The Two Natures of Jesus Christ

This Sunday, Lord willing, I will be preaching from Hebrews 4:14-16 which deals with both the divinity and humanity of Jesus. As a word of comfort for struggling saints the inspired writer emphasizes Christ's identification with us through his humanity. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (v. 15).

In his wonderful little book Concise Theology, J.I. Packer writes of Jesus' dual nature:

Jesus was a man who convinced those closest to him that he was also God; his humanness is not therefore in doubt. John’s condemnation of those who denied that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2-3; 2 John 7) was aimed at Docetists, who replaced the Incarnation with the idea that Jesus was a supernatural visitant (not God) who seemed human but was really a kind of phantom, a teacher who did not really die for sins.

The Gospels show Jesus experiencing human limitations (hunger, Matt. 4:2; weariness, John 4:6; ignorance of fact, Luke 8:45-47) and human pain (weeping at Lazarus’ grave, John 11:35, 38; agonizing in Gethsemane, Mark 14:32-42; cf. Luke 12:50; Hebrews 5:7-10; and suffering on the cross). Hebrews stresses that had he not thus experienced human pressures—weakness, temptation, pain—he would not be qualified to help us as we go through these things (Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15-16; 5:2, 7-9). As it is, his human experience is such as to guarantee that in every moment of demand and pressure in our relationship and walk with God we may go to him, confident that in some sense he has been there before us and so is the helper we need.

Christians, focusing on Jesus’ deity, have sometimes thought that it honors Jesus to minimize his humanness. The early heresy of Monophysitism (the idea that Jesus had only one nature) expressed this supposition, as do modern suggestions that he only pretended to be ignorant of facts (on the supposition that he always actualized his omniscience and therefore was aware of everything) and to be hungry and weary (on the supposition that his divinity supernaturally energized his humanity all the time, raising it above the demands of ordinary existence). But Incarnation means, rather, that the Son of God lived his divine-human life in and through his human mind and body at every point, maximizing his identification and empathy with those he had come to save, and drawing on divine resources to transcend human limits of knowledge and energy only when particular requirements of the Father’s will so dictated.

The idea that Jesus’ two natures were like alternating electrical circuits, so that sometimes he acted in his humanity and sometimes in his divinity, is also mistaken. He did and endured everything, including his sufferings on the cross, in the unity of his divine-human person (i.e., as the Son of God who had taken to himself all human powers of acting, reacting, and experiencing, in their unfallen form). Saying this does not contradict divine impassibility, for impassibility means not that God never experiences distress but that what he experiences, distress included, is experienced at his own will and by his own foreordaining decision.

Jesus, being divine, was impeccable (could not sin), but this does not mean he could not be tempted. Satan tempted him to disobey the Father by self-gratification, self-display, and self-aggrandizement (Matt. 4:1-11), and the temptation to retreat from the cross was constant (Luke 22:28, where the Greek for “trials” can be translated “temptations”; Matt. 16:23; and Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane). Being human, Jesus could not conquer temptation without a struggle, but being divine it was his nature to do his Father’s will (John 5:19, 30), and therefore to resist and fight temptation until he had overcome it. From Gethsemane we may infer that his struggles were sometimes more acute and agonizing than any we ever know. The happy end-result is that “because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:18).

* Packer, J. I. (1995, c1993). Concise theology : A guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House.

Jesus in the Flesh (3)

I was prompted to write these posts because of an exchange I had with Dr. Kent Sparks of Eastern University about the nature of Christ’s humanity. You can read the post and following comment thread HERE.

It seems clear from the online conversation that one’s view of Scripture will necessarily impact one’s view of Christ. If you believe that the Bible is full of errors then it is inevitable that you will believe Jesus to have been a flawed, erring, mistake-prone human. Those who believe this often times dismiss higher views of Christ as “Docetism” the heresy that denies the true humanity of Jesus. But this is a red herring. Indeed, Scripture and, appropriately, historic Christian orthodoxy have never held that Christ erred and made mistakes.

I will not bother to interact with those who deny the deity of Christ. To do so requires an outright dismissal of all that the New Testament teaches. Rather I will address those who, while affirming the deity of Christ nevertheless maintain that He erred and made mistakes.

First, some conclude that Christ erred because of a misunderstanding of Hebrews 2:17 which states, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” It is rightly acknowledged that the “every way” does not include sin. Inexplicably however this reality seems to be treated at times as if it was not highly significant.

The problem here is that it gravely underestimates the effects of sin upon the sinner. Sin is far more than deliberate moral failure. Sin runs deeper than outward disobedience to God. Sin affects us mind, body, and emotions. How much does the absence of a sinful nature, sinful thoughts, sinful motives, and sinful actions differentiate Christ from sinners? I would suggest that the difference is quite radical. Jesus’ sinless humanity is far different from my fallen, corrupted humanity. To suggest otherwise grossly underestimates both the nature of sin and the perfections of Christ.

Second, some conclude that Christ erred because of, I believe, a wrong assumption concerning Christ’s possession of divine attributes. This misunderstanding is based less upon a particular text of Scripture than upon a theological presupposition that holds that Jesus must surely have divested himself entirely of the incommunicable attributes of his deity. This may arise from a misunderstanding of Christ’s self-emptying or kenosis.

The word kenosis is derived from a clause in the Christ hymn of Philippians.

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (2:5-11).

The phrase heauton ekenosin (“made himself nothing”) is literally “himself he emptied.” Some take this to mean that Christ emptied himself of all vestiges of his divine nature. But is this the biblical witness to Christ? Is the Christ revealed in the Gospels one who had divested himself of all divine identity and attributes?

Consider also the entire clause from Philippians 2: “but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant”. There is a deep paradox here. Christ emptied himself through the act of taking on something new. His self-humbling was not through laying aside what made him God but through taking on humanity. In his incarnation Jesus never ceased being “very God of very God.”

In the next post in this series I will demonstrate further the weaknesses of the flawed understanding of Christ’s kenosis.

Jesus in the Flesh (2)

“The Word became flesh…” (John 1:14). This was jarring truth for many in the early days of Christianity. In fact, as far as we can tell the first heresy the church had to deal with was Docetism which denied the physical reality of the Lord Jesus. This was a common heresy among the Gnostics who tended to identify physical reality as evil or illusory. And just in case we think that denying Jesus’ fleshly humanity is not serious, consider that John wrote that it was “anti-Christ” to claim that Jesus had not come in the flesh (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7).

The term “Docetism” comes from the Greek word dokeo which means “I seem.” So Docetism maintains that Jesus only seemed to have taken on flesh and blood. It is ironic that the apostle John has been accused of being so interested in the deity of Christ that he downplays His humanity. This, however, is a ridiculous charge. The Jesus of John’s Gospel is a real, historical, touchable, fleshy human. It is John who tells us that as Jesus hung on the cross His side was pierced and from Him flowed blood and water (19:34). Clearly, Jesus was no apparition. He did not merely seem to be a flesh and blood human. Truly, Jesus was the Word made flesh.

Jesus’ physical makeup was that of a human. He sweat when he was hot. He tired when his body was taxed. He had need of food, water, and physical rest. He possessed a central nervous system which sent signals from his brain to his extremities. When battered he knew all the physical pain that any other human would experience. Jesus’ DNA was human. He inherited half of his chromosomes from his mother. What is profoundly unique about Jesus’ humanity however is that half of His DNA was supplied miraculously by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Scottish theologian Donald MacLeod writes:

“Through His mother, too, the Lord’s humanness is given specificity and particularity. He was not ‘humanity’. He was a first-century Jew, rooted in the culture of His people. But it is equally true that through His mother (through the umbilical cord) He was keyed in to the life-stream of the human race and to the whole created order. In the incarnation of God the Son, as we have already seen, the redemptive process has entered not merely the world of the spirit but the world of matter. That link with matter never has been, and never will be, severed. The resurrection body of the Lord is the Omega Point of the material creation: the point at which the skill and wisdom and power and artistry of God find their supreme expression” (A Faith to Live By, 135).

