Knowing Christ No Longer According to the Flesh

And so the same apostle says, “From now on we know no one according to the flesh; and if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” All the writings of the sacred word agree admirably with one another, in every part of them. Even where they do not match in the form of the words, they agree in their drift and substance. So it is here, where he says, “And if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” The witness of this passage confirms the one quoted above, where he said, “Of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.” There he writes, “Of whom is Christ according to the flesh”; and here, “If we have known Christ according to the flesh.” There, “who is over all, God blessed forever”; and here, “yet now we no longer know Christ according to the flesh.” The look of the words is different, but their force and drift are the same. For the one he declares there to be God over all, born according to the flesh, is the very same person he says here that he no longer knows according to the flesh. And plainly for this reason: the one he had known as born in the flesh he now acknowledges as God forever. So he says he does not know him according to the flesh, because he is over all, God blessed forever. The phrase there, “who is over all, God,” answers to this one, “we no longer know Christ according to the flesh”; and the phrase “we no longer know Christ according to the flesh” implies this one, “who is God blessed forever.” [a]

Here the apostle’s teaching rises, as it were, to greater heights. Though it is consistent with itself throughout, it supports the mystery of the perfect faith with a still plainer statement and says, “And though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” That is, where formerly we knew him as man as well as God, now we know him only as God. For when the frailty of the flesh comes to an end, we no longer know anything in him except the power of his divinity. All that is in him is the power of divine majesty, now that the weakness of human frailty has ceased to exist. In this passage, then, he has fully set out the whole mystery of the incarnation and of his perfect divinity. When he says, “And if we have known Christ according to the flesh,” he speaks of the mystery of God born in the flesh. But by adding, “yet now we know him so no longer,” he shows his power once weakness has been laid aside. So that knowing according to the flesh has to do with his humanity, and that not knowing has to do with the glory of his divinity. To say “we have known Christ according to the flesh” means this: we knew it as long as what was known existed. Now we no longer know it, since it has ceased to exist. For the nature of the flesh has been changed into a spiritual substance, and all that formerly belonged to the manhood has become God’s. And so we no longer know Christ according to the flesh, because, now that bodily weakness has been absorbed by divine majesty, nothing remains in that sacred body by which the weakness of the flesh could be known in it. In this way whatever had formerly belonged to a twofold substance has become joined to a single power. For there is no doubt at all that Christ, who was crucified through human weakness, lives wholly through the glory of his divinity.