Last week we discussed the deity of Christ (part 2). This week (part 3) we will show how Jesus’ deity and humanity are united in the one person of Christ.
We have been summarizing the biblical teaching about the person of Christ as follows: Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever.
The Incarnation: Deity and Humanity in the One Person of Christ
The biblical teaching about the full deity and full humanity of Christ is so extensive that both have been believed from the earliest times in the history of the church. But a precise understanding of how full deity and full humanity could be combined together in one person was formulated only gradually in the church and did not reach the final form until the Chalcedonian Definition in A.D. 451. Before that point, several inadequate views of the person of Christ were proposed and then rejected. Three views that were eventually rejected as heretical should be mentioned at this point.
Three Inadequate Views of the Person of Christ.
Apollinarianism: Apollinaris, who became bishop in Laodicea about A.D. 361, taught that the one person of Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit, and that the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of the Son of God.
But the views of Apollinaris were rejected by the leaders of the church at that time, who realized that it was not just our human body that needed salvation and needed to be represented by Christ in his redemptive work, but our human minds and spirits (or souls) as well: Christ had to be fully and truly man if he was to save us (Hebrews 2:17). Apollinarianism was rejected by several church councils, from the Council of Alexandria in A.D. 362 to the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381.
Nestorianism: Nestorianism is the doctrine that there were two separate persons in Christ, a human person and a divine person, a teaching that is distinct from the biblical view that sees Jesus as one person.
Nestorius was a popular preacher at Antioch, and from A.D. 428 was bishop of Constantinople. Although Nestorius himself probably never taught the heretical view that goes by his name (the idea that Christ was two persons in one body, rather than one person), through a combination of several personal conflicts and a good deal of ecclesiastical politics, he was removed from his office of bishop and his teachings were condemned.”
It is important to understand why the church could not accept the view that Christ was two distinct persons. Nowhere in Scripture do we have an indication that the human nature of Christ, for example, is an independent person, deciding to do something contrary to the divine nature of Christ. Nowhere do we have an indication of the human and divine natures talking to each other or struggling within Christ, or any such thing. Rather, we have a consistent picture of a single person acting in wholeness and unity. Jesus always speaks as “I,” not as “we,” though he can refer to himself and the Father together as “we” (John 14:23). The Bible always speaks of Jesus as “he,” not as “they.” And, though we can sometimes distinguish actions of his divine nature and actions of his human nature in order to help us understand some of the statements and actions recorded in Scripture, the Bible itself does not say “Jesus’ human nature did this” or “Jesus’ divine nature did that,” as though they were separate persons, but always talks about what the person of Christ did. Therefore, the church continued to insist that Jesus was one person, although possessing both a human nature and a divine nature.
Monophysitism (Eutychianism): A third inadequate view is called monophysitism, the view that Christ had one nature only (Greek monos, “one,” and physis, “nature”). The primary advocate of this view in the early church was Eutyches (A.D. 378-454), who was the leader of a monastery at Constantinople. Eutyches taught the opposite error from Nestorianism, for he denied that the human nature and divine nature in Christ remained fully human and fully divine. He held rather that the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature, so that both natures were changed somewhat and a third kind of nature resulted. An analogy to Eutychianism can be seen if we put a drop of ink in a glass of water: the mixture resulting is neither pure ink nor pure water, but some kind of third substance, a mixture of the two in which both the ink and the water are changed. Similarly, Eutyches taught that Jesus was a mixture of divine and human elements in which both were somewhat modified to form one new nature.
Monophysitism also rightly caused great concern in the church, because, by this doctrine, Christ was neither truly God nor truly man. And if that was so, he could not truly represent us as a man nor could he be true God and able to earn our salvation.
In order to attempt to solve the problems raised by the controversies over the person of Christ, a large church council was convened in the city of Chalcedon near Constantinople (modern Istanbul), from October 8 to November 1, A.D. 451. The resulting statement, called the Chalcedonian Definition, guarded against Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism. It has been taken as the standard, orthodox definition of the biblical teaching on the person of Christ since that day by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox branches of Christianity alike.
The statement is not long, and we may quote it in its entirety:
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has been handed down to us.
When we examine the New Testament, as we did in the previous weeks on Jesus’ humanity and deity, there are several passages that seem difficult to fit together (How could Jesus be omnipotent and yet weak? How could he leave the world and yet be present everywhere? How could he learn things and yet be omniscient?). As the church struggled to understand these teachings, it finally came up with the Chalcedonian Definition, which spoke of two distinct natures in Christ that retain their own properties yet remain together in one person. This distinction, which helps us in our understanding of the biblical passages mentioned earlier, also seems to be demanded by those passages.
Evangelical theologians in previous generations have not hesitated to distinguish between things done by Christ’s human nature but not by his divine nature, or by his divine nature but not by his human nature. It seems that we have to do this if we are willing to affirm the Chalcedonian statement about “the property of each nature being preserved.” But few recent theologians have been willing to make such distinctions, perhaps because of a hesitancy to affirm something we cannot understand.
When we are talking about Jesus’ human nature, we can say that he ascended to heaven and is no longer in the world (John 16:28; 17:11; Acts 1:9 – 11). But with respect to his divine nature, we can say that Jesus is everywhere present: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20); “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20); “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). So we can say that both things are true about the person of Christ, he has returned to heaven, and he is also present with us.
