The Best Jewel

"This being a grand article (Christ Deity) of our faith I shall amplify it. I know the Arians, Socinians, and Ebionites would rob Christ of the best jewel of his crown, his Godhead; but the Apostolic, Nicene, Athanasian creeds, affirm Christ's Deity. The Scripture is clear for it. He is called "the mighty God." "And in him dwells the fullness of the Godhead." He is of the same nature and essence with the Father. Is God the Father called Almighty? So is Christ. "The Almighty." Rev 1:8. Is God the Father the heart-searcher? So is Christ. "He knew their thoughts." John 2:25. Is God the Father omnipresent? So is Christ. "The Son of Man who is in heaven." John 3:13. Christ as God was then in heaven, when as man he was upon the earth.

Is Christ eternal? Christ is the everlasting Father, Isa 9:6, may be urged against the Cerinthian heretics, who denied the pre-existence of Christ's Godhead, and held that Christ had no being until he derived it from the Virgin Mary.

Does divine worship belong to the first person in the Trinity? So it does to Christ. John 5:23. "Let all the angels of God worship him." Heb 1:6. Is creation proper to the Deity? this is a flower of Christ's crown. "By him were all things created." Col 1:16. Is prayer proper to the Deity? this is given to Christ. "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Is faith and trust peculiar to God the Father? this is given to Christ. "You believe in God, believe also in me." Christ must needs be God, not only that the divine nature might support the human from sinking under God's wrath—but also to give value and weight to his sufferings.

Christ being God, his death and passion are meritorious. Christ's blood is called sanguis Dei, the blood of God, in Acts 20:28, because the person who was offered in sacrifice was God as well as man. This is an invincible support to believers; it was God who was offended, and it was God who satisfied. Thus Christ's person is in two natures." —Thomas Watson (1620-1686)

Excerpt taken from the Body of Divinity by Thomas Watson