The Creator Became a Creature
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was a pastor in New England before the revolutionary war. He was the grandson of Solomon Stoddard and grandfather of the American Vice President, Aaron Burr.
Jonathan Edwards pastored a church in Northampton and became one of the most renowned and influential preachers in The Great Awakening. After expressing theological disagreement with his well-known grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, Edwards was removed from his church and went on to pastor in Stockbridge, a wilderness village forty miles away.
Edwards remained at Stockbridge for just six years before being called to fulfill the role of president at a newly-established Princeton University, then known as The College of New Jersey.
Jonathan Edwards died just two months after moving to Princeton, but is still remembered across the world for his revival ministry during the days of The Great Awakening.
In A History of the Work of Redemption, Edwards writes,
Christ became incarnate, or, which is the same thing, became man, to put himself in a capacity for working out our redemption.
Christ became incarnate, or, which is the same thing, became man, to put himself in a capacity for working out our redemption. For though Christ, as God, was infinitely sufficient for the work, yet to his being in an immediate capacity for it, it was needful that he should not only be God, but man. If Christ had remained only in the divine nature, he would not have been in a capacity to have purchased our salvation; not from any imperfection of the divine nature, but by reason of its absolute and infinite perfection: for Christ, merely as God, was not capable either of that obedience or suffering that was needful. The divine nature is not capable of suffering; for it is infinitely above all suffering. Neither is it capable of obedience to that law which was given to man. It is as impossible that one who is only God, should obey the law that was given to man, as it is that he should suffer man’s punishment.
And it was necessary not only that Christ should take upon him a created nature, but that he should take upon him our nature. It would not have sufficed for Christ to have become an angel, and to have obeyed and suffered in the angelic nature. But it was necessary that he should become a man, upon three accounts.
God saw meet, that the same world which was the stage of man’s fall and ruin should also be the stage of his redemption.
1. It was needful in order to answer the law, that the very nature to which the law was given, should obey it. Man’s law could not be answered, but by being obeyed by man. God insisted upon it, that the law which he had given to man shall be honoured, and fulfilled by the nature of man, otherwise the law could not be answered for men. The words, “Thou shalt not eat thereof,” etc. were spoken to the race of mankind, to the human nature; and therefore the human nature must fulfill them.
2. It was needful to answer the law that the nature that sinned should die. These words, “Thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2.17) respect the human nature. The same nature to which the command was given, was that to which the threatening was directed.
3. God saw meet, that the same world which was the stage of man’s fall and ruin should also be the stage of his redemption. We read often of his coming into the world to save sinners, and of God’s sending him into the world for this purpose. It was needful that he should come into this sinful, miserable, undone world, in order to restore and save it. For man’s recovery, it was needful that he should come down to man, to man’s proper habitation, and that he should tabernacle with us: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
It was a great thing for God to make the creature, but not so great as for the Creator himself to become a creature.
. . . [Another thing] that I would observe concerning the incarnation of Christ, is the greatness of this event. Christ’s incarnation was a greater and more wonderful thing than ever had yet come to pass. The creation of the world was a very great thing, but not so great as the incarnation of Christ. It was a great thing for God to make the creature, but not so great as for the Creator himself to become a creature. Many great things were accomplished between the fall of man and the incarnation of Christ: but God becoming man was greater than all. Then, the greatest person was born that ever was or ever will be.