Summary of Book 2 - Chapter 13

Christ's Assumption of Real Humanity

John Calvin is focused, in this chapter, on the humanity of Jesus.

Throughout the course of history, many words have been written concerning the divinity of Jesus, but his humanity is just as important. God became flesh, because He loved us so. How better to understand your earthly children than to incarnate as one of them?

In this chapter, Calvin refers to two heresies by the Manichaeans and the Marcionites. The Manichaeans envisioned Jesus as having a celestial body only. The Marcionites envisioned Jesus as a visionary phantom.

Calvin cites many scripture references to the fact that Jesus was flesh and blood.

The disciples of Jesus called him the Son of God. But Jesus called himself the Son of Man to emphasize his human nature.

Jesus could not possibly perform his act of salvation and redemption for the human race unless he became a human being. This is what makes him so beloved to us sinners on planet earth. He sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven interceding for us as God the Son and as the Son of Man. He is fully divine and fully human.

Calvin refutes another heresy postulating that Jesus was not the seed of Abraham because he was miraculously conceived through his mother Mary and not a physical offspring of his father, Joseph (who was a descendant of David). Calvin states that Jesus was begotten through Mary directly by the intervention of the Holy Spirit which would automatically make him a descendant of David.

Calvin ends this chapter with one of the most remarkable statements I have ever read:  "For the Son of God miraculously descended from heaven, yet in such a manner that he never left heaven; he chose to be miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin, to live on the earth, and to be suspended on the cross; and yet he never ceased to fill the universe, in the same manner as from the beginning."

Basically, Calvin, the mystic, is saying Jesus was born of a virgin, walked the earth, had a ministry, died on the cross, was raised from the dead, and simultaneously was omnipresent, omniscient, and eternally present throughout the entire universe. WOW!!! Human beings are complex, multi-dimensional beings, but Jesus takes the cake!