell had been undergone by the sinner; and love
to the sinner, more than if he had, by an absolute and simple bounty,
bestowed upon him the possession of heaven; because the gift of his
Son, for such an end, is a greater token of his boundless affections,
than a re‑instating man in paradise. Thus is the wisdom of God seen in
redemption, consuming the sin, and recovering the sinner.
6. The wisdom of God is evident in overturning the devil’s empire by
the nature he had vanquished, and by ways quite contrary to what that
malicious spirit could imagine. The devil, indeed, read his own doom
in the first promise, and found his ruin resolved upon, by the means
of the “Seed of the woman;” but by what seed was not so easily known
to him.[796] And the methods whereby it was to be brought about was
a mystery kept secret from the malicious devils, since it was not
discovered to the obedient angels. He might know, from Isa. liii.,
that the Redeemer was assured to divide the spoil with the strong, and
rescue a part of the lost creation out of his hands; and that this was
to be effected by making his soul an offering for sin: but could he
imagine which way his soul was to be made such an offering? He shrewdly
suspected Christ, just after his inauguration into his office by
baptism, to be the Son of God: but did he ever dream that the Messiah,
by dying as a reputed malefactor, should be a sacrifice for the
expiation of the sin the devil had introduced by his subtilty? Did he
ever imagine a cross should dispossess him of his crown, and that dying
groans should wrest the victory out of his hands? He was conquered by
that nature he had cast headlong into ruin: a woman, by his subtilty,
was the occasion of our death; and a woman, by the conduct of the only
wise God, brings forth the Author of our life, and the Conqueror of our
enemies. The flesh of the old Adam had infected us, and the flesh of
the new Adam cures us (1 Cor. xv. 21): “By man came death; by man also
came the resurrection from the dead.” We are killed by the old Adam,
and raised by the new; as among the Israelites, a fiery serpent gave
the wound, and a brazen serpent administers the cure. The nature that
was deceived bruiseth the deceiver, and raiseth up the foundations of
his kingdom. Satan is defeated by the counsels he took to secure his
possession, and loses the victory by the same means whereby he thought
to preserve it. His tempting the Jews to the sin of crucifying the
Son of God, had a contrary success to his tempting Adam to eat of the
tree. The first death he brought upon Adam, ruined us, and the death he
brought by his instruments upon the second Adam, restored us. By a tree,
if one may so say, he had triumphed over the world, and by the fruit of
a tree, one hanging upon a tree, he is discharged of his {a569} power
over us (Heb. ii. 14): “Through death he destroyed Him that had the
power of death.” And thus the devil ruins his own kingdom while he
thinks to confirm and enlarge it; and is defeated by his own policy,
whereby he thought to continue the world under his chains, and deprive
the Creator of the world of his purposed honor. What deeper counsel
could he resolve upon for his own security, than to be instrumental in
the death of him, who was God, the terror of the devil himself, and to
bring the Redeemer of the world to expire with disgrace in the sight of
a multitude of men? Thus did the wisdom of God shine forth in restoring
us by methods seemingly repugnant to the end he aimed at, and above
the suspicion of a subtle devil, whom he intended to baffle. Could
he imagine that we should be healed by stripes, quickened by death,
purified by blood, crowned by a cross, advanced to the highest honor
by the lowest humility, comforted by sorrows, glorified by disgrace,
absolved by condemnation, and made rich by poverty? That the sweetest
honey should at once spring out of the belly of a dead lion, the lion
of the tribe of Judah, and out of the bosom of the living God? How
wonderful is this wisdom of God! that the Seed of the woman, born of a
mean virgin, brought forth in a stable, spending his days in affliction,
misery, and poverty, without any pomp and splendor, passing some
time in a carpenter’s shop, with carpenter’s tools (Mark vi. 6), and
afterwards exposed to a horrible and disgraceful death, should, by
this way, pull down the gates of hell, subvert the kingdom of the
devil, and be the hammer to break in pieces that power, which he had so
long exercised over the world! Thus became he the author of our life,
by being bound for a while in the chains of death, and arrived to a
principality over the most malicious powers, by being a prisoner for
us, and the anvil of their rage and fury.