It was a man, not a mere disembodied spirit who bore our sins and drank the cup of God’s wrath upon the cross. Roman spikes were driven through real wrists and feet. The Christian faith is not an abstract idea. It is not defined by mystical experience. The Christian faith is rooted in historical fact and biological reality. The Word became flesh.

Jesus in the Flesh (1)

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
- John 1:14

The first chapter of John’s Gospel is the clearest statement of what the early church Fathers sometimes called the en-manning of the Savior. More commonly we call this the incarnation of Christ which literally means His en-fleshment. Over the next few posts I want to tease out a bit the implications of Christ being made flesh and dwelling among us.

First, we must know where to begin with Jesus. That is, do we begin with his humanity or his divinity? I suggest, contra many liberal theologians, that the incarnation requires that our consideration of Christ must begin with His divinity. Indeed, the incarnation pre-supposes that Christ’s nature is both eternal and divine. His existence did not begin in the womb of the virgin. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

Looking to Jesus’ divine nature as our starting point is often times referred to as a Christology “from above.” Liberal theologians would have us embrace a Christology “from below.” That is, they separate the “Jesus of faith” from the “Jesus of history.” Their presupposition is that the real Jesus was not Divine, did not perform miracles, and was not bodily resurrected. He was simply a good man whose followers later projected upon him their own hopes and dreams. Some of these liberal theologians would say this should not present a barrier to faith. Indeed, they say, what is important is not so much historical facts but the inner experience of faith. Thus, one’s faith need not falter even if the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith are completely different personages.

The New Testament, however, is univocal in presenting a Christology from above. Only after establishing the eternal and divine nature of Christ are we told that Jesus became a man. In John 1:1 we are told that “the Word was God.” He did not become God. He was not adopted by God. Jesus has been from eternity very God of very God. In contrast John tells us that “the Word became flesh” (v. 14). “Became” is in the aorist tense which is punctiliar, meaning that the Word became flesh at a particular moment in time. The Word was always divine but He became flesh in one specific moment.

In the next posts we will consider the humanity of Jesus’ body, mind, and emotions. Along the way we will consider whether or not Jesus’ humanity involved his erring or making mistakes.

God in Flesh

INCARNATION

GOD SENT HIS SON, TO SAVE US

by J.I. Packer

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. JOHN 1:14

Trinity and Incarnation belong together. The doctrine of the Trinity declares that the man Jesus is truly divine; that of the Incarnation declares that the divine Jesus is truly human. Together they proclaim the full reality of the Savior whom the New Testament sets forth, the Son who came from the Father’s side at the Father’s will to become the sinner’s substitute on the cross (Matt. 20:28; 26:36-46; John 1:29; 3:13-17; Rom. 5:8; 8:32; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; 8:9; Phil. 2:5-8).

The moment of truth regarding the doctrine of the Trinity came at the Council of Nicaea (A.D.325), when the church countered the Arian idea that Jesus was God’s first and noblest creature by affirming that he was of the same “substance” or “essence” (i.e., the same existing entity) as the Father. Thus there is one God, not two; the distinction between Father and Son is within the divine unity, and the Son is God in the same sense as the Father is. In saying that Son and Father are “of one substance,” and that the Son is “begotten” (echoing “only-begotten,” John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18, and NIV text notes) but “not made,” the Nicene Creed unequivocally recognized the deity of the man from Galilee.

