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August 18, 2005
Ch. XIX. Q. 113. Their Perpetuity
THESE offices are perpetual and heavenly, and do not derive their necessity from the fact of sin; although they are partly performed under earthly conditions, and are determined in method by our need of recovery from sin.1
2. They are perpetual because they are fulfilled by an eternal Person, and from an eternal standpoint. His mediation rests for possibility upon His eternal relation to the Father, a relation which makes His work effective for, and applicable to, every age and generation. Yet His work had to be performed and manifested historically, in order that those who live under temporal and earthly conditions might apprehend and be benefited by it.2
3. In every age, men depend upon what Christ does as Mediator in order to learn of God, approach Him, receive His grace and obey His will. In no age, therefore, could the operative value of what He historically performed be wanting, if its benefits were to be available to all mankind.3
4. We do not know what would have been the method of mediation if man had not sinned;4 but in fact the Mediator has assumed flesh, and employs our nature as His mediatorial instrument. It was therefore needful that His neah sininid be anointed and consecrated by the gift of the Spirit;5 that it should be perfected for mediatorial purposes by His obedience unto death; and that it should be equipped as the medium of grace and of our approach to God by its victory over death, its glorification, and its mystical extension to us in the Church.
1 Heb. vii. 15-17, 24-25; viii. 1-2; xiii. 8. St. Thomas, III. xxii. 5-6; P. Freeman, Principles of Divine Service, vol. II. pp. 142-145; P.G. Medd, One Mediator, §§ 10-14, 24-25, 36-37, 40-41, 183-189, 200 and Lec. iv.; B.F. Westcott, on Heb i. 2; vii. 16.
2 W. Milligan, Ascension, pp. 97-103; P.G. Medd, §§ 10-14.
3 P.G. Medd, §§ 24, 40-41.
4 Cf. Q. 98, above.
5 Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 97-101; A.P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 111-113; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. liv. 6.
Posted by AKMA at August 18, 2005 08:00 AM