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God, or to claim divinity for Him in virtue of the immanence of God in Him, or of the indwelling
Spirit. The necessity of the two natures in Christ follows from what is essential to the Scriptural
doctrine of the atonement.
a. The necessity of His manhood.
Since man sinned, it was necessary that the penalty should be
borne by man. Moreover, the paying of the penalty involved suffering of body and soul, such as
only man is capable of bearing, John 12:27; Acts 3:18; Heb. 2:14; 9:22. It was necessary that
Christ should assume human nature, not only with all its essential properties, but also with all
the infirmities to which it is liable after the fall, and should thus descend to the depths of
degradation to which man had fallen, Heb. 2:17,18. At the same time, He had to be a sinless
man, for a man who was himself a sinner and who had forfeited his own life, certainly could not
atone for others, Heb. 7:26. Only such a truly human Mediator, who had experimental
knowledge of the woes of mankind and rose superior to all temptations, could enter
sympathetically into all the experiences, the trials, and the temptations of man, Heb. 2:17,18;
4:15-5:2, and be a perfect human example for His followers, Matt. 11:29; Mk. 10:39; John
13:13-15; Phil. 2:5-8; Heb. 12:2-4; I Pet. 2:21.
b. The necessity of His Godhead.
In the divine plan of salvation it was absolutely essential that
the Mediator should also be very God. This was necessary, in order that (1) He might bring a
sacrifice of infinite value and render perfect obedience to the law of God; (2) He might bear the
wrath of God redemptively, that is, so as to free others from the curse of the law; and (3) He
might be able to apply the fruits of His accomplished work to those who accepted Him by faith.
Man with his bankrupt life can neither pay the penalty of sin, nor render perfect obedience to
God. He can bear the wrath of God and, except for the redeeming grace of God, will have to
bear it eternally, but he cannot bear it so as to open a way of escape, Ps. 49:7-10; 130:3.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY.
What Old Testament persons bore the name ‘Jesus,’ and in
what respect did they typify the Saviour? Is the bare title ‘the Messiah,’ without a genitive or a
pronominal suffix, ever found in the Old Testament? How does Dalman account for its
occurence in Jewish apocalyptic literature? Do the terms ‘the anointed of Jehovah,’ ‘His
anointed,’ and ‘my anointed’ always have the same meaning in the Old Testament? Whence
comes the idea that believers share the anointing of Christ? What about the idea that the name
‘Son of Man,’ reduced to its probable Aramaic original, simply means ‘man’? How about the
idea of Weiss and Schweitzer that Jesus employed the name only in a futuristic sense? Did He
use it before Peter’s confession at Cæsarea-Philippi? How do the liberals square their
conception of Jesus as the Son of God only in a religious and ethical sense with the data of
Scripture? What is the usual view of the origin of the Kurios-title? What theory was broached
by Bousset and other liberal scholars? What accounts for the opposition to the two-natures