Thursday, January 14, 2016

Shedd's view presents changes in the Trinity?

"Shedd's material begins on page 278 of volume two. There he says, 'The God-man was a new person.' since Shedd will deny that the man Jesus was a person, this assertion implies certain changes and alterations in the Second Person of the Trinity. Indeed he is a very specific, for on page 281 he adds, 'The Trinity itself is not altered or modified by the Incarnation. Only the Second Person is modified.' Coming from an intelligent and well-educated Christian, this is amazing. The Second Person of the Trinity is as immutable as the other two. Furthermore, if the Second Person suffered alteration, it would modify the Trinity as whole. The Trinity, if I may use the language, is a complex of three Persons. Clearly if one changes, the complex changes. It will have different constituents. Certainly this violates the basic Christian doctrine and destroys all confidence in what may be said of the Incarnation." - Gordon H. Clark, Incarnation, Pg. 47


John Gill kind of reiterates this fact of the incarnation:


"Nor is the unchangeableness of the divine nature to be disproved by the incarnation of Christ; for though he, a divine Person, possessed of the divine nature, was made flesh, or became man; the divine nature in him was not changed into the human nature, nor the human nature into the divine, nor a third nature made out of them both; was this the case, the divine nature would have been changeable; but so it was not; for as it has been commonly said, 'Christ remained what he was, and assumed what he was not;' and what he assumed added nothing to his divine person; he was only manifested in the flesh; he neither received any perfection, nor imperfection, from the human nature; though that received dignity and honour by its union to him, and was adorned with the gifts and graces of the Spirit without measure, and is now advanced at the right hand of God." - John Gill, The Body of Divinity, Pg. 37

The incarnation did not change the Son of God. Nothing was added to Him when he assumed the nature of man.

No comments: