Before the Apostles’ Creed was fully formed, the ancient postapostolic church confessed the “rule of faith” (regula fidei). One of the first places we see the rule is in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies, which dates to about AD 180. Book 1 included this article in the faith received from the disciples: “and the birth from a virgin” (“καὶ τὴν ἐκ Παρθένου γέννησιν”).¹ In the third article of the Apostles’ Creed, all orthodox Christians confess that Jesus Christ was “born of a woman.”² Likewise, at the First Council of Constantinople (AD 381), the church confessed “and was made flesh from the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary.”³ At Chalcedon, we confessed that Jesus is “of the same substance with us according to humanity, according to all things like us, sin excepted.”⁴ No human is without ethnicity or lineage. Chalcedon adds that his humanity is “from the virgin Mary, Godbearer according to the humanity.”⁵ The virgin from whom he took his humanity, who bore the God-man in her womb, was, according to the universal testimony of the ecumenical church, a young Jewish woman named Mary.

We know this because of what the apostle Paul says in Romans 9:1–5:

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

In the first part of verse 4, Paul, whom we know without question to have been a Jew (Phil 3:5), affirms his kinsmen are Israelites to whom belong “the adoption and the glory of the covenants and the giving of the law and the promises.”⁶ God made the Jews his people (Deut 7), he gave to them the law at Sinai (Exod 20; Deut 5), and he gave them the land promises and the gospel promises. From them come the fathers (Rom 9:5), and “from them comes the Messiah, who is God over all forever blessed. Amen.”⁷

This verse reverberated through the church fathers, the medieval church, and the Reformers and was incorporated into at least one major Reformed confession still actively confessed today.

In his explanation of Psalm 47:6, Augustine (353–434) appealed both to Romans 1:3 and Romans 9:5 on the belief that they teach that Jesus is a Jew:⁸

1. “Sing praises to our God, sing praises” (ver. 6). Whom as Man mocked they, who from God were alienated. “Sing praises to our God.” For He is not Man only, but God. Man of the seed of David, God the Lord of David, of the Jews having flesh. “Whose” (saith the Apostle) “are the fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came.” Of the Jews then is Christ, but according to the flesh. But who is this Christ who is of the Jews according to the flesh? “Who is over all, God blessed for ever.” God before the flesh, God in the flesh, God with the flesh. Nor only God before the flesh, but God before the earth whence flesh was made; nor only God before the earth whereof flesh was made, but even God before the Heaven which was first made; God before the day which was first made; God before Angels; the same Christ is God: for “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”⁹

Psalm 46:7 (Vg) says, “For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!” Among the several interesting things about Augustine’s comments is that he immediately turned to Christ. When he saw the noun “king” (rex), he thought of Christ. When he thought of Christ’s humanity, he considered him as a Jew. As an orthodox Christian, Augustine accepted as a matter of scriptural truth and Christian truth that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures. His divinity is from all eternity, but his humanity has a beginning, in the womb of the virgin, and was Jewish.

In the thirteenth century, in his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas reflected the ancient consensus of the church and, like Augustine, appealed to Romans 9:5: “Again, it is written (Rom. 9:5) that Christ is of the Jews according to the flesh, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. But He is not of the Jews except through the Blessed Virgin. Therefore He who is above all things, God blessed for ever, is truly born of the Blessed Virgin as of His Mother.”¹⁰

During the Reformation Calvin vigorously defended Christ’s true humanity against Servetus and others, who interpreted “seed of Abraham” and “fruit of Abraham’s loins” allegorically.¹¹ In contrast, Calvin affirmed that Romans 1:3 is intended to be taken literally. Christ is the seed (Gal 3:16), and Paul’s expression “Son of David” is qualified immediately by the phrase “according to the flesh,” by which “he surely designates his human nature.” From there Calvin moved to Romans 9:5, about which he noted “after calling Christ ‘blessed God,’ he asserts separately that he descended from the Jews ‘according to the flesh [Rom. 9:5].’ Now, if he had not truly been begotten of the seed of David, what will be the point of this expression that he is ‘the fruit of her womb’ cf. Luke 1:42? What is this promise, ‘From your loins will descend one who will remain upon your throne’ [cf. Ps. 132:11; also 2 Sam. 7:12; Acts 2:30]?”¹²

