A. Then their argument will unquestionably be convicted of presenting us with two sons and two christs.
B. Not two, they say. There is one Son by nature: the Word from God the Father. The man who was assumed is by nature a son of David, but he is a son of God because he was assumed by God the Word. Because God the Word dwelt in him, he came to this dignity and possesses sonship by grace.
A. Where, then, are the minds and understanding of those who think this way? How can they deny that they teach a pair of sons when they separate man and God from one another? If, according to them, one is Son by nature and in truth while the other possesses adoption by grace and came to this dignity because the Word dwells in him, does the latter have anything greater than we do? Christ dwells in us as well. The most holy Paul assures us of this when he says: ‘For this reason I bend my knees to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts.’ He is in us through the Spirit, in whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ Therefore our condition would be in no way inferior if God the Father has granted us the same thing. For by grace we too are sons and gods, and we have certainly been brought to this supernatural and marvelous dignity because the Only-Begotten Word of God dwells in us. It is therefore utterly impious and absurd for them to say that Jesus was merely granted adoption and received the glory of sonship as a gift of grace.
B. Can you explain how?
A. Certainly. First, as I said, He would thereby be understood as an individual son, christ, and lord other than the One who is truly and by nature Son, Christ, and Lord. And besides this, another impossibility is introduced, one that rightly conflicts with sound reasoning.
B. What impossibility do you mean?
A. The all-wise John says of Christ: ‘He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, He gave them authority to become children of God.’ Can someone who has sonship only by grace, and whose status as what he is was merely bestowed upon him from outside, freely give to others what he himself possesses only by gift? Does that not seem unreasonable to you?
B. Very much so.
A. And what does not belong to someone by nature but has instead been introduced from outside—can it not, insofar as that is possible, also be lost?
B. Of course.
A. Then it would be possible for this ‘son’ someday to fall away from sonship. What is not grounded in the laws of nature is never completely free from the possibility of being lost.
B. That is so.
A. From another angle as well, one can see how shameful and utterly irrational their doctrine truly is. If what exists by adoption and grace is always in the likeness of what exists by nature and in truth, how are we sons by adoption with reference to Him as the true Son if He too is, along with us, among those who are sons by grace? And how, in the Gospel parables, is He sent as Son after the servants? When the keepers of the vineyard saw Him, they said, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill Him.’ Therefore the One who appeared in flesh and endured the hostility of the Jews is truly Son and truly free, because He comes from the nature that is free. Insofar as He is understood as God, He is not among those under the yoke. Yet He became as we are, who are under the yoke of servitude: the Son who is Son by nature and in truth, the One beyond every yoke and above creation, to whose likeness we who are sons by adoption and grace are formed.
B. ‘We do not say that the man is Son of God,’ they say, ‘so that we do not speak of two sons by nature. For just as the Word who came down from heaven is not by nature a son of David, so the one from the seed of David is not by nature Son of God.’
A. Then they will be divided into two sons, and both will be shown to bear the name falsely. One might well say that the mystery of Christ becomes an empty deception if matters stand as our opponents foolishly claim. Where, then, is the union, and what do they say it accomplished? Perhaps even the statement that the Word became flesh is shown to be untrue and superfluous if the Word from God the Father did not become a son of David by being born according to the flesh from David’s seed. I think they should also hear from us what Christ Himself said to the leaders of the Jews: ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?’ If they answer, ‘David’s,’ they will hear from us: ‘How then does David in the Spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet? If David in the Spirit calls Him Lord, how is He his son?’ Tell me, does someone who is not Son by nature and in truth, as our opponents say, sit together with God and share the throne of the One who rules all things? Yet, as the all-wise Paul says, the Father has never said to any angel, ‘You are My Son,’ nor, ‘Sit at My right hand.’ How, then, is the One born from a woman in the highest dignity and upon the seat of the Godhead, above every rule, dominion, throne, authority, and every name that is named? Notice how the Lord, by saying, ‘If David in the Spirit calls Him Lord, how is He his son?’ leads those who seek the truth to understand that when the Word came to share in flesh and blood He nevertheless remained one Son. His divine excellence and lordship bear witness that He is God, while His being called Son of David clearly signifies that He appeared as man.
B. Perhaps they would reply to this—I can anticipate their argument—‘Are we then to admit that the one from the seed of David is himself from the essence of God the Father?’
A. But how could such a question not be utterly foolish? It is completely out of harmony with the force of the mystery and with those who delight in the truth.
B. Explain how.
A. Do not divide for me the one Christ, Son, and Lord by speaking of the one from the seed of David as someone other than Him. The correct confession insists that the Only-Begotten Son born from God the Father is Himself, and no other, the One who according to the flesh is from David. Let them therefore stop saying in their immeasurable stupidity, ‘Just as the Word who came down from heaven is not by nature a son of David, so the one from the seed of David is not by nature Son of God.’ For the Word who by nature and in truth shone forth from the Father, having assumed flesh and blood, remained the same, as I have just said—that is, Son of the Father by nature and in truth, one and only, not one alongside another—so that His Person may be understood as one. By bringing together in this way, into a true union beyond mind and speech, realities separated by their natural properties into unlikeness, we walk the unerring path of faith. For we say that one and the same Jesus Christ is from God the Father as God the Word and from the seed of David according to the flesh. Do you not think I have understood these things very well?
B. Certainly.