Against Heresies: Book III

BUT AGAIN: those who claim that He was merely a man, born of Joseph, remain in the bondage of the old disobedience and are in a state of death, not yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving freedom through the Son, as He Himself declares: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Being ignorant of Him who is Emmanuel from the Virgin, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life.

To them, the Word says, referring to His own gift of grace: “I said, You are all sons of the Highest, and gods; but you will die like men.” He undoubtedly speaks these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption and who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of its elevation to God, and show themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them.

For it was for this purpose that the Word of God became man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, so that man, being joined to the Word and receiving adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality.

But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless incorruptibility and immortality first became what we are, so that the corruptible might be absorbed by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?

FOR THIS REASON: it is said, “Who will declare His generation?” since “He is a man, and who will recognize Him?” But the one to whom the Father in heaven has revealed Him knows Him and understands that He who “was not born by the will of the flesh or by the will of man” is the Son of man, this is Christ, the Son of the living God. I have shown from the Scriptures that none of the sons of Adam is, in every aspect and absolutely, called God or named Lord.

But that He is, in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, can be seen by all who have attained even a small portion of the truth. The Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him if He had been merely a man like others.

But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that eminent birth from the Most High Father, and also experienced that eminent generation from the Virgin, the divine Scriptures testify of Him in both respects: also, that He was a man without beauty, subject to suffering; that He sat upon the foal of a donkey; that He received vinegar and gall to drink; that He was despised among the people and humbled Himself even to death; and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men— the Scriptures prophesied all these things of Him.

JUST AS HE BECAME MAN TO UNDERGO TEMPTATION: so too was He the Word that He might be glorified; the Word stayed inactive to allow Him to be tempted, dishonored, crucified, and suffer death. The human nature was absorbed by the divine when it conquered, endured without yielding, performed acts of kindness, rose again, and was received into heaven.

Thus, the Son of God, our Lord, the Word of the Father, became the Son of man since He was born as a human from Mary, who was descended from humanity.

This is why the Lord Himself gave us a sign, in the depths below and the heights above, which man did not ask for, because he never expected that a virgin could conceive, or that one remaining a virgin could give birth to a son, and that what was born would be “God with us.” He descended to earthly matters, seeking the lost sheep, His own creation, and ascended to the heights above, offering human nature to His Father. He became the first-fruits of the resurrection of man, so that as the Head rose from the dead, so too would the remaining part of the body—every person found in life—arise when the time of the condemnation from disobedience is fulfilled.

They will be joined and strengthened through connections by the growth of God, each member having its rightful place in the body. For there are many mansions in the Father’s house just as there are many members in the body.