THE LORD MADE HIS HUMAN DIVINE FROM THE DIVINE IN HIMSELF, AND HE THUS BECAME ONE WITH THE FATHER

It is according to the doctrine of the Church received throughout the Christian world that

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; and although He is God and Man, yet there are not two, but there is one Christ. He is one, because the Divine took to itself the Human; indeed He is altogether one, being one person: for as the soul and body make one man, so God and Man is one Christ.

These words are taken from the Athanasian Creed, which is accepted throughout the whole Christian world. They are the essentials of its teaching concerning the union (unitio) of the Divine and the Human in the Lord. What is further said in the same Creed concerning the Lord will be explained in its proper chapter. From these words it is clearly manifest that it is according to the faith of the Christian Church that the Divine and the Human in the Lord are not two, but one, as the soul and body are one man; and that the Divine in Him assumed the Human.

[2] From this it follows that the Divine cannot be separated from the Human, nor the Human from the Divine; for, to separate them would be like separating the soul and body. That this is so must be acknowledged by every one who reads what is quoted above, in Numbers 19 and 21, from the two Evangelists, namely Luke i 26-35, and Matthew 18-25, concerning the Lord's nativity. From these passages it is manifest that Jesus was conceived of Jehovah God, and born of the Virgin Mary; so that the Divine was in Him, and was His soul. Now, since His soul was the Divine itself of the Father, it follows that His body, or Human, was made Divine also; for where the one is Divine, the other must be also. Thus and no otherwise are the Father and the Son one the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father thus also all things belonging to the Son are the Father's, and all things belonging to the Father are the Son's; as the Lord Himself teaches in His Word.

[3] But how the union was effected will be explained in the following order:

1. The Lord from eternity is Jehovah.

2. The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, assumed the Human to save men.

3. He made the Human Divine from the Divine in Himself.

4. He made the Human Divine by temptations admitted into Himself.

5. The full union of the Divine and the Human in Him was effected by the passion of the cross, which was the last of the temptations.

6. He successively put off the Human assumed from the mother, and put on a Human from the Divine within Him. This is the Divine Human, and the Son of God.

7. Thus God became Man, as in first things so also in last.