Doc. of Lord (Potts) n. 59

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59. So far in the Creed as to the Trinity and Unity of God. The Creed then treats of the Lord's assumption of the Human in the world, called the Incarnation. Everything said in the Creed on this point also is true, provided we make a clear distinction between the human from the mother in which the Lord was when in a state of humiliation or emptying out [exinanitio] [see Isa. 52:12], as when He suffered temptations and the cross; and the Human from the Father, in which He was when in a state of glorification or unition. For in the world the Lord assumed a Human conceived of Jehovah (who is the Lord from eternity), and born of the virgin Mary; so that He had both a Divine and a human, a Divine from His Divine from eternity, and a human from the mother Mary in time; but this latter human He put off, and put on a Human that was Divine. This Human is what is called the Divine Human, and is meant in the Word by the "Son of God." When therefore the things first said in the Creed about the Incarnation are understood of the maternal human (in which the Lord was when in a state of humiliation), and the things that follow, of the Divine Human (in which He was when in a state of glorification), all things there are in agreement. With the maternal human (in which the Lord was when in a state of humiliation) agree the following statements, that come first in the Creed:

That Jesus Christ was God and Man, God of the Substance of the Father, and Man of the substance of the mother, born in the world; perfect God and perfect Man, of a rational soul and human body consisting; equal to the Father as touching the Godhead, but inferior to the Father as touching the manhood. That this manhood was not converted into the Godhead, nor commixed therewith; it being put off, and the Divine Human assumed in its place. With the Divine Human (in which He was when in a state of glorification, and is now to eternity) agree the following words in the Creed:

Although our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ yea, he is altogether one, for he is one person for as the reasonable soul and body are one man, so God and Man are one Christ.


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