Here is one more miscellany on the incarnation of Christ. This time, Edwards muses on the union of the two natures of Christ, identifying the Holy Spirit as the bond which unites these two natures.

764b. INCARNATION OF CHRIST. UNION OF THE TWO NATURES IN CHRIST.

What Christ says in the John 3:33–34, confirms that the Holy Spirit is the bond of union by which the human nature of Christ is united to the divine, so as to be one person. “He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” Which words may be thus paraphrased: he that hath received my testimony as true, and sets to his seal that I speak true, he therein sets to his seal that God speaks true, for in my speaking of it God speaks it. There is such an union between this human nature that immediately speaks with God’s [words], that the words in being my words are God’s words; which union is the consequence of God’s communicating his Spirit without measure to my human nature, so as to render it the same person with him that is God. Something more is doubtless intended than that he was an inspired person, and spake the Word of God as the prophets did. When Christ says that he that receives his testimony sets to his seal that God is true, because his words were God’s words, he doubtless has respect to something that is peculiar to himself, something that is his own prerogative; and therefore, the reason that he gives for it is something peculiar to him, viz. God’s giving the Spirit not by measure unto him. When he says that he that hears his words hears God’s words, and he that owns him to be true owns God to be true, ’tis most natural to understand him in a sense analogous to what he says elsewhere: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”; and “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” [John 5:17, John 14:9].

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 18, The “Miscellanies:” 501-832, ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 411.

Filed under:
miscellany mondays, the miscellanies