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| Christ Took Not on Him an Angelic Nature, But the Human. It Was Men, Not Angels, Whom He Came to Save.
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Chapter
XIV.—Christ Took Not on Him an Angelic Nature, But the Human. It
Was Men, Not Angels, Whom He Came to Save.
But Christ, they say, bare7138
(the nature of) an angel. For what reason? The same which induced Him
to become man? Christ, then, was actuated by the motive which led Him
to take human nature. Man’s salvation was the motive, the
restoration of that which had perished. Man had perished; his
recovery had become necessary. No such cause, however, existed for
Christ’s taking on Him the nature of angels. For although there
is assigned to angels also perdition in “the fire prepared for
the devil and his angels,”7139
yet a
restoration is never promised to them. No charge about the
salvation of angels did Christ ever receive from the Father; and that
which the Father neither promised nor commanded, Christ could not have
undertaken. For what object, therefore, did He bear the angelic nature,
if it were not (that He might have it) as a powerful helper7140
wherewithal to execute the salvation of
man? The Son of
God, in sooth, was not competent alone to deliver man, whom a solitary
and single serpent had overthrown! There is, then, no longer but
one God, but one Saviour, if there be two to contrive salvation, and
one of them in need of the other. But was it His object indeed to
deliver man by an angel? Why, then, come down to do that which He was
about to expedite with an angel’s help? If by an angel’s
aid, why come Himself also? If He meant to do all by Himself,
why have an angel too? He has been, it is true, called “the Angel
of great counsel,” that is, a messenger, by a term expressive of
official function, not of nature. For He had to announce to the world
the mighty purpose of the Father, even that which ordained the
restoration of man. But He is not on this account to be regarded
as an angel, as a Gabriel or a Michael. For the Lord of the Vineyard
sends even His Son to the labourers to require fruit, as well as His
servants. Yet the Son will not therefore be counted as one of the
servants because He undertook the office of a servant. I may, then,
more easily say, if such an expression is to be hazarded,7141
that the Son is actually an angel, that is,
a messenger, from the Father, than that there is an angel in the
Son. Forasmuch, however, as it has been declared concerning the
Son Himself, “Thou hast made Him a little lower than the
angels”7142
how will it appear
that He put on the nature of angels if He was made lower than the
angels, having become man, with flesh and soul as the Son of man? As
“the Spirit7143
| 7143 For this
designation of the divine nature in Christ, see our
Anti-Marcion, p. 247, note 7, Edin. | of God,”
however, and “the Power of the Highest,”7144
can He be regarded as lower than the
angels,—He who is verily God, and the Son of God? Well, but as
bearing human nature, He is so far made inferior to the angels; but as
bearing angelic nature, He to the same degree loses that inferiority.
This opinion will be very suitable for Ebion,7145
who holds Jesus to be a mere man, and nothing more than a descendant of
David, and not also the Son of God; although He is, to be
sure,7146
in one respect more glorious than the
prophets, inasmuch as he declares that there was an angel in Him, just
as there was in Zechariah. Only it was never said by Christ, “And
the angel, which spake within me, said unto me.”7147
Neither, indeed, was ever used by Christ
that familiar phrase of all the prophets, “Thus saith the
Lord.” For He was Himself the Lord, who openly spake by His own
authority, prefacing His words with the formula, “Verily, verily,
I say unto you.” What need is there of further argument?
Hear what Isaiah says in emphatic words, “It was no angel, nor
deputy, but the Lord Himself who saved them.”7148
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