Maclear and Williams on Article XV: Of Christ alone without Sin

i. Connection. The Fifteenth Article supplements and strengthens the one which goes before it. The idea of ” works of supererogation ” arose in a great measure, as we have seen, out of the admiration of the early Church for martyrs and martyrdom, and out of the surpassing virtues of many eminent saints. Men, truly holy men, were ad- dressed in terms, which bordered strongly on those which Scripture applies to Christ Himself. It was very necessary, therefore, to remind men, as this Article does, of His incomparable perfections.

ii. Object. Its object, then, is to show that while the taint of sin, which man carries with him from his cradle to his grave, vitiates the good works even of the most saintly,

there is one and one only exception to the law of universal sinfulness, and that is our Divine Redeemer.

iii. Analysis. Respecting our Lord the Article

asserts

(a) That ” in the truth of our nature He ” was made like unto us in all things,” sin only excepted, from which He was absolutely free2, both in His flesh, and in His spirit ;

(/3) That being free from sin, He could be, and came into the world to be, ” the Lamb without spot, who by the sacrifice3 of Himself once made, should take away the sins of the world,” and sin was not in Him4;

(7) That as for the rest of mankind, so far from our being able to do works of supereminent merit, we are not able to satisfy the ordinary requirements of God’s Law, and although baptized and regenerated in Christ, yet in many tilings we offend all (James iii. 2).

2 Absolutely free, or “Clearelie uoide,” English Version of 1553. Prorsus from pro, versus = ( 1 ) turned towards ; (2) in a straight line; (3) directly, utterly, absolutely. Comp. Cic. de Or. 11. xiv. 61, ” verbum

prorsus nullum intelligo.”

4 See 1 John iii. 5, &/ia/m’a ev airy o6k io-Ti. “The tense [is not was) marks the eternal character of the Redeemer. All that belongs to His ‘perfected’ Manhood (Heb. ii. 10, v. 9) ‘is’ in Him no less than His unchanged Divinity. ” Westcott in he.

iv. Scripture Proof of the first Statement. Scrip- ture clearly teaches us that our Lord assumed our humanity with all its attributes, faculties, and powers, so that no one element of human nature was wanting to it1. But though He took upon Him our nature, it was not essential that He should take upon Him our sinfulness, for sin is not a part but ” the fault and corruption ” of our nature. That He “was made like unto us in all things,” sin only excepted, is the testimony alike of the Gospels and Epistles : —

(i) Of the Gospels: For (a) When the angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin that the Holy Ghost should come upon her, and the power of the Highest should overshadow her, he adds, wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God (Luke i. 35)2 ; (/3) And as He grew up to man’s estate, it is distinctly said of Him that He advanced, not only in wisdom and stature, but in favour with God and mett (Luke ii. 52)3; (7) During His earthly Ministry not only does He never hint that He has taught, or said, or done anything which needs forgiveness4, but

op, 1 10. the imperfect tense. His advance

loc. 4 He teaches His disciples to pray

3 Upo^Koirre cro<pia Kal 17WP, Kal Forgive us our debts, but ” we never

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He declares positively / do always the things that are pleasing to Him [My Father1] (John viii. 29), and He challenges those who had known intimately His going out and His coming in, saying, Which of you convicteth Me of sin ? (John viii. 46) ; (8) Nay, at the most solemn crisis of His life, and in the prospect of a cruel and ignominious death, He affirms, The Prince of this world cometh: and he hath nothing in Ale2 (John xiv. 30): (ii) Of the Epistles: For

(a) S. Peter says of Him that He was the Holy and Righteous One (Acts iii. 14), that He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Pet. ii. 22)3;

(b) S. Paul says, Him, Who knew no sin, God made sin on our behalf (2 Cor. v. 21) ;

(c) And S. John writes, He was manifested to take away sins* ; and in Him is no sin (1 John iii. 5).

and sorrow on account of any con- tradiction between what He was and what He should have been— a con- session, a sorrow, which we hear from all the noblest and best of men.” Ibid. p. 287 ; see also Liddon’s Bamp- ton Lectures, pp. 246 — 250, Ed. 1877.

