Voices from the Past: Meditations on the Person and Work of Christ
Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullian was the first and greatest apologist of the Western Church, prior to Augustine. He was born in Carthage, North Africa, around 155 and died there around 220. Tertullian was converted to Christ when he was about 40 years old and “put his whole culture to the service of the faith,” attacking paganism, the Jews, and heresy in the church—especially Gnosticism.
Reading: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
“He became flesh.” That which is unworthy of God, is gain to me and I am safe, if I am not ashamed of my Lord. “Whosoever,” says He, “shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed.”On this subject alone I can be shameless in a good sense, and foolish in a happy one, by my own contempt of shame.
The Son of God was crucified; I am not ashamed because other men are ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And He was buried, and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible. But how will all this be true in Him, if He was not Himself true—if He really had not in Himself that which might be crucified, might die, might be buried, and might rise again? God could only do this by becoming flesh suffused with blood, built up with bones, interwoven with nerves, entwined with veins, a flesh which knew how to be born, and how to die, human without doubt, as born of a human being.
Christ’s flesh must therefore be mortal because Christ is man and the Son of man. The natureof the two substances displayed Him as man and God,—in one respect born, in the other unborn; in one respect fleshly in the other spiritual; in one sense weak in the other exceeding strong; in one sense dying, in the other living. This property of the two states—the divine and the human—is distinctly asserted with equal truth of both natures alike, with the same belief both in respect of the Spiritand of the flesh.
We meditate in wonder on the incarnation, but not with shame. How can we be ashamed of Him who was not ashamed to call us brethren? (Hebrews 2:11). He endured the shame of the cross that we might be saved from the shame of the sin that put Him there. Let me not be ashamed of this gospel that is the power of God to salvation.
Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ
