Because He is man, He can represent us; because He is God, He can save us. In Him, and in Him alone, we find a Savior who is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him.

In Chapter 7, we discovered the glorious Covenant of Grace, God’s answer to the tragedy of the Fall. But a covenant requires a representative, and a broken relationship requires a bridge. Who is capable of spanning the infinite chasm between a holy God and sinful man? We now arrive at the very heart of the Christian faith and the center of the Confession: the person and work of Jesus Christ. Chapter 8 is a masterpiece of Christology, weaving together the insights of the early church councils with the soteriological focus of the Reformation.

The Confession presents Jesus Christ as the divinely appointed Mediator, chosen from eternity to save a specific people, who, being truly God and truly man in one indivisible person, willingly undertook the work of redemption through His perfect obedience, suffering, resurrection, and intercession.

The Divine Appointment (WCF 8.1)

The work of salvation is not an afterthought; it is the execution of an eternal plan. The Confession begins by stating that “It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man.” Christ did not volunteer for a task He was unsure of; He was ordained by the Father for a mission He was certain to complete (1 Peter 1:19–20 ).

As Mediator, He holds three distinct offices: He is the Prophet who reveals God to us (Acts 3:22 ), the Priest who offers Himself as a sacrifice for us (Heb. 5:5–6 ), and the King who rules over and defends us (Ps. 2:6 ). He is the “Head and Saviour of His Church,” the “Heir of all things,” and the final “Judge of the world.”

Crucially, the divines highlight the specific object of His mission. He was not sent merely to make salvation possible for everyone in general, but to actually save those whom the Father “did from all eternity give… to be His seed.” Referencing the High Priestly Prayer in John 17:6 (“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world”), the Confession teaches that these specific individuals are to be “by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.”

The Mystery of the Incarnation (WCF 8.2)

Who is this Mediator? He must be God to have the power to sustain the wrath of God, and He must be man to pay the debt of man. Paragraph 2 articulates the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union—the union of two natures in one person—with Chalcedonian precision.

Truly God: He is “The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father.” He is not a created being; He is the eternal Word (John 1:1 ).

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