Dogmatic Theology Vol 2 - Shedd - XVIII - Chapter 2 Christ's Divinity and Chapter 3 Christ's Humanity

Required reading

Dogmatic Theology Vol 2 by William G.T. Shedd (Available from Amazon or here) - Read Chapter 2 'Christ's Divinity' and Chapter 3 'Christ's Humanity'.                                   

My summary  

Today we read two short chapters.

Firstly Shedd teaches us about Christ's humanity:

(i) Christ had a 'true body';

(ii) Christ had a 'rational soul';

(iii) Christ 'continues to be God and man in two distinct natures'.

Secondly we learn about Christ's unipersonality, that the two natures constitute only one person. This is true in his humiliation and his exaltation. A good portion of the reading is devoted to refuting Lutheran error in mixing the natures in Christ's person.

What grabbed me 
I enjoyed the description of the exaltation of Christ's human nature now and our exaltation on the last day: 'At this pointy it is proper to notice the effect of Christ's exaltation upon his humanity. When the humiliation of Christ ends and his exaltation begins, the human nature, though still unchanged in its essential properties, no longer yields certain elements of consciousness which it previously yielded. Christ on the mediatorial throne hungers no more, and suffers no more. Certain accidental properties are left behind, but all essential properties of humanity are retained. The exalted human nature still keeps its finiteness. It is not invested with infinite properties. It does not acquire omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence by Christ's exaltation. It is man's nature still. The change which occurs in the instance of the perfected nature of a redeemed man illustrates the alteration in Christ's human nature. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," and yet the redeemed are as really and truly men as they ever were. But there will be certain modes of consciousness which the redeemed experienced when upon earth that will be impossible to them in heaven. Not because they are different persons in heaven from what they were upon earth, but because there has been a change wrought in their physical nature by the resurrection and glorification of their bodies, so that this nature, though human and physical still, does not need meat and drink as it did while upon earth, and is. not liable to sickness, suffering, and death, as it was here below. Those modes of consciousness which involved pain and suffering, which man was capable of here upon earth by reason of the state and condition of his body while here upon earth, are no longer possible to him as redeemed and glorified in heaven. And so, likewise, those experiences of earthly suffering and sorrow which Christ passed through in his state of humiliation, will constitute no part of his self -consciousness in his state of exaltation.'

We will be exalted, but we will still be human.
     
Next week's reading    
Read Chapter 4 'Christ's impeccability'.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.