It is perfectly obvious that, at the resurrection, the bodies of the just will be endued with wonderful susceptibilities and powers.  This is rendered certain by the great mystery of godliness,—­God manifest in the flesh.  The greatest honor which could be conferred upon our nature, and the greatest testimony to its intrinsic dignity, and to its being, in its unfallen state, in the image of God, is bestowed upon it by the incarnation of the Word.  True, there was a necessity that the Redeemer should be made like unto us, however inferior human nature might be in the scale of creation; still, unless there had been such intrinsic dignity and excellence in our sinless nature, as to make it compatible for the second Person in the Godhead to be united with it, we cannot suppose that this union would have been permanent; it would have fulfilled a temporary purpose, and then have ceased.

Perhaps we slightly err if we think of Christ’s assumption of human nature as, in any respect, an incongruous act of humiliation.  For man was made in the image of God; so that when Christ was made flesh, without sin, he took upon himself that which, in some sense, was congruous with his divine nature.  His humiliation consisted, in part, in his doing this; but more especially in his doing this for such a purpose—­for sinners; “in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross, in being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time.”  Had there been no inherent congruity between our nature and the divine, the human nature of Christ, having accomplished its purpose of suffering and death, would have been left in the grave.  “But now is Christ risen from the dead;” the body and the human soul, which were disunited when he hung upon the cross, now constitute the same man, Christ Jesus.  “The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continues to be, God and man, in two distinct natures and one person, forever.”  The latter part of this answer of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism is thus substantiated by the New Testament:  “When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”  In other words, he will be, when he appears, that which he now is—­will remain the same until his second coming.  After that, he will remain as he was before:  “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”  He is represented as holding an eternal relation to the redeemed in his glorified nature:  “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.”  We might, indeed, suppose that the man Christ Jesus would have an eternal recompense for his sufferings and death in an everlasting union with the Godhead; nor can any one think, with satisfaction, of a severance between his two natures, and of a consequent humiliation,