Divinity of Jesus

He prays, but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for He was man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was God. He is sold, and very cheaply, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver; but He redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the price was His own blood. As a sheep He is led to the slaughter, but He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a lamb He is silent, yet He is the Word, and is proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He is bruised and wounded, but He heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the tree, but by the tree of life He restores us; indeed, He saves even the robber crucified with Him; indeed, He wrapped the visible world in darkness. He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Who? He who turned the water into wine, who is the destroyer of the bitter taste, who is sweetness and altogether desire. He lays down His life, but He has power to take it again; and the veil is torn, for the mysterious doors of heaven are opened; the rocks are split, the dead arise. He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again; He goes down into hell, but He brings up the souls; He ascends to heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself. For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Ghost; lest perhaps people might, like men loaded with food beyond their strength, or presenting eyes as yet too weak to bear it to the sun’s light, risk the loss even of that which was within the reach of their powers.

Christ is called the head of the church for the reason that he is the most exalted individual of the human family, imparting to all its members motion and feeling. For as in a man the most excellent part is the head, which gives to the body and to its parts motion and feeling, and without which neither the body nor any of its members could live the life of nature, so Christ is the individual, the true God and man, imparting spiritual life and motion to the church and everyone of its members and without whose influence it could not live or feel. And as in a man’s head are all the senses, so in Christ are hid all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God.