16) When, then, the minds of men had fallen finally to the level of sensible
things, the Word submitted to appear in a body, in order that He, as Man,
might center their senses on Himself, and convince them through His human
acts that He Himself is not man only but also God, the Word and Wisdom of
the true God. This is what Paul wants to tell us when he says:
"That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend
with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth,
and to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge, so that ye may be
filled unto all the fullness of God."[6]
The Self-revealing of the Word is in every dimension--above, in creation;
below, in the Incarnation; in the depth, in Hades; in the breadth, throughout
the world. All things have been filled with the knowledge of God.
For this reason He did not offer the sacrifice on behalf of all immediately
He came, for if He had surrendered His body to death and then raised it
again at once He would have ceased to be an object of our senses. Instead
of that, He stayed in His body and let Himself be seen in it, doing acts
and giving signs which showed Him to be not only man, but also God the
Word. There were thus two things which the Savior did for us by becoming
Man. He banished death from us and made us anew; and, invisible and imperceptible
as in Himself He is, He became visible through His works and revealed Himself
as the Word of the Father, the Ruler and King of the whole creation.
(17) There is a paradox in this last statement which we must now examine.
The Word was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body
prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He
did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. No. The
marvelous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being Himself contained
by anything, He actually contained all things Himself. In creation He is
present everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it; ordering, directing,
giving life to all, containing all, yet is He Himself the Uncontained,
existing solely in His Father. As with the whole, so also is it with the
part. Existing in a human body, to which He Himself gives life, He is still
Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside
the whole; and He is revealed both through the works of His body and through
His activity in the world. It is, indeed, the function of soul to behold
things that are outside the body, but it cannot energize or move them.
A man cannot transport things from one place to another, for instance,
merely by thinking about them; nor can you or I move the sun and the stars
just by sitting at home and looking at them. With the Word of God in His
human nature, however, it was otherwise. His body was for Him not a limitation,
but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside
all things, resting in the Father alone. At one and the same time--this
is the wonder--as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining
the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the
Father. Not even His birth from a virgin, therefore, changed Him in any
way, nor was He defiled by being in the body. Rather, He sanctified the
body by being in it. For His being in everything does not mean that He
shares the nature of everything, only that He gives all things their being
and sustains them in it. Just as the sun is not defiled by the contact
of its rays with earthly objects, but rather enlightens and purifies them,
so He Who made the sun is not defiled by being made known in a body, but
rather the body is cleansed and quickened by His indwelling,
"Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth."[7]
(18) You must understand, therefore, that when writers on this sacred
theme speak of Him as eating and drinking and being born, they mean that
the body, as a body, was born and sustained with the food proper to its
nature; while God the Word, Who was united with it, was at the same time
ordering the universe and revealing Himself through His bodily acts as
not man only but God. Those acts are rightly said to be His acts, because
the body which did them did indeed belong to Him and none other; moreover,
it was right that they should be thus attributed to Him as Man, in order
to show that His body was a real one and not merely an appearance. From
such ordinary acts as being born and taking food, He was recognized as
being actually present in the body; but by the extraordinary acts which
He did through the body He proved Himself to be the Son of God. That is
the meaning of His words to the unbelieving Jews:
"If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not; but if I do, even
if ye believe not Me, believe My works, that ye may know that the Father
is in Me and I in the Father."(8)
Invisible in Himself, He is known from the works of creation; so also,
when His Godhead is veiled in human nature, His bodily acts still declare
Him to be not man only, but the Power and Word of God. To speak authoritatively
to evil spirits, for instance, and to drive them out, is not human but
divine; and who could see-Him curing all the diseases to which mankind
is prone, and still deem Him mere man and not also God? He cleansed lepers,
He made the lame to walk, He opened the ears of the deaf and the eyes of
the blind, there was no sickness or weakness that-He did not drive away.
Even the most casual observer can see that these were acts of God. The
healing of the man born blind, for instance, who but the Father and Artificer
of man, the Controller of his whole being, could thus have restored the
faculty denied at birth? He Who did thus must surely be Himself the Lord
of birth. This is proved also at the outset of His becoming Man. He formed
His own body from the virgin; and that is no small proof of His Godhead,
since He Who made that was the Maker of all else. And would not anyone
infer from the fact of that body being begotten of a virgin only, without
human father, that He Who appeared in it was also the Maker and Lord of
all beside?
Again, consider the miracle at Cana. Would not anyone who saw the substance
of water transmuted into wine understand that He Who did it was the Lord
and Maker of the water that He changed? It was for the same reason that
He walked on the sea as on dry land--to prove to the onlookers that He
had mastery over all. And the feeding of the multitude, when He made little
into much, so that from five loaves five thousand mouths were filled--did
not that prove Him none other than the very Lord Whose Mind is over all?