1 ‘Eyw to. dpecrra airy irotu iravTore, John viii. 29 ; the emphasis here is on iyti, in mournful contrast to the Jews, and on itavrort (on every oc- casion), which stands last in the sentence. The theory that Jesus was merely the holiest and noblest of teachers, shatters against such words as these. What saint or prophet ever dared to say, ” The things that are pleasing to God I in every instance

do”? and yet ” Haec summa cum suavitate dixit Dominus.” Bengel.

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4 “lva ras […] that He may take away sins, not simply do away with the punishment of them.” ” Tollit autem et dimittendo quae facta

These passages make it clear that our Lord was a perfect representative of our race, that of our nature He was a partaker in everything that constitutes complete manhood, excepting only that which was no proper part but only the fault and corruption of our nature, namely, sin1.

v. Scripture Proof of the Second Statement. From the dogmatic statement of our Lord’s perfect sinlessness the Article, “rising into something like religious fervour2,” proceeds to affirm that He came to be ” the Lamb without spot,” the Eternal Victim for sin. Under the old Law the typical lamb of the Jewish Passover was required to be without spot or blemish (Exod. xii. 5), but the priest him- self was compassed about with sinful infirmity. He had therefore to offer both for his own sins and the sins of the people (Heb. v. 2, 3). Under the New Dispensation, on the other hand, the functions of offerer and oblation met and were united in the spotless Person of our Lord, who was ” Himself the Victim, and Himself the Priest.”

Hence He could say with absolute truth at the Institu- tion of the Holy Eucharist, This is My Blood of the Covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins (Matt. xxvi. 28)3, and the sinless nature of our Divine Redeemer supplied His special aptitude for that sacrificial function, which He commenced when He offered up Himself upon the altar of His Cross, and which He now continues in that world,

sunt et adjuvando ne Rant et perdu- cendo ad vitam ubi fieri omnino non possint.” Bede quoted by Westcott in loc, who observes that the use of the plural “sins” (t&s afiaprtas) brings out ” the manifold personal realisations of the sin of humanity which Christ takes away. The phrase stands with- out further definition (sins, not our sins) in order to include the fulness of

the truth expressed in I Joh. ii. 2.”

3 Hence also S. Peter can say, Ye -Mere redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold,… but with precious blood, as of a lamb ‘without blemish and without spot, (even the blood) of Christ, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19: comp. also Hebrews viii. 26 — 28.

M.

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whither He is gone, and where His glorious Body pleads “without words” by its very presence within the true Holy of Holies the efficacy of His one perfect sacrifice.

vi. Scripture Proof of the Third Statement. The

Article now proceeds to assert in broad terms the actual sinfulness of all the rest of mankind. This has been already stated in the Ninth Article. Here it will be sufficient to assert that according to the teaching of Scripture, in spite of the fact that by Baptism we have been born again in Christ and placed in a state of Grace, yet, as a matter of fact, we all offend in many tilings (Jas. iii. 2)1. In many respects we do not live up to our profession, nor avail our- selves of God’s promised aid to resist temptation as it arises. And therefore Christ has taught us in His Pattern Prayer to pray daily that God will forgive us our trespasses*, that “as we through the frailty of our nature are always subject unto sin, so we should always exercise the acts of repentance, and for ever seek the favour of God3,” for, as S. John reminds us, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; if we confess our sins, God* is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John i. 8, 9).

vii. Apparent Exceptions. It is to be noticed that the Article does not speak of any exceptional cases. It says ” all we the rest.” But it has sometimes been asked,

1 IloXXa yap Trratontv airai/Tes (Jas. iii. 7). Note the emphasis on the awavres, as indicated by its position.

2 ” Remissio peccatorum una est, qua; semel datur in sancto Baptismate : alia, quae quamdiu vivimus pie, datur in Dominica Oratione.” S. Aug. de Semi. Dom. lvi. 13.

