THE IDENTITY OF JESUS

The nature of Christ’s divinity and humanity were of chief concern in the early church, and it should not be hard to appreciate why. What we believe concerning Christ is the most paramount issue because Scripture says He is the sole mediator between God and mankind.

Denigrating His deity or His humanity causes us to assert faith in a Christ that does not actually exist, and is therefore highly problematic for living in genuine Christian faith. It is also a foundational or systemic problem to our own identity in Christ, because it affects whether or not Christ has achieved salvation for those who believe in Him. The identity of Christ concerning His divinity and humanity must be dealt with if we are to live by an authentically Christian faith. If we err here, we err everywhere else in the faith. As Anselm of Canterbury framed it:

“If Christ is not truly and fully human how can He be the perfect sacrifice for man, in man’s place, fulfilling man’s fallen sin-debt to a Holy God, and if Christ is not fully divine how can be an acceptable sacrifice to God since all mere men are sinners, and a sinner cannot satisfy the perfect requirement of a just and Holy God?”

In this brief article, I will survey the early church’s valiant battle over the divine and human natures of Christ, and how the church came to articulate their final and official position on the matter; namely that Christ is fully divine, and simultaneously fully human. As early as 110 A.D., Ignatius of Antioch writes in his letter to the Ephesians concerning Jesus,

“Only one physician of both flesh and spirit, generate, and ingenerate, God in man, life in death, son of Mary, and Son of God, first passible, then impassible; Christ our Lord.”

This shows that the church set an early precedent as viewing Christ as fully God and fully human in the absolute sense, neither compromised by the other, but possessing two true natures - one divine and one human, without diminishing or confusing either with the other. Yet, by the fifth century the church found itself overwhelmed with manifold views, which greatly denigrated Christ’s true humanity.

Part of the debate surrounded the meaning of the text of John’s Gospel in chapter one, verse fourteen, which states that “the Word [Jesus] ‘became/took on’ flesh, and dwelt among us.” The trouble arose when trying to define what it meant for Jesus to ‘become/take on’ flesh.

Apollinarianism was one such heresy, which taught that Jesus did in fact ‘take on flesh,’ but that he did not however possess a true human soul or spirit. Rather the ‘word’ or ‘logos’ of God had a human body, but this was the only way in which Christ was human. Apollinarius was afraid if Christ was completely human then he would be sinful, so he tried to say Christ only took on flesh, but did not have a true human spirit or soul; for Apollinarius believed that this would jeopardize Christ’s ability to be a sacrifice for sin, since he wrongly assumed being ‘fully’ human necessitated sin, even for Christ who was incarnated by the Holy Spirit.

Nestorianism was another heresy which arose challenging Christ’s full humanity. For those who propagated this view, Christ had two natures, one divine and one human, but they functionally drew a line down the middle of Christ between the two natures, asserting that they were divided. This view caused Christ to lack unity between his deity and his humanity, claiming he was ‘fully’ human, and ‘fully’ divine but never in unity at the same time. He could only act out of his divinity or his humanity, but never both in full harmonious unity. Cyril of Alexandria argued against the Nestorians, advocating that Jesus was the ‘God-man’ in total and complete unity. He required those who would remain orthodox to confess ‘theotikos’ or that Mary was the mother/bearer of God. He articulated the important distinction that Mary did not give origin to the Son of God, but rather that she gave birth to the Son of God in his humanity.

Eutychianism was a third heresy which plagued the early church in trying to reconcile Christ’s humanity with his deity. For Eutyches, understanding Christ’s two natures was like taking a beaker of yellow lemonade and a beaker of blue lemonade, and mixing them together so that there was a merged co-mingling, or mixture of God and man, with the result that Christ was actually a third nature. He was not distinctly ‘yellow’ or ‘blue,’ but green. By doing this, Eutyches essentially destroyed both Christ’s uniquely divine nature and his uniquely human nature, by forcing him into some other category which is neither truly God nor truly man.

In response to all these wild teachings, the church met at the council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. to give careful attention to how Christ’s two natures should be articulated and understood. What they concluded was since the incarnation the second person of the Trinity (God the Son) has a real human soul and a real human body. To the same degree Christ is the same essence as the Father, he is the same essence as us. Christ joins us in limited knowledge, temporality, location in space, and bodily form. So they comprehended and affirmed Christ as possessing two natures. Having the essence of the Father, and the essence of humanity, but doing so without confusing them (against Eutyches), transmuting them (against Eutyches), dividing them (against Nestorians), or contrasting them (against Nestorians). The distinctions of each nature not compromised or nullified by the unity of the natures whatsoever. The properties of both natures are conserved and they concur, agreeing in perfect harmony. They affirmed this and embraced its mystery, though there are no analogies which work to show this.

Thus, the emphasis of Chalcedon was that Christ actually possesses two natures in total unity; one truly and perfectly divine, and another truly and perfectly human. He has an eternally divine nature as God the Son, which fully took on actual humanity in body, mind, and soul. Thus, Christ incarnate was the perfect unity of a divine nature and a human nature in one person, not confused, transmuted, comingled, or divided. Christ was mysteriously and simultaneously fully Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, while at the same time possessing a nature that was in every way as human as we are with a rational soul and body, except without a sin nature. This was in contrast to Apollinarius who was teaching that Christ had a human body, but did not posses a human spirit. This was also in contrast to the Nestorians who were teaching that Christ had two divided natures that could not coexist, or act simultaneously in concurrence. Christ was either acting as the Divine Son, or merely acting as the Human Jesus, but never at the same time. One was always giving way to the other. Chalcedon condemned such assertions, and explicitly affirmed that the divine nature of Christ was ‘not changed, but enfleshed.’ Christ did not lose his divine nature, but rather retained it, and added to it true humanity, except without sin, thus he was the ‘second Adam,’ the son of Mary, the Son of God; the God-man.

In conclusion then, it is clear that although neither the Scriptures, nor the Councils within the Creeds they affirmed, explain how it is possible that Christ possesses these two natures simultaneously, and truly, it does indeed affirm that He in fact does, and this chiefly by faith in light of the Scriptures, and the teaching which they had received from the prophets, and the Apostles who had walked in the faith before them.

This is a strong reminder that when it comes to God, we are not necessarily asked to understand, but rather we are asked to believe. Though reason is not the enemy of faith, it must never be exalted so highly that we lord it over God and His Revelation. One day we will see Him as He is, and maybe on that day we will understand, but even if we do not, I suspect deeply that the mystery of it will only cause us to worship Him all the more. There is a profound lesson to be learned from the heresies that the early church weathered; namely that every heresy seeks with good motive to remove or resolve a tension that God requires us by faith to believe, that which we cannot fully understand by means of reason.

So yes, let us employ reason where we can, but when the Scriptures exhaust our reason, let us stand back and affirm by faith what they affirm, rather than swimming out past the breakers into waters far too deep for us to tread. Let us live by faith as those who have gone before us, and preserve the faith which has been entrusted to us, as we are now the stewards of this great Message. That which we cannot apprehend with our minds, let us apprehend by faith!