7. The wisdom of God appears, in giving us this way the surest ground
of comfort, and the strongest incentive to obedience. The rebel is
reconciled, and the rebellion shamed; God is propitiated, and the
sinner sanctified, by the same blood. What can more contribute to our
comfort and confidence, than God’s richest gift to us? What can more
enflame our love to him, than our recovery from death by the oblation
of his Son to misery and death for us? It doth as much engage our duty
as secure our happiness. It presents God glorious and gracious, and
therefore every way fit to be trusted in regard of the interest of his
own glory in it, and in regard of the effusions of his grace by it. It
renders the creature obliged in the highest manner, and so awakens his
industry to the strictest and noblest obedience. Nothing so effectual
as a crucified Christ to wean us from sin, and stifle all motions of
despair; a means, in regard of the justice signalized in it, to make
man to hate the sin which had ruined him; and a means, in regard of the
love expressed to make him delight in that law he had violated (2 Cor.
v. 14, 15). The love of Christ, and therefore the love of God expressed
in it, constrains us no longer to live to ourselves.
(1.) It is a ground of the highest comfort and confidence in God.
{a570} Since he hath given such an evidence of his impartial truth to
his threatening for the honor of his justice, we need not question but
he will be as punctual to his promise for the honor of his mercy. It is
a ground of confidence in God, since he hath redeemed us in such a way
as glorifies the steadiness of his veracity, as well as the severity of
his justice; we may well trust him for the performance of his promise,
since we have experience of the execution of his threatening; his
merciful truth will as much engage him to accomplish the one, as his
just truth did to inflict the other. The goodness which shone forth
in weaker rays in the creation, breaks out with stronger beams in
redemption. And the mercy which before the appearance of Christ was
manifested in some small rivulets, diffuseth itself like a boundless
ocean. That God, that was our Creator, is our Redeemer, the repairer
of our breaches, and the restorer of our paths to dwell in. And the
plenteous redemption from all iniquity, manifested in the incarnation
and passion of the Son of God, is much more a ground of hope in the
Lord than it was in past ages, when it could not be said, “The Lord
hath, but the Lord shall, redeem Israel from all his iniquities” (Ps.
cxxx. 8). It is a full warrant to cast ourselves into his arms.
(2.) An incentive to obedience.
[1.] The commands of the gospel require the obedience of the creature.
There is not one precept in the gospel which interferes with any rule
in the law, but strengthens it, and represents it in its true exactness:
the heat to scorch us is allayed, but the light to direct us is not
extinguished. Not the least allowance to any sin is granted; not the
least affection to any sin is indulged. The law is tempered by the
gospel, but not nulled and cast out of doors by it: it enacts that
none but those that are sanctified, shall be glorified; that there must
be grace here, if we expect glory hereafter; that we must not presume
to expect an admittance to the vision of God’s face unless our souls
be clothed with a robe of holiness (Heb. xii. 14). It requires an
obedience to the whole law in our intention and purpose, and an
endeavor to observe it in our actions; it promotes the honor of God,
and ordains a universal charity among men; it reveals the whole counsel
of God, and furnisheth men with the holiest laws.
[2.] It presents to us the exactest pattern for our obedience. The
redeeming person is not only a propitiation for the sin, but a pattern
to the sinner (1 Pet. ii. 21). The conscience of man, after the fall
of Adam, approved of the reason of the law, but by the corruption
of nature man had no strength to perform the law. The possibility of
keeping the law, by human nature, is evidenced by the appearance and
life of the Redeemer, and an assurance given that it shall be advanced
to such a state as to be able to observe it: we aspire to it in this
life, and have hopes to attain it in a future; and, while we are here,
the actor of our redemption is the copy for our imitation. The pattern
to imitate is greater than the law to be ruled by. What a lustre did
his virtues cast about the world! How attractive are his graces! With
what high examples for all duties has he furnished us out of the copy
of his life!