The Deity of Christ
In speaking of the
deity of Christ, Irenaeus holds that “the Son, eternally co-existing with the
Father, from of old, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the Father to
Angels, Archangels, Powers, Virtues, and all to whom He wills that God should
be revealed.”[1]
The Humanity of Christ
Irenaeus then goes
on to comment on Christ’s sinlessness and perfect humanity in saying, “If,
then, any one allege that in this respect the flesh of the Lord was different
from ours, because it indeed did not commit sin, neither was deceit found in
His soul, while we, on the other hand, are sinners, he says what is the
fact. But if he pretends that the Lord
possessed another substance of flesh, the sayings respecting reconciliation
will not agree with that man.”[2] As
a result of the incarnation, Christ Jesus “caused man (human nature) to cleave
to and to become, one with God.”[3] Christ Jesus, then, is affirmed to be
sinless, but any idea of His being a created being or something other than
fully human is thereby rejected.
The Necessity of the Incarnation
This, then, raises
the question of why the eternally existing Son of God would become man. It is sometimes suggested that Jesus became
man to teach us about God and show us how to live. This idea finds support in the statement of
Irenaeus that, “in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless
our Master, existing as the Word, had become man. For no other being had the power of revealing
to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word.”[4] That is not the only reason for the
incarnation, however, as Irenaeus is quick to reject the idea that what
someone believes about man does not matter.
On the contrary, he points out that “the advent of the Lord will appear superfluous and useless, if He did
indeed come intending to tolerate and to preserve each man’s idea regarding God
rooted in him from of old.”[5]
Instead of this, Irenaeus tells us that “while destroying the error of the
Gentiles, and bearing them away from their gods ... [and] removing those which
were no gods, they pointed out Him who alone was God and the true Father.”[6]
Irenaeus then goes
on to provide a more complete explanation in a passage that has some striking
similarities to Anselm of Canterbury’s classic answer to that question in his Why God Became Man.
For unless man had overcome the enemy of man, the enemy would not have
been legitimately vanquished. And again: unless it had been God who had freely
given salvation, we could never have possessed it securely. And unless man had
been joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility.
For it was incumbent upon the Mediator between God and men, by His relationship
to both, to bring both to friendship and concord, and present man to God, while
He revealed God to man. ...
For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who
was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the
Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other
means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had
been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to
incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and
immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be
swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might
receive the adoption of sons?[7]
For Irenaeus, then,
although God the Father was under no compulsion in sending Christ Jesus to
earth, and the Son of God Himself voluntarily agreed to take on the form of a
man, it was also true that God the Father did not send His Son to the cross
needlessly as man’s salvation could not be obtained in any other way.
[1]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, Chapter 29 in
Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander
Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 406.
[2]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 14 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander
Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I,
541-542.
[3]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 18
in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I,
448.
[4]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 1 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander
Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 526.
[5]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 12
in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I,
432.
[6]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 12
in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I,
432.
[7]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 19
in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I,
448-449.
