This article is the twentieth installment in our series "Christian, What Do You Believe: The Belgic Confession of Faith." Find the whole series here.
Every true Christian wants to know Jesus (Phil. 3:10). Part of knowing Jesus is understanding the relationship between his natures and his person. Being truly God and truly man, what kind of person is he? While the church’s teaching on this subject is somewhat technical, an ancient analogy can help: as in humans “the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.” In Christ, God and man unite.
Still, we have questions: How can Christ be a single, unified person if he has two distinct natures? Is he sort of human, sort of divine? Or sometimes human, sometimes divine? How do Christ’s divine and human natures relate to each other? Does one overpower the other? Is Christ more human or more divine? Or you might wonder, why does it matter? Don’t these questions unduly complicate the simplicity of Jesus as a loving Savior?
Actually, accurate understanding can deepen our love. We can all enjoy the simple beauty of star-gazing, especially as it reminds us of God’s covenantal promise to grow a vast family of redeemed people (Gen. 15:5). But knowing something of the vastness of the universe—even at a technical level—can enhance, rather than detract from, our appreciation of the heavens and help us grasp God’s covenant promises. So, with a deeper understanding of the relation between Jesus’ one person and two natures, we can find him even more lovely.
The Reality of the Two Natures in Christ’s Person
With this orthodox formula for knowing Christ—that he is one person with two natures—we make two critical affirmations.
Christ’s Two Natures Unite in One Single Person
Jesus’ divinity and humanity do not constitute two competing, unharmonious personalities in our Lord. True, the Gospels do sometimes show us more plainly either his divine or human nature. We catch glimpses of Christ’s humanity in his physical exhaustion, his tears, and his ordinary human habits like eating and drinking (John 11:35; Luke 24:43). We also see flashes of Christ’s complete deity, as in the transfiguration when “his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them” (Mark 9:3). He has the power to forgive sins (Matt. 9:6), and could say, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Because the writers can only describe these two natures of Christ alongside each other they might seem to be in tension. But, in Christ’s person, the natures harmonize with perfection. Christ is one beautifully whole person with a true divine nature and a true human nature.
Christ’s Two Natures Retain Their Distinct Properties
Christ’s humanity didn’t get swallowed up by his divinity. His human nature has “not lost its properties” nor did his resurrection “change the reality of his human nature.” Some theologians have suggested that Jesus could perform miracles because his divine nature saturated his humanity. But if Christ possesses a deified humanity—a humanity fundamentally different from ours—how can he “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). Jesus is qualified to intercede for God’s children because he shares our same flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14). To be a “Merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God” he “had to be made like his brothers in every respect” (v. 17). If Christ possesses a deified humanity, it is also unclear how the Holy Spirit could meaningfully help him in his ministry. Christ did miracles, not because his deity took over, but because he possessed the Spirit without measure (John 3:34).
The Relevance of the Two Natures in Christ’s Person
Christ Answers Our Deepest Longings
Have you ever felt like there is something so deeply wrong with you that it distorts your humanity at the most basic level? This is what it means to be a sinner. Our longing for bodily and spiritual perfection can only be satisfied by union with the one in whom heaven and earth are perfectly joined. The ageless one chose to be born and experience all our trials. The all-knowing God learned and became exhausted for us (Luke 2:52; Matt. 8:24). The master of all things washed the feet of his friends as a sign of glory-emptying service for his beloved (Heb. 3:2–6; John 13:14). The Son of God is “inseparably united and connected with the human nature” without causing the human nature to lose its properties. Because of this, we as real humans can fellowship with the eternal God.
Christ Encourages and Empowers our Sanctification
Jesus’ genuine growth and advancement underscores the struggle of true human progress. Jesus “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). That statement means nothing if Christ is not truly human. As a true man Jesus’ development teaches us that sanctification is hard! Kevin DeYoung put it like this: “Because the human nature was not swallowed up by the divine…the Son’s earthly obedience was free and voluntary.” Sometimes, we quit striving to grow because growth is harder than we think it should be. But our growth is no harder than the development of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit aids believers as he helped Christ. Jesus entered the wilderness contest with Satan “being filled with the Holy Spirit” and “led by the Spirit” (Luke 4:1). “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses” (Rom. 8:26).
Christ Conquers Death for Us
The holy Son of God bled the same kind of blood that is right now pulsing through your veins (Acts 20:28). But unlike us, he didn’t have to bleed or die. He chose to. The one who will outlast the heavens and earth (Ps. 102:25–27) sacrificed himself for us in the prime of his human years. True God “conquer[ed] death by his power, and true man … die[d] for us in the weakness of his flesh.” Believers have this ultimate hope: as Christ’s human flesh really entered heaven so will redeemed sinners one day live with God in the flesh. “Our resurrection and salvation depend … on the reality of his body” which never parted from his divine nature even when he was lying in the grave.
How God’s Son can look like us, talk like us, and feel like us is a great mystery. But by faith, we can know him like this, as he truly is. Jesus asks us the same question he asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). We can give the same answer. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). And we can say more. Christ Jesus is one perfect person with two beautiful and distinct natures. He is perfectly suited to be our savior. And in fellowship with God through his Son, our joy can be full.
Footnotes
Athanasian Creed, art. 37.
See Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 3:257.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/right_now_link/theological-primer-the-extra-calvinisticum/
