Doctrine · The Articles of Religion

Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.

well-settled

What it says

“The eternal Son, true God of one substance with the Father, took human nature in the Virgin's womb — two whole natures in one undivided person, one Christ, who died as a sacrifice for original guilt and actual sins.”

The stake
Chalcedonian Christology plus a satisfaction theory of the atonement, made a constitutional standard and kept by Wesley without softening.
Why it matters
It is the second anti-Socinian/anti-Arian wall, and the article under which the saving work of Christ is legally confessed: he died to reconcile and as a sacrifice.
The Wesleyan take
Wesley kept it whole. His own gospel (Salvation by Faith) presupposes exactly this Christ — fully God so the sacrifice avails, fully man so it is ours; the atonement is the ground, faith the means.
Original English
The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. Thirty-Nine Articles Article II (1571), kept by Wesley essentially verbatim. Two things to see. (1) The Christology is Chalcedon: two whole and perfect natures, one person, never divided. (2) The soteriological tail — 'to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men' — is satisfaction language, and Wesley kept it without softening. The article that followed it in the Thirty-Nine, Article III 'Of the going down of Christ into Hell' (the descent), Wesley deleted entirely; see [[articles-of-religion/article-3-of-the-resurrection-of-christ]] and [[apostles-creed/he-descended-into-hell]].
VersionRendering
United Methodist Book of Discipline (¶104) The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures… were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.
Thirty-Nine Articles (1571), Article II The Son, which is the Word of the Father, … took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin… two whole and perfect Natures… were joined together in one Person… who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice… for actual sins of men. Wesley's source, kept intact. The doctrine is Chalcedon; cf. [[athanasian-creed/not-two-but-one-christ]].

Traditions cited patristic ·scholastic ·reformed ·wesleyan ·modern ecumenical

Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man

The Text

If Article I is the Trinitarian wall, Article II is the Christological one, and it does two distinct jobs in a single sentence. First it states the person of Christ in strict Chalcedonian terms: the eternal Son, “of one substance with the Father,” took human nature in the Virgin’s womb, “two whole and perfect natures… joined together in one person, never to be divided,” one Christ, very God and very Man. Then, without a break, it states his work: he “truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.” Person and work in one breath — and the second clause is a satisfaction theory of the atonement written into the church’s constitution. Wesley kept the whole thing. He cut the article that followed it in the Thirty-Nine (the descent into hell) but left this one untouched, because everything in his gospel depends on it.

Translation Notes

“two whole and perfect natures… never to be divided.” This is the Definition of Chalcedon (451) in confessional shorthand: one person, two complete natures, unconfused and undivided. The phrase “whole and perfect” forbids the ancient errors in both directions — no diminished humanity (Apollinarianism), no absorbed or blended natures (Eutychianism, monophysitism). Cf. [[athanasian-creed/not-two-but-one-christ]], where the same doctrine is set out at length.

“to reconcile his Father to us.” The direction of this phrase is theologically loaded and deliberately kept. It does not say “to reconcile us to his Father” (the more common modern phrasing) but “to reconcile his Father to us” — the objective, Godward reference of the atonement, the language of propitiation and satisfaction. Wesley did not edit this toward a purely subjective (“moral influence”) atonement, though that option existed; he left the Godward direction standing.

“a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins.” Original guilt (the inherited liability of the Fall, the subject of Article VII) and actual sins (committed transgressions) — the article insists the one sacrifice covers both. This guards against any scheme in which Christ deals only with personal sins and leaves the inherited condition untouched.

Historical Context

Article II’s parent in the Thirty-Nine carried the same double load — Chalcedon plus satisfaction — into the sixteenth-century fight on two fronts: against residual medieval atonement confusions and, increasingly, against the anti-Trinitarian denial that the one who died was God. The Discipline’s ¶103 names Articles I, II, and IX as the church’s wall against “Socinianism, Arianism, and Pelagianism.” Article II is the specifically Christological course of that wall: Socinianism could grant Jesus honor and a martyr’s death; what it could not grant was that the one crucified was “the very and eternal God” whose death was a sacrifice of objective saving force. The article exists to make that deniable-only-on-pain- of-trial.

The most telling historical fact about Article II is what stands next to its absence. In the Thirty-Nine, Article II was followed by Article III, “Of the going down of Christ into Hell.” Wesley cut that article from the Sunday Service entirely — the same editorial hand and the same instinct that struck the Athanasian Creed and trimmed the descent clause elsewhere ([[apostles-creed/he-descended-into-hell]]). So in the received Methodist text, Article II’s “dead, and buried” is followed immediately by the Resurrection (Article III). The descent did not get an article; it got deleted. The annotation on Wesley’s Article III takes up what that deletion means; here it is enough to note that Article II survived Wesley’s pen completely and the article beside it did not.

Lines of Interpretation

The disputed question is the atonement: the article asserts satisfaction (“to reconcile his Father to us… a sacrifice”), and the traditions divide on how that is to be understood without either evacuating it or caricaturing it.

