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The teaching of faith in the Son of
God — the Savior of the World — is to be found in the third to seventh articles
of the Creed.
For the salvation of mankind was
accomplished the great mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:16), the mystery
of His [God's] will (Eph. 1:9). The Only-begotten Son (John 1:18)
of God, descended from Heaven, was made incarnate, was born of the Virgin Mary
in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), and was made flesh (John 1:14).
He took a human body without its sin, and a human soul, and became true Man
without ceasing to be True God (Rom.
9:5).
Two Natures — the Divine and the Human
— are united without confusion, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably in
the Person of Jesus Christ. Therefore He is called the God-Man (definition of
the Fourth Ecumenical Council), and His Most-pure Mother is called the
Theotokos (Mother of God) (Luke 1:43), who is “more honorable
than the Cherubim, and more glorious, beyond compare, than the Seraphim.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ manifested His
divinity in His Gospel teachings and in His many miracles which no other man
did (John 15:24), in which He revealed Himself as the Lord of the visible world
(John 2:1-2, Luke 8:24; Matt. 14:26; Matt. 14:15-21); the Lord of human nature
(Matt. 9:20-22; 14:35-36; Luke 4:40; Matt. 20:29-34; Matt. 9:32-35; 12:22; Luke
11:14; Matt. 8:1-3); the Lord of the invisible world (Matt. 8:28-34; Luke
8:26-40); and the Lord of Life and Death (Luke 7:11-16; Matt. 9:18-19; Luke
8:49; John 11:1-45). He also manifested His divinity through other signs and
miracles that occurred at various moments of His life (Matt. 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11;
Luke 3:21-22).
Yet, as Man, the Savior was exposed
to various dangers (Matt. 2:13; Luke 4:29),
deprivations and tribulations (Luke 9:58), to malice, humiliation,
and persecution (Matt. 12:24; John 5:18) during His earthly life.
Having illumined men with the light
of the true knowledge of God (John 1:18) and having disclosed the will of the
Heavenly Father (John 6:40), Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, accomplishing
the Divine Truth which had condemned sin (1 Tim. 2:6; John 1:29), endured
mocking, abuse, the Passion of the Cross and death under Pontius Pilate (Matt.
26:47-75; 27:1-66). While His Body was in the Sepulcher, Christ descended into
Hell, where He freed the souls of the righteous who had awaited His coming (1
Pet. 3:18-19; Eph. 4:8-9), and on the third day after His entombment was
resurrected by the power of His divinity. During the forty days after His
Resurrection, the Savior appeared many times to His disciples and continued to
instruct them in the mysteries of His divine Kingdom (Acts 1:3).
Having accomplished our Redemption,
the Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of His disciples, ascended into Heaven
(Acts 1:9) and sits at the right hand of God the Father (Mark 16:19) with honor
and glory in the same Body in which He had been resurrected from the dead. The
Lord ascended into Heaven as the God-Man, for as God He was always in Heaven
and in every place of God's dominion (Ps. 103:22). After His Ascension the
Savior was given all power in Heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18), and through His
Divine Providence He preserves His Church, in which He is present through Grace
(Matt. 28:20), instructing and giving wisdom to her shepherds, through the Holy
Spirit (John 16:13), to administer rightly the word of Truth. Therefore
Christ's Church cannot sin in Truth, for she is the pillar and bulwark of the
Truth (I Tim. 3:15) and the Kingdom of God on earth (Mark 1:15). This grace-bestowing
Kingdom shall endure (1 Cor. 15:25) until the Lord Jesus
Christ comes in His glory with His angels (Matt. 25:31) to judge the living and
the dead (John 5:29), after which the Kingdom of Glory and
Blessedness shall come, and of His kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:33).
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