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is necessarily supplied from the con- text…The epithet ‘faithful’ (incT&t) is applied to God not unfrequently in the Pauline epistles as being One who will fulfil His promises (Heb. x. 23, xi. 11), and complete what He has begun (1 Thess. v. 24; 1 Cor. i. 9), and guard those who trust in Him (1 Cor. x. 13; 2 Tim. ii. 13), because this is His nature; comp. 1 Pet. iv. 19.” Westcott in loc.

Are not Zacharias and Elizabeth spoken of as blameless, (Luke i. 6), and does not S. Paul speak of himself as having lived in all good conscience before God? (Acts xxiii. 1). To this it may be replied:—

(a) It is true that S. Luke tells us that Zacharias and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless (Luke i. 6). But the blamelessness here spoken of is not a moral but a legal blamelessness, and the righteousness alluded to is not a moral but a ceremonial righteousness. Zacharias could not have at- tamed to a moral perfection, or he would not have disbelieved the angel, when he promised him a son, and so have incurred the penalty of dumbness for his want of faith1.

(/3) Again, when S. Paul says of himself that up to this day he deemed himself to have lived before God in all good conscience (Acts xxiii. 1), and that as touching the righteousness which is of the Law he was found blameless2 (Phil. iii. 6), he does not mean to represent that he was morally perfect, otherwise he never would have said that he found it necessary to buffet his body, and bring it into bondage ( 1 Cor. ix. 27), and he never would have spoken of himself, when Paul the aged and Paul the prisoner, as not counting himself yet to have apprehended, but as still forgetting the things

Ywbuevos fivros = one who in the result was, and so one who was found or proved ilametess. The phrase

suggests the inspection of a sacrificial victim by a /j.u/j.6<rKOTroi and its recog- rnUoms&iiwuos, J reef rom legal blemish. The same verbal adjective is used in Luke i. 6.

which were behind, and stretching forward to the things that were before (Phil. iii. 13).

viii. The Blessed Virgin. In making the statements which it does, the Article also denies by implication the Scholastic dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin’, which asserted that she was not only conspicuously holy, but, like her Divine Son, free from the taint not merely of actual but also of original sin. The development of the doctrine admits of division into distinct historical epochs :

(a) During the first four centuries there is little to be found on the subject2. S. Cyril of Jerusalem, though he dwells much on the birth of our Lord from a pure Virgin, and gives His Mother the title of Tlieotokos, is absolutely silent as to her Immaculate Conception;

(b) The first germ of the doctrine appears in a scruple expressed by S. Augustine3 as to dis- cussing the question of her liability to sin. ” Concerning the Virgin Mary,” he writes, ” I am not willing for the honour of our Lord that any dispute be held, when we are speaking about sin. For how do we know what more Grace was bestowed on her to overcome all sin, who had the honour to conceive and bring forth Him Who certainly had no sin?”

(c) From a scruple the idea passed into a pious

’ For theopinionsofChurch teachers in the fourth century see Gieseler’s Church History, ii. p. 35, and the notes.

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mini nullam prorsus, cum de peccatis agitur, haberi volo quxstionem: unde enim scimus, quid ei plus gratia? col- latum fuerit ad vincendum omni ex parte peccatum, quce concipere ac parere meruit quem constat nullum nabuisse peccatum?” S. Aug. De Natura et Gratia, xxxvi.

opinion, confined to a few of the faithful, and expressing a speculation rather than a doctrine ;

(d) In the course of the twelfth century1 it gained authority as a dogma, and as such was introduced by the Canons of Lyons into their ecclesiastical offices, A.D. 1 136. But when in A.D. 1 140 they proceeded to institute a special Festival in honour of the doctrine, Bernard of Clairvaux2, clearly perceiving that thus the specific difference between our Saviour and the rest of mankind was endangered, strongly op- posed both the new doctrine and the Festival, and complained that so respected a Church as that of Lyons “should have introduced what was unknown to Church practice, unapproved by reason, and uncommended by ancient tradition3.”

