From “The Humiliation of the Eternal Son,” Parochial and Plain Sermons (1835)
The chief mystery of our holy faith is the humiliation of the Son of God to temptation and suffering, as described in this passage of scripture…
We think we know of God so much as this, that he is altogether separate from imperfection and infirmity; yet we are told that the eternal Son has taken into himself a creature’s nature, which henceforth became as much one with him, as much belonged to him, as the divine attributes and powers which he had ever had. The mystery lies as much in what we think we know, as in what we do not know.
Reflect, for instance, upon the language of the text. The Son of God, who “had glory with the Father” from everlasting, was found, at a certain time, in human flesh, offering up prayers and supplications to him, crying out and weeping, and exercising obedience in suffering!.. Those who in the Cross of Christ see the atonement for sin, cannot choose but glory in it; and its mysteriousness does but make them glory in it the more. They boast of it before men and angels, before an unbelieving world, and before fallen spirits; with no confusion of face, but with a reverent boldness they confess this miracle of grace, and cherish it in their creed, though it gains them but the contempt and derision of the proud and ungodly…
The text says, “though he were a Son.” Now, in these words, “the Son of God,” much more is implied than at first sight may appear. Many a man gathers up, here and there, some fragments of religious knowledge. He hears one thing said in church, he sees another thing in the prayer book; and among religious people, or in the world, he gains something more. In this way he gets possession of sacred words and statements, knowing very little about them really. He interprets them, as it may happen, according to the various and inconsistent opinions which he has met with, or he puts his own meaning upon them, that is, the meaning, as must needs be, of an untaught, not to say a carnal and irreverent mind.
How can a man expect he shall discern and apprehend the real meaning and language of scripture, if he has never approached it as a learner, and waited on the divine author of it for the gift of wisdom? By continual meditation on the sacred text, by diligent use of the Church’s instruction, he will come to understand what the Gospel doctrines are; but, most surely, if all the knowledge he has be gathered from a sentence caught up here, and an argument heard there, even when he is most orthodox in word, he has but a collection of phrases, on which he puts, not the right meaning, but his own meaning…
How different is the state of those who have been duly initiated into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven! How different was the mind of the primitive Christians, who so eagerly and vigorously apprehended the gracious announcement, that in this title, “The Son of God,” they saw and enjoyed the full glories of the Gospel doctrine! When times grew cold and unbelieving, then indeed, as at this day, public explanations were necessary of those simple and sacred words; but the first Christians needed none. They felt that in saying that Christ was the Son of God, they were witnessing to a thousand marvelous and salutary truths, which they could not indeed understand, but by which they might gain life, and for which they could dare to die.
What, then, is meant by the “Son of God?” It is meant that our Lord is the very or true Son of God, that is, his Son by nature. We are but called the sons of God—we are adopted to be sons—but our Lord and Savior is the Son of God, really and by birth, and he alone is such. Hence scripture calls him the only-begotten Son… “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Thus when the early Christians used the title, “The Son of God,” they meant, after the manner of the apostles when they use it in scripture, all we mean in the Creed, when, by way of explaining ourselves, we confess him to be “God from God, Light from Light, Very or True God from True God.”
For in that he is the Son of God, he must be whatever God is, all-holy, all-wise, all-powerful, all-good, eternal, infinite; yet since there is only one God, he must be at the same time not separate from God, but ever one with and in him, one indivisibly…
The text goes on to say: “Though he were a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” Obedience belongs to a servant, but accordance, concurrence, co-operation, are the characteristics of a son. In his eternal union with God there was no distinction of will and work between him and his Father; as the Father’s life was the Son’s life, and the Father’s glory the Son’s also, so the Son was the very Word and Wisdom of the Father…
This, then, is the force of the words, “Though he was a Son, yet had he experience of obedience.” He took on him a lower nature, and wrought in it towards a will higher and more perfect than it. Further, “he learned obedience amid suffering,” and, therefore, amid temptation.
St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was among the most widely influential English theologians of the nineteenth century. One of the principal leaders of Anglicanism’s Catholic revival at Oxford in the 1830’s, he became a Roman Catholic in 1845, and was an Oratorian for the remainder of his life. He was made a cardinal shortly before his death and was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2019. His Parochial and Plain Sermons, first published in 1863, were written in his years as an Anglican priest, while serving as vicar of Oxford’s Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. His feast day on the Roman Calendar is October 9 and he is commemorated on other days on on the liturgical calendars of several Anglican Churches.
