The Mediator between God and men must be both God and man. There is none other than God who can bring us up to Him. Yet God cannot bring us to Himself apart from living out our obedience, suffering, and dying as a man on our behalf. Jesus could not suffer and die without being man, yet he could not pay the infinite ransom required for our offense against the infinite God without being God himself. None but God can pay an infinite ransom, yet man must be the one to pay it. Blood must be slain, yet God cannot die. Turretin says that Jesus must be “Man to suffer, God to overcome; man to receive the punishment we deserved, God to endure and drink it to the dregs; man to acquire salvation for us by dying, God to apply it to us by overcoming . . . this neither a mere man nor God alone could do.” The hypostatic union makes Christ as Mediator possible. He represents man to God and God to man. He is Immanuel, God with us.
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