(e) The Festival4, however, spread with the deepen- ing devotion to the Virgin, though the School- men Albert the Great, Bonaventura6, S. Thomas Aquinas6, and the Dominicans generally were

a See Bcrnardi Ep. 174 ad Canoni- cos Lugdunenses, quoted by Gieseler, ii. 2. s. 429. S. Bernard admitted that S. Mary was sanctified in the womb, but he did not from this draw the inference that she was free from original sin. Comp. Milman’s Latin Christianity, ix. 75, Ed. 1872, and Gieseler, Hist. Eccl. iii. 345.

4 In the thirteenth century it was widely observed, but only as a Festum

Conceptionis in general, and not as the Festum Conceptionis Immaculatce. In the English Calendar it was included for the first time by Archbp Islip’s Constitutions, A.D. 1362, though it has been asserted that it was so in- cluded at Archbp Langton’s Council at Oxford, A.D. 1222.

6 S. Thomas’s view is (i) That there was a sanctificatio ” in utero a peccato originali, quantum ad maculam per- sonalem,” but not a libcratio “a reatu, quo tota nature tenebatur obnoxia”; (ii) That this sanctificatio was an

zealous in opposition. Even Duns Scotus, who endeavoured to defend the novel doctrine by subtle reasoning, only maintained that it was the more probable among the different pos- sibilities1. The Church for a long time hesitated without coming to a decision, and at the Council of Trent the doctrine became the subject of such keen dispute, that the Pope was obliged to forbid any further discussion, lest it should lead to an open schism. Finally a compromise was effected, and in the decree it was laid down that the Council had no intention to include the Blessed Virgin in the consequences of original sin.

(/) Since then the Dogma has been awakened from the slumber into which it seemed to have sunk, and was brought to a definite decision by the Bull of Pope Pius IX., Dec. 8, 1854, yet not without serious objections and opposition even within the Latin Church itself.

ix. The Teaching of the Church of England

respecting the honour due to the Blessed Virgin has always been marked by sobriety and reverence. She does not hesitate to ascribe to her the highest conceivable dignity, considering the ineffable privilege which was conferred upon her. She preserves two red letter, and three black letter Festivals in her memory2, and in the Collect for Christmas

“emundatio a peccato original”; “culpa autem non potest emundari, nisi per gratiam, cujus subjectum est sola creatura rationalis.” Thus he holds that Christ was her Saviour. Summ. in. Qu. 27, Art. ii.

1 “Deus potuit facere quod ipsa nunquam fuisset in peccato originali; potuit etiam fecisse at tantum in uno

instanti esset in peccato; potuit etiam facere ut per tempus aliquod esset in peccato et in ultimo illius temporis purgaretur.” Sent. lib. iii. dist. 3, qu. 1.

2 The Purification of the Virgin on Feb. 2 ; the Annunciation on March 25. She also preserves in her Calendar the Black Letter Days, the Conception on

Day dwells on our Lord’s birth of a “pure Virgin,” and in the Proper Preface for the day asserts that He “was made very Man of the substance of the Virgin Mary His Mother, and that without spot of sin1.” But she nowhere inculcates as a matter of faith the suspension in the case of the Virgin of the law of the Fall, nor holds that by reason of her Immaculate Conception she was absolutely free from original sin. If the doctrine in such a sense is true, it not only exempts the Blessed Virgin from all original taint, but places her in a sphere by herself beyond the common need of salvation2. The regeneration of the world is thus made to begin not with our Lord, but with her, and instead of springing sinless out of the sinful race He came to save3, He derives His Humanity from something not like unto the rest of us, and thus His human sanctity becomes in a way dependent on hers and a consequence of it4.

Dec. 8; the Nativity on Sep. 8; and the Visitation of the B. Virgin on July 2.

