Chapter III. On Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God
Article 1. On the divinity of the Son.
We believe that Jesus Christ, insofar as he is God, is the one Son of the Father, God of himself1, begotten, not made, one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, coeternal, consubstantial, and in every respect equal to God his Father.
Article 2. That the Son was appointed from eternity as the only Mediator between God and the elect.
He is the one whom the Father determined from eternity to make a partaker of human nature, that through him he might preserve his elect; and that in the manner which follows.
Article 3. That God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful.
God is supremely and perfectly just; and since this is so, it follows that he approves no iniquity, nor leaves it unpunished. He is, moreover, supremely and perfectly merciful; from which it follows that all the benefits with which he favors the human race proceed from his mere grace and bounty.
Article 4. That God is immutable.
God is altogether immutable in his counsels, and can in no way be deceived or hindered in them. Whence it comes to pass that whatever happens, he himself has decreed it from all eternity. For this agrees with what we said above concerning his eternal providence.
Article 5. That secondary causes are not excluded by God’s counsel.
Yet these things do not hinder, but rather establish, the secondary and intermediate causes through which all things come to pass2. For God, who from eternity decreed whatever was to come to pass at each moment, at the same time also decreed the way and the means by which he willed it to come to pass; so much so that even if some fault be found in the secondary cause, nevertheless no fault or blame is found in the eternal counsel of God.
Article 6. That man was created to display God’s justice and mercy.
Some men obtain blessed life and salvation, while others follow after everlasting death and misery, and this for the glory of God, as the sacred writings everywhere testify. And so, since nothing happens by chance, and God never changes his counsel, it is plain that God not only foresaw, but also decreed from eternity, to create the race of men for the sake of displaying his glory: some indeed by freely saving them through mercy, but others by condemning them through his just judgment3.
Article 7. For what cause it was necessary that the first man be created pure.
That God might carry out this counsel, it was necessary that the first man be created pure and good. For besides the fact that God, who is supremely good, can make nothing except what is good, if man had been brought forth depraved and evil, God could have had no sufficiently just cause for punishing that wickedness of which he himself would have been the creator and author.
Article 8. That it behooved man to fall from his purity and integrity by his own fault.
Moreover, it was necessary that man be so created good and pure that he should nevertheless be mutable, and should fall from that degree of integrity by his own fault alone. For unless sin had thus entered into the world, God would not have so great an occasion, neither for displaying his mercy in preserving those whom he had destined to salvation, nor for declaring his justice in condemning those whom he decreed to subject to deserved punishments for their own sins.
Article 9. That man was created pure and good by God.
Therefore the Lord, when it pleased him to carry out that eternal counsel of his, created man pure, both male and female, after his own image and likeness, that is, endowed with righteousness and true holiness.
Article 10. How man made himself and his whole posterity subject to both the first and the second death.
But man, when he had been created such, joined himself to the devil of his own accord, with none at all compelling him, through sin; and thereby rendered himself and his whole offspring subject to both the former and the latter death, and consequently to all those things which pertain to the former death and to the latter alike.
Article 11. By what way one comes to the first death.
The corruption of the humors and other countless evils, flowing as it were by a kind of inherited and hereditary right from the sin of Adam and Eve, make the whole race of men subject to the former death, that is, to the departure of the soul from the body, the body soon to be turned into ashes.
Article 12. That the first death cannot be everlasting.
This first death cannot be everlasting. For in that case the body would either escape the eternal death (that is, the everlasting torments) of which it is worthy, or else be shut out from that perpetual felicity which is the gift of God. And if that were to happen, surely that eternal decree of God concerning the demonstration of his eternal mercy and justice would be rendered void and empty.
Article 13. What way leads to the second death.
The inward corruption of the whole man (the whole man, I say, so that I except not even the smallest part of him), which they call original sin, makes him, from the very moment of conception, guilty before the wrath of God, and consequently liable to the latter death, which is eternal. For, to put the matter in few words, that corruption renders us unfit for every appearance even of good, indeed turns us away from every true good, and makes us slaves of sin.
Article 14. What kind of freedom of will is left to man after sin.
Yet meanwhile we do not deny that some measure of light has been left to men, so that they are without excuse; nor do we strip them of their natural faculties, which we say have not been taken away but corrupted, as though men had been turned into mere stumps: namely, their reason, judgment, and will. Indeed, we do not even deny to them free choice, provided this be added, that all these faculties are nothing else than darkness and hatred against God; and provided that by the name of free choice we understand, not some natural power of thinking, of willing, and of doing either good or evil, but rather a will that is not coerced, and which can nevertheless will and do nothing but evil.