Similarly, we can say that Jesus was about thirty years old (Luke 3:23), if we are speaking with respect to his human nature, but we can say that he eternally existed (John 1:1 – 2; 8:58) if we are speaking of his divine nature.
In his human nature, Jesus was weak and tired (Matthew 4:2; 8:24; Mark 15:21; John 4:6), but in his divine nature he was omnipotent (Matthew 8:26-27; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). Particularly striking is the scene on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat, presumably because he was weary (Matthew 8:24). But he was able to arise from his sleep and calm the wind and sea with a word (Matthew 8:26 – 27)! Tired yet omnipotent! Here Jesus’ weak human nature completely hid his omnipotence until that omnipotence broke forth in a sovereign word from the Lord of heaven and earth.
If someone asks whether Jesus, when he was asleep in the boat, was also “continually carrying along all things by his word of power” (Hebrews 1:3), and whether all things in the universe were being held together by him at that time (see Colossians 1:17), the answer must be yes, for those activities have always been and will always be the particular responsibility of the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God. Those who find the doctrine of the incarnation “inconceivable” have sometimes asked whether Jesus, when he was a baby in the manger at Bethlehem, was also “upholding the universe.” To this question the answer must also be yes: Jesus was not just potentially God or someone in whom God uniquely worked, but was truly and fully God, with all the attributes of God. He was “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Those who reject this as impossible simply have a different definition of what is “possible” than God has, as revealed in Scripture. To say that we cannot understand this is appropriate humility. But to say that it is not possible seems more like intellectual arrogance.
In a similar way, we can understand that in his human nature, Jesus died (Luke 23:46; 1 Corinthians 15:3). But with respect to his divine nature, he did not die, but was able to raise himself from the dead (John 2:19; 10:17-18; Hebrews 7:16). Yet here we must give a note of caution: it is true that when Jesus died his physical body died and his human soul (or spirit) was separated from his body and passed into the presence of God the Father in heaven (Luke 23:43, 46). In this way he experienced a death that is like the one we as believers experience if we die before Christ returns. And it is not correct to say that Jesus’ divine nature died, or could die, if “die” means a cessation of activity, a cessation of consciousness, or a diminution of power. Nevertheless, by virtue of union with Jesus’ human nature, his divine nature somehow tasted something of what it was like to go through death. The person of Christ experienced death. Moreover, it seems difficult to understand how Jesus’ human nature alone could have borne the wrath of God against the sins of millions of people. It seems that Jesus’ divine nature had somehow to participate in the bearing of wrath against sin that was due to us (though Scripture nowhere explicitly affirms this). Therefore, even though Jesus’ divine nature did not actually die, Jesus went through the experience of death as a whole person, and both human and divine natures somehow shared in that experience. Beyond that, Scripture does not enable us to say more.
The distinction between Jesus’ human and divine natures also helps us understand Jesus’ temptations. With respect to his human nature, he certainly was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Yet with respect to his divine nature, he was not tempted, because God cannot be tempted with evil (James 1:13).
Now we must affirm that anything that is true of the human or the divine nature is true of the person of Christ. Thus Jesus can say, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). He does not say, “Before Abraham was, my divine nature existed,” because he is free to talk about anything done by his divine nature alone or his human nature alone as something that he did.
In the human sphere, this is certainly true of our conversation as well. If I type a letter, even though my feet and toes had nothing to do with typing the letter, I do not tell people, “My fingers typed a letter and my toes had nothing to do with it”. Rather, I tell people, “I typed a letter.” That is true because anything that is done by one part of me is done by me.
Thus, “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Even though actually only his human body ceased living and ceased functioning, it was nonetheless Christ as a person who died for our sin. This is simply a means of affirming that whatever can be said of one nature or the other can be said of the person of Christ.
Therefore it is correct for Jesus to say, “I am leaving the world” (John 16:28), or “I am no more in the world” (John 17:11), but at the same time to say, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). Anything that is done by one nature or the other is done by the person of Christ.
Sometimes in the study of systematic theology, the following sentence has been used to summarize the incarnation: “Remaining what he was, he became what he was not.” In other words, while Jesus continued “remaining” what he was (that is, fully divine) he also became what he previously had not been (that is, fully human as well). Jesus did not give up any of his deity when he became man, but he did take on humanity that was not his before.
Once we have decided that Jesus was fully man and fully God, and that his human nature remained fully human and his divine nature remained fully divine, we can still ask whether there were some qualities or abilities that were given (or “communicated”) from one nature to the other. It seems there were.
Although Jesus’ human nature did not change its essential character, because it was united with the divine nature in the one person of Christ, Jesus’ human nature gained (a) a worthiness to be worshiped and (b) an inability to sin, both of which did not belong to human beings otherwise.
Jesus’ human nature gave him (a) an ability to experience suffering and death; (b) an ability to understand by experience what we are experiencing; and (c) an ability to be our substitute sacrifice, which Jesus as God alone could not have done.
At the end of this long discussion, it may be easy for us to lose sight of what is actually taught in Scripture. It is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible, far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the creation of the universe. The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.