1 Again in the “Homily of Re- pentance” she speaks of Jesus Christ, ” who being true and natural God, did at the time appointed take upon Him our frail nature in the Blessed Virgin’s womb, and that of her undefiled sub- stance, so that He might be a Mediator between God and us. ”

2 The comment of S. Thomas Aquinas on the hypothesis that “ante ani?nationcin beata Virgo sanctificata fuisset ” is “nunquamincurrisset macu- lam originis culpa;; et ita non indi- guisset redemptione et salute, qua; est per Christum.” Surnm. III. Qu. 27, Art. ii.

3 We find no trace of the doctrine in the Gospelsor Epistles. S. Matthew,

who gives us his genealogy of our Lord, records amongst the only ancestresses whom he mentions, the names of the incestuous Tamar (Matt. i. 3), and the harlot Rahab (Matt. i. 4), of the heatheness Ruth (Matt. i. 5) and the adulterous wife of Uriah (Matt. i. 6). “The purity of the last stage in the transmission was not actually more necessary to our Lord’s incorruption than that of theearlierstages.” Mason’s Faith of the Gospels, p. 1 29, Ed. 2.

Notes

• Observe the force of the expres- sion ” in nostra naturae veritate.” As our Lord was ” Verus Deus,” con- substantial with the Father from all eternity, so He became ” Verus Homo,” consubstantial with us in all the details of a common humanity. See Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 103, 104. ” Our Lord actually as- sumed our human nature, with all its attributes, its sinless infirmities, its faculties and powers, into His Divine Person, so that as He has become a sharer in our human nature, we have become partakers of the Divine.” Bp Forbes, p. 217.
• Note the word for sacrifice here, immolationem. This word from in and tnola denotes (1) literally the sprinkling- of the victim with the salt cake (mola salsa) ; (2) the bringing as an offering; (3) a sacrifice. Comp. Cic. Div. i. 52. 119, ” In ipso immo- lationis tempore.” Because the sprink- ling of the victim in this manner was so im; ortant, immolare could be used to express the entire action of sacri- fice, including the slaying and burning on the altar. See Freeman’s Princi- ples of Divine Service, ii. p. 76.
• See Introduction to the Creeds, pp. ii. 52. UpotKoirre, note the force of
• A(6 ko.1 tA yevvw/xevov [be <roD] was natural, not premature, or forced. aywv KX-nO-qcrtTai Tios 6eo0. See the ” In virtue of His own holy nature, R.V. here. “Entering into human He repelled the impure and sinful as life in this way, Our Lord was placed alien to His very being from child- in the normal condition of man before hood upwards, and received and ap- his fall, and put in a position to fulfil propriated only what would serve as the career originally set before man, an element for His normal develop- in which He was to advance from ment.” Martensen’s Christian Do^- innocence to holiness.” Godet in matics, p. 278.
• On the special force of the testi- mony of the companions of our Lord’s earthly ministry see a striking sermon of Professor Mozley, Parochial and Occasional Sermons, p. 278 sqq.
• See Article II. pp. 51, 52.
• lip Forbes On the Articles, p. 221.
• Pearson On the Creed, Art. x. p. 620, Oxf. Ed.
• See Bp Browne On the Articles, p. 35’-
• See Hardwick, Articles, p. 402, Ed. 1890.
• The controversy on the Immaculate Conception was preceded by that car- ried on between Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus concerning the vir- ginity of S. Mary. See Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, ii. p. 262.
• See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. ii. p.
• ” Teneamus, ” writes Bonaventura, “secundum quod communis opinio tenet, Virginis sanctificationem fuis^e post originalis peccati contractionem.” Sent. lib. iii. dist. 3, art. i. qu. 2.
• See Bp Browne Onthe Articles, pp. 352 — 354, and Bp Forbes, pp. 226, 227. The Bonn Conference in 1874 rejected the doctrine “as being con- trary to the tradition of the first thirteen centuries, according to which Christ alone is conceived without sin.” See the Report of the Conference, pp.