07/03/2025
"The other condition for our redemption was that man, who was lost and ruined by his disobedience, should, by obedience, atone for his offence by satisfying God's judgment and suffering the penalty incurred by his sin.
The Lord Jesus thus came forward and, clothed with Adam's nature, took his name in order to render obedience to the Father on his behalf, offering to God's judgment our humanity as an atonement, and bearing the penalty of sin in the same flesh in which sin had been committed.
Finally, given that God alone cannot know death and that man by himself cannot overcome it, he united deity with humanity so as to subject the weakness of the one to the pain of death, and by the might of the other to combat death until victory was won.
Those, therefore, who rob Christ of his deity or humanity, not only blaspheme against his greatness and obscure his goodness, but also do much harm to men, because they undermine their faith which cannot stand secure unless it rests on this foundation."
(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1541 edition, translated by Robert White, Banner of Truth, p. 239)
04/16/2025