XIII. Since then these things are so, or
rather since This is so; and His Adoration ought not to be rendered
only by Beings above, but there ought to be also worshippers on earth,
that all things may be filled with the glory of God (forasmuch as they
are filled with God Himself); therefore man was created and honored
with the hand “The rest of the Creation was made by
the command of God, but Man was formed by the hand of God.”
(Wordsworth in Gen. ii. 7.)
“There was a peculiar glory in the
creation of Man, distinguishing him from the rest of the
creatures. The creatures inferior to man were called into being
by a simple act of the Divine Will; but in the case of man, bearing as
he does the nature and the form which God was about to assume as His
own, and which, once assumed, was never again to be laid aside, the
process of creation was markedly different. Then for the first
time the Most Holy Persons of the Blessed Trinity appear upon the
scene. They are manifested as in mutual consultation and common
action personally engaged.…‘Let Us make Man in Our Image
after Our Likeness’…Then followed the exercise of creative
power as a personal act, the putting forth the Hand of God to fashion
the body of Man; ‘The Lord God formed Man of the dust of the
earth.’ Afterwards came the yet higher work in the infusion
of the immaterial invisible life enshrined in the body, perfecting the
work of God; ‘He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
and Man became a living soul.’” (T. T. Carter, The
Divine Dispensations, p. 44.) and Image of
God. But to despise man, when by the envy of the Devil and the
bitter taste of sin he was pitiably severed from God his
Maker—this was not in the Nature of God. What then was
done, and what is the great Mystery that concerns us? An
innovation is made upon nature, and God is made Man. “He
that rideth upon the Heaven of Heavens in the East” Ps. lxviii. 4. of His own glory and Majesty, is glorified
in the West of our meanness and lowliness. And the Son of God
deigns to become and to be called Son of Man; not changing what He was
(for It is unchangeable); but assuming what He was not (for He is full
of love to man), that the Incomprehensible Ullman comments on
this passage as follows: There is in it, as follows especially
from what comes after, the double sense that the Infinite Godhead
entered in Christ into the limitations of a finite human life; and in
consequence of this, since otherwise as an infinite Being it was not
fully cognisable by the finite human soul, became in this limitation
cognisable in some degree to it, as it was not before this special
manifestation in Christ.
might be comprehended, conversing with us through the mediation of the
Flesh as through a veil; since it was not possible for that nature
which is subject to birth and decay to endure His unveiled
Godhead. Therefore the Unmingled is mingled; and not only is God
mingled with birth and Spirit “In this and
several places πνεῦμα and νοῦς evidently denote the
Divine the Spiritual, taken in the highest and purest sense, in which
it is lifted above the σάρξ, and generally above all that is
material; in which sense S. John says, πνεῦμα ὁ
θεός.” Ullmann. with flesh, and the
Eternal with time, and the Uncircumscribed with measure;
but also Generation with
Virginity, and dishonour with Him who is higher than all honour; He who
is impassible with Suffering, “In a double
sense;—either that the Godhead is, in union with the Man Jesus,
subjected to suffering (cf. Or. XXI. 24), or that the Divine Substance,
which is unapproachable by any passion or suffering, combined itself
with a Man, whose nature cannot be free from such
emotions.” Ullmann. and the Immortal
with the corruptible. For since that Deceiver thought that he was
unconquerable in his malice, after he had cheated us with the hope of
becoming gods, he was himself cheated by God’s assumption of our
nature; so that in attacking Adam as he thought, he should really meet
with God, and thus the new Adam should save the old, and the
condemnation of the flesh should be abolished, death being slain by
flesh.