He even contended with them over their sophistical interpretation of Matthew’s genealogy of Christ. “Matthew does not list Mary’s ancestors, but Joseph’s [Matt. 1:16]. Still, because he is mentioning something well known at the time, he considers it sufficient to show that Joseph sprang from the seed of David, since it was clear enough that Mary came from the same family.”¹³ To those who want to deny Mary’s role, Calvin objected that “often when Scripture sets out a list of human beings, it names only the males. Must we then say that women are nothing? Why, even children know that women are included under the term ‘men’! Women are said to bear children to their husbands because the family name always rests in the possession of the males.” He continued, “But while I admit that a passive force is ascribed to women, I reply that the same thing is indiscriminately said of women as of men. For Christ himself is not said to have been made by woman, but from woman [Gal. 4:4]. Some of their tribe, however, casting shame aside, too wantonly ask whether we mean that Christ was engendered of the virgin’s menstrual seed. In return I shall ask them whether he did not unite with his mother’s blood—which they will have to admit.”¹⁴ “Therefore,” he concluded “it is readily inferred from Matthew’s words that because Christ was begotten of Mary, he was engendered from her seed.”¹⁵ Against the Anabaptist “celestial flesh” Christology, he reminded his readers that

Matthew does not here describe the virgin as a channel through which Christ flowed. Rather, he differentiates this wonderful manner of generation from the common sort in stating that through her Christ was begotten of the seed of David. In the same way that Isaac was begotten of Abraham, Solomon of David, Joseph of Jacob, Christ is said to have been begotten of his mother. For the Evangelist so arranges the order of his words. Meaning to prove that Christ took his origin from David, he was satisfied with this one thing: Christ was begotten of Mary. From this it follows that he took it as generally acknowledged that Mary was related to Joseph.¹⁶

So it is significant that when we come to the Belgic Confession (1561), the confession of faith of the Dutch Reformed Churches, article 18, the Reformed churches confess explicitly against the

heresy of the Anabaptists, who deny that Christ assumed human flesh of his mother, that Christ is become a partaker of the flesh and blood of the children; that he is a fruit of the loins of David after the flesh; made of the seed of David according to the flesh; a fruit of the womb of the Virgin Mary; made of a woman; a branch of David; a shoot of the root of Jesse; sprung from the tribe of Judah; descended from the Jews according to the flesh: of the seed of Abraham, since he took upon him the seed of Abraham, and became like unto his brethren in all things, sin excepted; so that in truth he is our Immanuel, that is to say, God with us.¹⁷

The instinct demonstrated in the discussion between Webbon and Shields and in Hall’s defense of Webbon is not a biblical, catholic, or Reformed impulse. It belongs to the Docetic tradition, whether ancient Gnostic, medieval Cathar, or sixteenth-century radical (e.g., Servetus or Menno), which the church has always battled, as this heresy wants to deny the true humanity of Christ. For catholic Christians, the logic of Romans 1:3 and 9:5 (among many passages) is inescapable. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. No human is without lineage or ethnicity or history. We all come from somewhere. Contra Shields, the deity of Christ does not wipe out his humanity or his ethnicity. The King of kings, who rules the nations with a rod of iron, is Jesus the Messiah, a Jew who, by the mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit, took his humanity from the blessed virgin. One day that Jew will come again in power and glory, and everyone, including antisemites, will bow the knee and confess “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11).

Notes

1. Irenaeus of Lyons, Irenæus against Heresies, in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1 of The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Christian Literature Company, 1885), 1.10.1; Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom with a History and Critical Notes: The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations (Harper & Brothers, 1890), 2:13.
2. “Natus ex Maria virgine.” Schaff, Creeds, 2.45.
3. “Σαρκωθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου.” Schaff, Creeds, 2.57.
4. “Καὶ ὁμοούσιον τὸν αὐτὸν ἡμῖν κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα, κατὰ πάντα ὅμοιον ἡμῖν χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας.” Schaff, Creeds, 2.62.
5. “Ἐκ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου τῆς θεοτόκου κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα.” Schaff, Creeds, 2.62.
6. “Οἵτινές εἰσιν Ἰσραηλῖται, ὧν ἡ υἱοθεσία καὶ ἡ δόξα καὶ αἱ διαθῆκαι καὶ ἡ νομοθεσία καὶ ἡ λατρεία καὶ αἱ ἐπαγγελίαι.” Barbara Aland et al., eds., The Greek New Testament, 5^th rev. ed. (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2014).
7. “Ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.” Aland et al., Greek New Testament.
8. In the Latin text, which follows the LXX, this is Psalm 46:7.
9. Augustine of Hippo, “Expositions on the Book of Psalms,” in Saint Augustine: Expositions on the Book of Psalms, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 8 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series 1 (Christian Literature Company, 1888), 162.
10. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.), 9:3a.35.a.4.ad.1.
11. The French Confession, article 13, explicitly names Servetus.
12. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 2.13.3.
    He mentioned Servetus explicitly in Institutes 2.14.6, where he also addressed this question and Romans 9:5.
13. Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.3.
14. Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.3.
15. Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.3.
16. Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.3.
17. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, with Translations (Harper & Brothers, 1882), 3:403.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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