We have seen that Christ's incarnation is a reaction to sin. We will now connect this with the idea of the inseparability of the person and work of Christ.
Melanchthon states: ``To acknowledge Christ is to acknowledge his benefits, not, as is sometimes taught, to behold his natures or the modes of his Incarnation.''1.14 Some theologians, especially in the nineteenth century used this statement to support their anti-ontological value-judgment theology that it is not the two natures of Christ or the being of his person that is of central interest but rather his benefits for us.1.15 However this use of Melanchthon's statement to separate the person and work of Christ is illegitimate because in the same context he refers to scholastic theology with its vain use of words and concepts which obscure the gospel. One could say that Melanchthon defends the existential character of the knowledge of faith and declares it to be knowledge of the salvation granted us in Christ.1.16 The fruit of Christ's work is not an impersonal blessedness that can be abstracted from his person. ``Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts - in short, that mystical union - are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body - in short, because he deigns to make us one with him.''1.17 The fact that Christ's benefits cannot be abstracted from his person is confirmed by Scripture: ``Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ'' (1 Cor. 6:15; cf. question 32 of the Heidelberg Catechism). It is impossible to separate Christ's person from his work, as he manifests himself in his work as the Mediator between God and man (II Tim 2:5).
From the above it should be clear what Van Ruler means when he writes, ``Christ's offices are more important to us than his natures and states,'' especially in connection with the inseparable relationship between Christ's person and work, which he points out immediately afterwards.1.18Van Ruler does not hesitate to talk about the person and natures of Christ: ``In christology the doctrine of the unio personalis sive hypostatica is decisive. It expresses that in the Logos the divine and human nature, the being of God and the being of man are united. It also contains the idea that the human nature that was taken on by the Logos, the natura humana assumpta, is not an own hypostasis, not an own I, not an own person but rather finds its hypostasis in the Logos himself. There was never a `Mister Jesus', but always only God-the-Son-in-human-flesh. In my opinion this is the indispensable kernel of the mystery of the incarnation - however fragmented these formulas of dogma must be.''1.19 However this is not idle speculation regarding the person of Christ, it is intimately related to Christ's work. Christ's work of salvation is only meaningful if the above description is true (cf. Belgic confession articles 19 and 20, Heidelberg Catechism Lords day 5 and 6, Canons of Dordt, second head of doctrine, articles 1 to 4, Athanasian Creed sentences 29 to 38). Similarly when Van Ruler says that Christ's offices are more important to us than his natures he is not separating Christ's work from his person because ``the moment one deals with the offices of Christ he is consulting the light which God's revelation casts over his person, over Christ himself in the administration of his offices.''1.20 Therefore Bavinck could say that Christ does not just perform prophetic, priestly and kingly activities, his whole person is prophet, priest and king, and that everything he is and does reveals this threefold dignity.1.21 Thus it is clear that we cannot, and Van Ruler does not, differentiate between Christ's person and his work.
In the first section (on the motive for the incarnation) we saw that Christ's incarnation was motivated entirely by sin and thus has an exclusively soteriological motive - namely to save us from guilt, death and paganism. Christ came to save us! Christ came to do the work of saving us. Christ's person is our salvation. This means all christology is soteriology. Thus `` the office of Jesus Christ is that function of the Mediator Jesus Christ, which he voluntarily undertook himself according to the Father's will and the Holy Spirit's unction, in order to reconcile to God and to save the sinful men given to him; which function he alone does accomplish according to both natures.''1.22 Christ accomplishes the function of saving us. Christology is functional and Christ answers the problem of our sin and guilt. Thus Tillich states: ``Christology is a function of soteriology. The problem of soteriology creates the christological question and gives direction to the christological answer. For it is the Christ who brings the New Being, who saves men from the old being, that is, from existential estrangement and its self-destructive consequences.''1.23
As the incarnation was motivated exclusively by sin and because Christ's person cannot be separated from his work, everything that is said about Christ (his person and work) must refer directly to the function he came to fulfill, namely, salvation. All else that is said about Christ is idle speculation.
We have seen the impossibility of separating the person and work of Christ and the fact that Christ came to perform a function. We have also seen that, following the reformed tradition, this is exactly what Van Ruler states. Thus it seems strange to hear P. van Hoof state: `` It is clear that Van Ruler presents Christ more by what he does than by what his person is. The unfruitful distinction between the work and the person of Christ, that has controlled theology up to the present, is also a characteristic of Van Ruler's theology...Christ's work is primarily spoken about...thus one could say that Van Ruler's christology is purely functional.''1.24 It seems to me that Van Hoof is confusing functional christology with an abstraction of Christ's work from his person, but it should be clear from the above that this is not so and in this case Van Hoof's judgment is incorrect. Of course he is correct when he says Van Ruler's christology is functional but this does not mean that Van Ruler separates Christ's work from his person. Functional christology asserts that in his person and work Christ is our savior and everything that is said about Christ that does not refer to our salvation in him is useless speculation. It should also be remembered that functional christology distinguishes between the Eternal Son of God as the second person of the Trinity and the Christ - the Eternal Son of God emptied himself and took on human flesh in order to perform the function of saving the world from sin and when this work has been performed the Son will return to his eternal place in the trinity.