For the good which Scripture defines is something far other than what human reason defines. So far is the nature of unregenerate man (that is, of man not healed, nor restored by grace) from being merely wounded and weakened, that it is utterly corrupt and a willing slave of sin. Rightly does Augustine say, “By liberty it came about that man became a sinner; but the penal corruption that followed turned liberty into necessity.”4 And no less plainly does he testify elsewhere that free choice, being thus a slave of sin, avails for nothing except to sin, namely because man sins of necessity indeed, yet willingly.
Article 15. The sum of the doctrine concerning original sin.
Original sin, then, is a kind of universal stain and corruption of the whole human nature, propagated from Adam to all his posterity, which pours forth in them, as it were like a flood, three kinds of sins. The first sort embraces every inward motion and conception, whether in the understanding or in the affections, even if the will does not consent; for God wills to be loved with the whole understanding, the whole soul, and the whole heart, and we have shown above that all these are depraved.
The second kind of sins occurs whenever the will consents with these motions and affections. And the third, whenever we set ourselves actually to carry out what we think and will.
Article 16. How God uses man’s sin for his own glory.
This one thing, therefore, remained: that all men should rush headlong into destruction. But the Lord, who is not only supremely just but also supremely merciful, had by his infinite wisdom decreed from eternity in what way he would turn all these evils to the signal glory of his name, that is, to a fuller declaration: partly of his infinite goodness toward those by whose salvation he decreed from eternity to display his glory, and partly of his supreme power and justice in the just condemnation of the vessels prepared for destruction.
For Augustine says well: “If all had been left in the mass of perdition, that which is owed to sin for the sake of justice would lie hidden; but if no one were delivered, that which is given through grace would not appear.”
Article 17. That Jesus Christ is the only Mediator, appointed and promised by God.
That way of which we have spoken is one alone, namely the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, together with all that belongs to it. He, therefore, by certain degrees of revelation, was promised from the very time of Adam down to John, and was announced by the prophets and patriarchs, and was indeed foreshadowed under the Law by various figures, just as these things are abundantly described in the books of the Old Testament, so that the men of those ages might be saved through faith in Christ Jesus who was to come.
Article 18. What agreement, and what difference, there is between the believers of the Old and the New Testament.
Therefore, if we look at the matter itself, there has always been, and ever will be, one covenant between God and men, namely Jesus Christ. But if one considers the circumstances, there are two covenants or testaments, whose plainly authentic records we possess, namely the sacred Scripture, or Word of God. The one, then, is called Old, and the other New; the New far better than the Old, in which Jesus Christ was set forth only from afar, veiled under shadows and figures, which vanished at the coming of Christ himself, as at the rising of the sun.
Article 19. Why it behooved Christ to be true man, yet without sin.
It behooved the Mediator of this covenant and reconciliation to be true man, yet stained with no spot, neither of original sin nor of any other, as may be understood from the reasons that follow. First, since God is supremely just, and man on account of his corruption is subject to his wrath, it was necessary that some true man should exist in whom, when that ruin was repaired, the human race might be reconciled to God.
Next, man is bound to fulfill all that righteousness which God requires of him for the sake of his glory; from which it follows that some man had to exist who should be acceptable to God in all righteousness. Third, all men are covered over with a boundless multitude of sins of every kind, and therefore subject to the curse of God; it was necessary, then, that some man should exist who should fully satisfy God so as to be pleasing to him.
Fourth, no corrupt man could so much as attempt these things, much less accomplish them; rather, he would himself have needed the work of a Mediator, so far is he from being able to reconcile others to God. It follows, therefore, that the Redeemer of men had to be true man, that is, endowed with a true human body and a human soul, and yet whole and stained by no spot of sin whatsoever.
Article 20. Why it behooved Christ to be true God.
That same Mediator had to be not only man, but also true God, for at least the reasons we here set down. First, unless he were true God, he would not be a Savior, but would rather himself need a Savior. Next, it is necessary that before the justice of God there be found a proportion between sin and sin’s penalty. But the majesty of God, which is offended by sin, is infinite; therefore sin too is infinite, and deserves an infinite penalty.
