Tamar and Christ
"Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality."
GENESIS 38:24
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Tamar and Christ
Why did the completely clean mouth of the Holy Spirit lower itself to the basest and most ignoble matters, yes, to matters that are even repulsive, filthy, and subject to damnation, as though these things were particularly profitable for the instruction of the Church of God? What has the Church to do with this? I reply as before. These things are mentioned for the sake of Christ, who is described throughout all Holy Scripture as our blood relative, our brother, and more closely joined to us than any other relation of ours. For according to the line of Abraham, He is the brother and cousin of all the sons of Israel. According to His mother, He is a brother and also a cousin, on the fathers' as well as the mothers' side, of all Egyptians, Canaanites, and Amorites; for He was born from Tamar, from Ruth, from Rachel, and from Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. . . . Here therefore the blessed Seed is described. It is descended from the accursed, lost, and condemned seed and flesh. Nevertheless, It Itself is without sin and corruption. According to nature, Christ has the same flesh that we have; but in His conception the Holy Spirit came and overshadowed and purified the mass which He received from the Virgin that He might be united with the divine nature. In Christ, therefore, there is the holiest, purest, and cleanest flesh; but in us and in all human beings it is altogether corrupt, except insofar as it is restored in Christ.
GENESIS 38:24
+
Tamar and Christ
Why did the completely clean mouth of the Holy Spirit lower itself to the basest and most ignoble matters, yes, to matters that are even repulsive, filthy, and subject to damnation, as though these things were particularly profitable for the instruction of the Church of God? What has the Church to do with this? I reply as before. These things are mentioned for the sake of Christ, who is described throughout all Holy Scripture as our blood relative, our brother, and more closely joined to us than any other relation of ours. For according to the line of Abraham, He is the brother and cousin of all the sons of Israel. According to His mother, He is a brother and also a cousin, on the fathers' as well as the mothers' side, of all Egyptians, Canaanites, and Amorites; for He was born from Tamar, from Ruth, from Rachel, and from Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. . . . Here therefore the blessed Seed is described. It is descended from the accursed, lost, and condemned seed and flesh. Nevertheless, It Itself is without sin and corruption. According to nature, Christ has the same flesh that we have; but in His conception the Holy Spirit came and overshadowed and purified the mass which He received from the Virgin that He might be united with the divine nature. In Christ, therefore, there is the holiest, purest, and cleanest flesh; but in us and in all human beings it is altogether corrupt, except insofar as it is restored in Christ.
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