This will become still clearer if we reflect, that the work to be
performed by the Mediator was of no common description: being to restore
us to the divine favour, so as to make us, instead of sons of men, sons
of God; instead of heirs of hell, heirs of a heavenly kingdom. Who
could do this unless the Son of God should also become the Son of man,
and so receive what is ours as to transfer to us what is his, making
that which is his by nature to become ours by grace? Relying on this
earnest, we trust that we are the sons of God, because the natural Son
of God assumed to himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, bones
of our bones, that he might be one with us; he declined not to take what
was peculiar to us, that he might in his turn extend to us what was
peculiarly his own, and thus might be in common with us both Son of God
and Son of man. Hence that holy brotherhood which he commends with his
own lips, when he says, "I ascend to my Father, and your Father, to my
God, and your God," (John 20: 17.) In this way, we have a sure
inheritance in the heavenly kingdom, because the only Son of God, to
whom it entirely belonged, has adopted us as his brethren; and if
brethren, then partners with him in the inheritance, (Rom. 8: 17.)
Moreover, it was especially necessary for this cause also that he who
was to be our Redeemer should be truly God and man. It was his to
swallow up death: who but Life could do so? It was his to conquer sin:
who could do so save Righteousness itself? It was his to put to flight
the powers of the air and the world: who could do so but the mighty
power superior to both? But who possesses life and righteousness, and
the dominion and government of heaven, but God alone? Therefore, God, in
his infinite mercy, having determined to redeem us, became himself our
Redeemer in the person of his only begotten Son.
- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.2)
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