Patristic

Tradition: Chalcedon (451); Athanasius, On the Incarnation

Patristically the article is the Definition of Chalcedon plus the Christus Victor / recapitulation logic: the eternal Word assumed whole humanity in order to heal it; “that which is not assumed is not healed.” The sacrifice is the climax of an incarnation that is itself salvific.

Strengths

  • Keeps person and work together, as the article does — the atonement is the act of this person, the God-man
  • Recovers the breadth (incarnation as healing) the satisfaction clause alone can narrow

Weaknesses

  • Can underplay the explicit Godward, sacrificial language the article deliberately keeps
  • Recapitulation, loosely held, can blur into the “manhood absorbed” error Chalcedon forbids

Scholastic

Tradition: Anselm, Cur Deus Homo; satisfaction

“To reconcile his Father to us… a sacrifice… for original guilt” is, almost word for word, Anselm’s satisfaction theory: sin incurs a debt only God can pay and only man owes, so the God-man pays it. Read scholastically, Article II is Chalcedon harnessed to Cur Deus Homo.

Strengths

  • Names precisely why the article insists Christ be very God and very Man: the satisfaction logic requires both
  • Takes the Godward direction of the text seriously instead of explaining it away

Weaknesses

  • Anselm’s feudal-honor frame is culturally dated and, pressed, can sound like an angry deity requiring blood
  • The article is more reticent than Anselm; reading the full theory in over-determines a deliberately compact clause

Reformed

Tradition: penal substitution; Calvin, Institutes II.16

The Reformed tradition reads “to reconcile his Father to us… a sacrifice… for original guilt… and actual sins” as penal substitution: Christ bears the penalty due to both the inherited and the committed sin. The article’s two-fold “original guilt… actual sins” maps exactly onto the Reformed scope of the satisfaction.

Strengths

  • Fits the article’s own words most directly — Godward, sacrificial, covering both guilt and sins
  • Gives the clause real soteriological content rather than a vague “Christ shows God’s love”

Weaknesses

  • Penal substitution stated crudely (the Father punishing the Son) distorts the Trinitarian unity Article I just confessed
  • Can isolate the cross from the incarnation and resurrection the article keeps attached to it

Modern / Ecumenical

Tradition: the multi-model consensus; the Joint Declaration horizon

Modern theology resists a single exclusive theory and reads Article II’s “sacrifice” as one true register among several (victory, satisfaction, representation, reconciliation), all converging on the one act of the God-man.

Strengths

  • Honest that no one theory exhausts the article’s “sacrifice,” and that the text itself is reticent about the mechanism
  • Keeps the atonement attached to the person, as the article does

Weaknesses

  • “Many models” can become an excuse to drop the Godward, satisfactory language the article specifically retains
  • Reticence about mechanism can slide into vagueness about whether anything objective was accomplished

Wesleyan Voice

Wesley kept Article II whole because his entire gospel is a commentary on its second clause. Salvation by Faith (Sermon 1, his programmatic 1738 university sermon) presupposes exactly this Christ: salvation is “through faith” — but faith in what? In the “sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men” that Article II confesses. Wesley’s whole architecture — by grace are ye saved through faith — collapses if the one in whom faith is placed is not “very God” (or the sacrifice has no infinite worth) and not “very Man” (or the sacrifice is not ours). Article II is the objective ground; Wesley’s doctrine of justifying faith is the appointed means of receiving what it secured. He did not need to add a word to the article because his sermons are the word added.

The Wesleyan accent within the article is the universality of its “us” and “men.” Wesley’s Arminianism — the deletion of predestination (Article XVII of the Thirty-Nine, cut; see the document essay) — is already implicit here: the sacrifice is “for actual sins of men,” unrestricted. He read the atonement of Article II as sufficient and intended for all, not a limited satisfaction for the elect. The article does not say “for the sins of the elect”; Wesley would not have it say so, and the absence of any limiting clause is the Christological side of the Arminian decision the abridgment makes elsewhere by subtraction.

And the Wesleyan reception keeps person and work welded, against every tradition that would take one without the other. Wesley preaches no atonement detached from the incarnation (the sacrifice avails because the victim is God) and no incarnation detached from the atonement (the Word was made flesh to be a sacrifice). The article’s single unbroken sentence — Godhead and Manhood joined, therefore the sacrifice for guilt and sins — is the Wesleyan order: who he is grounds what he did, and what he did is why who he is matters to a sinner. That is also why Wesley could leave the satisfaction language standing without anxiety: held inside the Trinitarian unity of Article I, “to reconcile his Father to us” is not an angry deity appeased by an unwilling victim; it is the triune God, in the person of the Son, doing for us what we could not do.