From which it follows that he who was to pay the penalty as man had at the same time to be infinite, that is, true God. Third, since the wrath of God is infinite, no power, whether angelic or human, was great enough to be equal to so great a weight. It behooved him, therefore, to exist not only as man but also as true God, for whom it remained to rise again, the devil, sin, the world, and finally death itself joined with the wrath of God having been overthrown and overcome.
And God, in order to reveal that incomprehensible goodness of his, willed not merely to match our sin with his grace, but even far to surpass it. And so that first Adam, the author of our evils, was indeed so created after the image of God that he was nevertheless earthly, as his frailty proved in fact; but on the contrary that second Adam, that is, Jesus Christ, through whom we are set free, is true and perfect man in such a way that he is at the same time Lord from heaven, that is, true God, in whom all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.
So that, if Adam’s rebellion terrifies us, the righteousness of Jesus Christ may the more strengthen us; and we may hope for a better life, gained in Jesus Christ, than the one we lost in Adam, and better by as much as Christ surpasses Adam.
Article 21. How the mystery of our salvation was accomplished.
We acknowledge, therefore, that this only and eternal Son of God the Father, at the time appointed by the Father (so that the covenant promised to the ancient fathers and proclaimed by the mouth of the prophets might be made sure), took the form of a servant, that is, a true human nature, subject to all human infirmities except sin, conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, with no action of man intervening.
Article 22. That the two natures, divine and human, are united into one person from the very conception.
We confess that the person of the Son, from the very moment in which his flesh was conceived, was united to the human nature inseparably, so that there are not two Sons of God, nor two Christs, but there is one who is properly the Son of God, Jesus Christ, true God and true man; the properties of each nature nevertheless remaining and distinct. For the divinity severed from the humanity, or on the contrary the humanity from the divinity, or the one confused with the other, would be of no use to us.
Article 23. That the virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, God and man.
And so Jesus Christ, true God and true man (that is, consisting of a truly human soul and a human body, formed from the substance of the virgin Mary and of David, and that by the power of the Holy Spirit), was truly conceived and born of that same virgin, a virgin, I say, both before and after the birth5; and all these things had to be fulfilled for the sake of our salvation.
Article 24. A brief account of how Christ brought us salvation.
Christ came, then, to earth to carry us back to heaven. He bore the penalties of our sins from the moment of his conception to his resurrection, that we might be free of them. He fulfilled all righteousness, that he might cover our unrighteousness. He laid open to us the whole truth of his Father, both by his words and by the example of his life, that he might point out to us the true way of salvation.
And finally, that he might most fully make satisfaction for our sins, which he took upon his own shoulders: he was bound, that he might loose us; condemned, that we might be absolved; loaded with countless insults, that he might deliver us from all disgrace; nailed to the cross, that on it he might crucify our sins; he died, bearing the curse owed to us, so that by the one offering of himself, made once for all, he might appease the wrath of God forever.
He was buried, that it might be established that he was truly dead, and that he might conquer death in its inmost recesses, that is, in the tomb, in which he felt no corruption, so that it might be clear to us that death itself was overcome by him in dying. He rose again as victor, so that, when all our corruption was extinguished and buried, we might be renewed into a new, spiritual, and eternal life; and so that henceforth that first death might not be for us the penalty of sin, nor an entrance into the second death, but on the contrary the completing of our mortification, and might open to us the way to eternal life.
Finally, after he had risen, and had remained in this world forty days to confirm his resurrection, he visibly and in very fact ascended above all the heavens, where he sat down at the right hand of the Father, having obtained for our sake the possession of his eternal kingdom; of which he is also the only Mediator and Advocate, governing the Church by his Holy Spirit until the number of the Father’s elect be filled up.
Article 25. How Christ withdrew himself into heaven, and yet still dwells with us.
We judge that glorification brought to the body of Jesus Christ an immortality joined with the highest glory, but did not take away the nature of a true body, circumscribed by its own dimensions. And so we say that Christ truly and in very fact carried his human nature, or that true body of his, away from us into heaven, where it will remain until he comes to judge the living and the dead.
Yet in respect of his divine nature, and of the efficacy of the Holy Spirit (by which we are made partakers, not of half a Christ, but of the whole and entire Christ and of all his benefits, as we shall presently say), we acknowledge that he is, and ever will be, present with his own to the very end of the age. For this he himself has confirmed to us by his own words.
