The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

us a solitary passage in our Confession, or in any approved author of our
Church, which says that the human nature of Christ is present "like the
divine nature," we will confess that we have too hastily pronounced upon
his statements, and will consent to sit at his feet as a learner in the doctrines
of our Church. Our Confessions, as we read them, again and again assert
the very opposite, and we will undertake, for every line in the Heidelberg
Catechism which repudiates the doctrine that the human nature of Christ is
present like the divine, to produce twenty from our Confessions which
repudiate it with equal strength.
As Dr. Gerhart has cited no passage from any Lutheran authority
which asserts the doctrine he imputes to us, it might be sufficient for us
simply to meet his statement with this denial, but we will go further, and
cite some passages of the Formula of Concord in which it is expressly
repudiated.
The Formula of Concord, in its VIIIth Article, after asserting that the
“divine virtue, life, power, and majesty are given to the human nature
assumed in Christ," goes on to say: 1. "This declaration, however, is NOT
to be accepted in such sense, as if these were communicated, as the Father
has communicated to the Son, according to His divine nature, His own
essence, and all divine properties, whence He is of one essence with the
Father, and co-equal."
2. "For Christ only according to His divine nature is equal to the
Father: according to His human nature He is under God."
3. "From these statements it is manifest that we imagine no
confusion, equalizing or abolishing of the natures in Christ. For the power
of giving life Is NOT IN THE FLESH OF CHRIST IN THE SAME
WAY IN WHICH IT IS IN HIS DIVINE NATURE, to wit, as an
essential property: this we have never asserted, never imagined."
4. "For that communion of natures, and of properties, is not the result
of an essential, or natural effusion of the properties of the divine nature
upon the human: as if the humanity of Christ had them subsisting
independently and separate from divinity; or as if by that communion the
human nature of Christ had