Hymnody

Article II is the most-sung doctrine in Christendom and the Wesleys gave Methodism its definitive hymnody of it. “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood?” is the article’s second clause turned into astonishment — “died He for me, who caused His pain?… ‘tis mystery all: th’ Immortal dies!” — the very God and very Man of the article felt as wonder, not stated as formula. “O for a thousand tongues to sing… Jesus! the name that charms our fears” runs the saving work into praise. “Hark! the herald angels sing… veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail th’ incarnate Deity” is Chalcedon at Christmas. And “Christ the Lord is risen today” carries the article’s “dead, and buried” straight into the Resurrection that the deleted descent never interrupted. The hymnody proves the Wesleyan point that the bare article cannot: this is not a clause the church subscribes but the Saviour it cannot stop singing.

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

The first pastoral use is to keep person and work together when preaching the cross, because almost every pastoral distortion of the atonement comes from prising them apart. Preach the sacrifice without the very God and it becomes a noble human death that changes nothing objective; preach it without the very Man and it becomes a transaction with no purchase on us. Article II’s single sentence is the discipline: who he is is why what he did saves.

The second use is the honest handling of “to reconcile his Father to us.” Modern congregations recoil from anything that sounds like a bloodthirsty deity. The pastoral answer is not to delete the Godward language (the article keeps it; honesty keeps it) but to read it inside Article I: it is the triune God who reconciles, the Son freely giving what the Father in love sends and the Spirit applies. The offense is not removed but it is correctly located — not Father against Son, but God, at his own cost, for us.

The third use is the Wesleyan “for… men,” unrestricted. This is the article to preach to the person convinced the sacrifice cannot be for them. Its scope — “original guilt… actual sins of men,” no limiting clause — is, in Wesley’s hands, the ground of assurance: the satisfaction is sufficient and intended, and the only question left is the one Article IX will answer, whether it is received by faith. Article II tells the anxious soul the price is paid and paid for them; the gospel’s remaining word is simply, believe it.

Further Reading

  • John 1:1–14; Philippians 2:5–11; Hebrews 2:14–17; 9:11–28 — the person and the sacrifice
  • The Definition of Chalcedon (451); Athanasius, On the Incarnation; Anselm, Cur Deus Homo
  • Thirty-Nine Articles, Article II (1571) — Wesley’s verbatim source
  • John Wesley, Salvation by Faith (Sermon 1, 1738) — the gospel that presupposes this Christ
  • John Wesley, The Lord Our Righteousness — the imputed righteousness of the God-man
  • Charles Wesley, “And can it be”; “Hark! the herald angels sing” — the article adored
  • The Christology at length: [[athanasian-creed/not-two-but-one-christ]]
  • The deletion next door: [[apostles-creed/he-descended-into-hell]]
  • The wall this continues: [[articles-of-religion/article-1-of-faith-in-the-holy-trinity]]
  • The work received by faith: [[articles-of-religion/article-9-of-the-justification-of-man]]

Related

The Articles of Religion

Article I — Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. Article III — Of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day. Article IV — Of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. Article V — Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. Article VI — Of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. Article VII — Of Original or Birth Sin. Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually. Article VIII — Of Free Will. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. Article IX — Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith, only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort. Article X — Of Good Works. Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit. Article XI — Of Works of Supererogation. Voluntary works — besides, over and above God's commandments — which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly: When ye have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. Article XII — Of Sin After Justification. Not every sin willingly committed after justification is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after justification. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and, by the grace of God, rise again and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned who say they can no more sin as long as they live here; or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. Article XIII — Of the Church. The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. Article XIV — Of Purgatory. The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God. Article XV — Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue as the People Understand. It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the primitive church, to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people. Article XVI — Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ are not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they are certain signs of grace, and God's good will toward us, by which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm, our faith in him. There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Article XVII — Of Baptism. Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The Baptism of young children is to be retained in the Church. Article XVIII — Of the Lord's Supper. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death… The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. Article XIX — Of Both Kinds. The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both the parts of the Lord's Supper, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered to all Christians alike. Article XX — Of the One Oblation of Christ, Finished upon the Cross. The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit. Article XXI — Of the Marriage of Ministers. The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness. Article XXII — Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been always different, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Every particular church may ordain, change, or abolish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification. Article XXIII — Of the Rulers of the United States of America. The President, the Congress, the general assemblies, the governors, and the councils of state, as the delegates of the people, are the rulers of the United States of America, according to the division of power made to them by the Constitution of the United States and by the constitutions of their respective states. And the said states are a sovereign and independent nation, and ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction. Article XXIV — Of Christian Men's Goods. The riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as some do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability. Article XXV — Of a Christian Man's Oath. As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his apostle, so we judge that the Christian religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the prophet's teaching, in justice, judgment, and truth. Of Sanctification (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). Sanctification is that renewal of our fallen nature by the Holy Ghost, received through faith in Jesus Christ, whose blood of atonement cleanseth from all sin; whereby we are not only delivered from the guilt of sin, but are washed from its pollution, saved from its power, and are enabled, through grace, to love God with all our hearts and to walk in his holy commandments blameless. Of the Duty of Christians to the Civil Authority (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.