Rightly, therefore, does Augustine, in agreement with the Word of God, warn that we must beware of so asserting the divinity of Christ as to deny the reality of his body, or to suppose it to follow that whatever is in God is everywhere, because God is everywhere.6
Article 26. That there can be no other true religion.
In this mystery of our redemption, which cannot be comprehended by human judgment, God has revealed himself to be true God, that is, supremely just and supremely merciful. Supremely just, in that by the highest right he avenged all our sins in that very one who had pledged himself as our surety, that is, in Jesus Christ; and further, in that he does not own us as his own except as covered and clothed with the innocence, holiness, and perfect righteousness of that same Jesus Christ.
On the contrary, he declared himself supremely merciful in this, that, although we were wholly guilty of eternal damnation, he nevertheless willed that his Son should take our nature, that in him he might find a way to appease his justice, freely imparting him to us with all his benefits, so that by the goodness and mercy of him alone we might be partakers of eternal life, being grafted into Christ by faith, as will presently be said by us.
Every religion, therefore, which sets against the wrath of God anything other than the one innocence, righteousness, and satisfaction of Jesus Christ apprehended by faith, robs God to its peril, both of his justice and of his mercy; and is therefore false, and framed for the deceiving of men, as we shall explain below, in the seventh chapter of this book.
Footnotes
- Greek in the original: αὐτοθεός (autotheos), “God of himself.” Beza deliberately affirms that the Son possesses deity of himself (a se), that is, the Son’s aseity with respect to the divine essence, a point associated with Calvin and sharply debated in the period. Rendered here “God of himself” rather than transliterated, to keep the sense plain. ↩︎
- Here Beza guards the point carefully: God decrees not only every event but also the secondary and intermediate causes through which it comes to pass, so that fault belongs to the creaturely cause while no fault or blame attaches to God’s eternal counsel. This is his standard defense against the charge that the decree makes God the author of sin (compose with I.3 above). ↩︎
- Latin “argumentum,” here in the sense of “occasion” or “ground” for displaying mercy and justice, not “argument” in the modern logical sense. Beza’s ordering in articles 6 to 8 (decree to display God’s glory, then creation of man pure but mutable, then the permitted fall) reflects his characteristic supralapsarian emphasis; the structure is his own and is flagged here as a debated point among Reformed divines. ↩︎
- The two sentences in quotation marks are Beza’s own Latin citations of Augustine. The first (“By liberty it came about that man became a sinner, but the penal corruption that followed turned liberty into necessity”) and the second (free choice, now a slave of sin, “avails for nothing but to sin”) together state Beza’s settled view: fallen man sins necessarily, yet willingly, so that the bondage of the will removes liberty of nature but not voluntariness. ↩︎
- Latin: “virgine, inquam, ante et post partum.” Beza here affirms Mary’s virginity both before and after the birth of Christ, the perpetual-virginity view held by many of the magisterial Reformers. The point is rendered exactly as it stands; I have not softened it. The phrase “mother of Jesus Christ, God and man” is Beza’s guarded equivalent of the ancient title Theotokos, framed to confess that the one born of Mary is the one person who is true God and true man. ↩︎
- This article states the Reformed Christology often called the extra Calvinisticum, against the notion of a ubiquitous body of Christ. Beza holds that in glory Christ’s true body remains a real, locally circumscribed body, taken up into heaven until the last day; yet by his divine nature and the working of the Holy Spirit he is truly present with his people, who partake of the whole and entire Christ, “not a half Christ.” The closing sentence is Beza’s Latin citation of Augustine’s letter to Dardanus (Beza’s margin numbers it Epistle 57; it is Epistle 187 in modern editions), translated here from Beza’s text. ↩︎
A note on this translation. This English text was prepared for Reformed Dogmatika directly from Beza’s Latin (Confessio Christianae Fidei, London: Thomas Vautrollier, 1575; first published in French, 1558) with the help of AI (Anthropic’s Claude); no copyrighted English translation was consulted, and in particular nothing is drawn from James Clark’s 1992 version. It is offered for unhurried reading rather than scholarly citation; for academic work, cite that published edition. The Fathers, councils, and liturgy that Beza quotes are translated from his own sixteenth-century Latin and identified as his citations; Scripture is given in the ESV; and difficulties in the Latin are flagged in the footnotes rather than smoothed over. Corrections from readers of the Latin are warmly welcomed.
