Prophet, priest and king - and with them head and saviour of the church, heir of all things, and judge of the world.

The three are a summary of everything God had previously done through separate people. A prophet brings God's word, a priest deals with sin, a king rules. Held by one person, they become a complete account of what a mediator has to do.

Confession 8.1

A real human nature with all its essential properties and ordinary weaknesses - yet without sin.

The weaknesses are named deliberately. Hunger, exhaustion, grief and fear are not sins and are not beneath him. What is excluded is sin alone, so that nothing that makes us human is missing from him.

That's why he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every way, so he could be a compassionate and trustworthy high priest for God, making things right for the people's sins.

Hebrews 2:17

Confession 8.2

Inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition or confusion. He is truly God and truly man, and one Christ.

Three words, three errors. Not converted: the divine nature did not turn into a human one. Not composed: he is not a blend making a third thing. Not confused: the two are not mixed until neither is itself. This is the fifth-century settlement, restated word for word.

Confession 8.2

Because the work needs both. Only a man could stand in for people and bear what they owed; only God could bear it and come through, and give the work worth enough to cover everyone it was meant for.

The confession states the two natures and their union rather than arguing for them, but the reason shows in what it asks Christ to do. He is to be made under the law and keep it, which takes a real human life, and to satisfy the justice of God, which nothing created could survive. The union of the two natures in one person is what lets one person do both.

Confession 8.2

No. The confession says he did not take the office on himself but was called to it by his Father, who also put all power and judgement into his hand.

His human nature is described as sanctified and anointed with the Holy Spirit above measure, with all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in him, so that he is thoroughly equipped for the work. Both halves of that come from outside him: the Father qualifies him and the Father commissions him.

In the same way, Christ didn't make himself high priest. God appointed him and said, 'You are my Son; today I've become your Father.'

Hebrews 5:5

Confession 8.3

He kept it perfectly, and he took the punishment we had earned by breaking it.

Both halves are needed for the doctrine of justification later. A record cleared is not the same as a record kept; the confession has him supplying both, which is why the believer is not merely forgiven but counted righteous.

But when the time was just right, God sent his Son into the world. He was born from a woman, and he lived under the same law as everyone else.

God did this so he could free those who were stuck under the law, and so we could be adopted as his own children.

Galatians 4:4-5

Confession 8.4

He was raised on the third day in the same body in which he suffered, ascended, and now sits at the Father's right hand praying for his people - and he will return to judge men and angels at the end of the world.

The death is not the end of the office. The priest who made the offering is still working, and what he is doing now is praying for the people he died for - which turns up later as one of the six grounds for saying they cannot finally fall away.

Who's left to condemn us? Christ Jesus is the one who died - and even more, he was raised to life and is right now at God's side, speaking up for us.

Romans 8:34

Confession 8.4

It fully satisfied God's justice, secured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance for all those the Father gave him.

Every verb is completed. Not made possible, not offered, but satisfied, procured and purchased. The confession is describing a transaction that has already gone through, which is the ground of everything it says about assurance later.

how much more will the blood of Christ, who offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit without any fault, cleanse our consciences from dead works so we can serve the living God?

Hebrews 9:14

Confession 8.5

By the same work. The price was paid at one moment in history, but its value and benefit were applied to the elect in every age from the beginning of the world.

This is how the confession keeps one way of salvation across both testaments. Abraham was not saved by a different arrangement, only by an arrangement whose central event was still ahead of him.

Jesus the Messiah is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

Confession 8.6

Each nature does what belongs to it, but because the two are one person, what is proper to one nature is sometimes credited in Scripture to the person named from the other.

This is the reading rule that keeps the two natures usable. It lets the Bible say that the Lord of glory was crucified, and that the Son of Man came down from heaven, without the first meaning that God died or the second meaning that a human body was in heaven beforehand. One person is doing all of it.

So watch over yourselves and the whole community the Holy Spirit has put you in charge of. Be shepherds to God's people, which he bought with his own blood.

Acts 20:28

Confession 8.7

No. To all those for whom he obtained it, he certainly and effectually applies it.

The two are welded together here, and it is one of the most consequential sentences in the document. It is why the confession cannot describe the cross as making everyone saveable: what was purchased is delivered.

Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and I won't turn anyone away who comes to me.

John 6:37

Confession 8.8

By making the elect know and believe - revealing the matters of salvation to them in and by the word, persuading them by his Spirit to believe and obey, governing their hearts by his word and Spirit, and overcoming their enemies by his power and wisdom.

It is worth noticing how ordinary that list is. The application is not described as a bolt from the blue but as preaching, persuasion and government carried on over a lifetime. The confession adds that it is all done in ways most in keeping with his wonderful and unsearchable way of working, so it will not promise that the method is predictable.

Confession 8.8

No. It belongs to Christ alone, and cannot be transferred to any other in whole or in part.

In 1689 that clause was pointed and everyone reading it knew where it was aimed. It rules out any additional intercessor standing between God and a person, however well-intentioned.

There's only one God, and there's only one go-between who can bring God and people together - the human being, Jesus the Messiah.

1 Timothy 2:5

Confession 8.9

Because there are three things wrong. We are ignorant, so we need a prophet. We are estranged from God and even our best service is defective, so we need a priest. We are unwilling, unable to return on our own, and in danger from our enemies, so we need a king.

The number is not arbitrary. Each office answers a specific part of the problem, which means quietly dropping any of the three leaves something unaddressed.

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is right next to the Father, has made him known.

John 1:18

Confession 8.10