A crucial event for the church’s confession of the doctrine of the Incarnation came at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D.451), when the church countered both the Nestorian idea that Jesus was two personalities—the Son of God and a man—under one skin, and the Eutychian idea that Jesus’ divinity had swallowed up his humanity. Rejecting both, the council affirmed that Jesus is one divine-human person in two natures (i.e., with two sets of capacities for experience, expression, reaction, and action); and that the two natures are united in his personal being without mixture, confusion, separation, or division; and that each nature retained its own attributes. In other words, all the qualities and powers that are in us, as well as all the qualities and powers that are in God, were, are, and ever will be really and distinguishably present in the one person of the man from Galilee. Thus the Chalcedonian formula affirms the full humanity of the Lord from heaven in categorical terms.

The Incarnation, this mysterious miracle at the heart of historic Christianity, is central in the New Testament witness. That Jews should ever have come to such a belief is amazing. Eight of the nine New Testament writers, like Jesus’ original disciples, were Jews, drilled in the Jewish axiom that there is only one God and that no human is divine. They all teach, however, that Jesus is God’s Messiah, the Spirit-anointed son of David promised in the Old Testament (e.g., Isa. 11:1-5; Christos, “Christ,” is Greek for Messiah). They all present him in a threefold role as teacher, sin-bearer, and ruler—prophet, priest, and king. And in other words, they all insist that Jesus the Messiah should be personally worshiped and trusted—which is to say that he is God no less than he is man. Observe how the four most masterful New Testament theologians (John, Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and Peter) speak to this.

John’s Gospel frames its eyewitness narratives (John 1:14; 19:35; 21:24) with the declarations of its prologue (1:1-18): that Jesus is the eternal divine Logos (Word), agent of Creation and source of all life and light (vv. 1-5, 9), who through becoming “flesh” was revealed as Son of God and source of grace and truth, indeed as “God the only begotten” (vv. 14, 18; NIV text notes). The Gospel is punctuated with “I am” statements that have special significance because I am (Greek: ego eimi) was used to render God’s name in the Greek translation of Exodus 3:14; whenever John reports Jesus as saying ego eimi, a claim to deity is implicit. Examples of this are John 8:28, 58, and the seven declarations of his grace as (a) the Bread of Life, giving spiritual food (6:35, 48, 51); (b) the Light of the World, banishing darkness (8:12; 9:5); (c) the gate for the sheep, giving access to God (10:7, 9); (d) the Good Shepherd, protecting from peril (10:11, 14); (e) the Resurrection and Life, overcoming our death (11:25); (f) the Way, Truth, and Life, guiding to fellowship with the Father (14:6); (g) the true Vine, nurturing for fruitfulness (15:1, 5). Climactically, Thomas worships Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (20:28). Jesus then pronounces a blessing on all who share Thomas’s faith and John urges his readers to join their number (20:29-31).

Paul quotes from what seems to be a hymn that declares Jesus’ personal deity (Phil. 2:6); states that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9; cf. 1:19); hails Jesus the Son as the Father’s image and as his agent in creating and upholding everything (Col. 1:15-17); declares him to be “Lord” (a title of kingship, with divine overtones), to whom one must pray for salvation according to the injunction to call on Yahweh in Joel 2:32 (Rom. 10:9-13); calls him “God over all” (Rom. 9:5) and “God and Savior” (Titus 2:13); and prays to him personally (2 Cor. 12:8-9), looking to him as a source of divine grace (2 Cor. 13:14). The testimony is explicit: faith in Jesus’ deity is basic to Paul’s theology and religion.

The writer to the Hebrews, purporting to expound the perfection of Christ’s high priesthood, starts by declaring the full deity and consequent unique dignity of the Son of God (Heb. 1:3, 6, 8-12), whose full humanity he then celebrates in chapter 2. The perfection, and indeed the very possibility, of the high priesthood that he describes Christ as fulfilling depends on the conjunction of an endless, unfailing divine life with a full human experience of temptation, pressure, and pain (Heb. 2:14-17; 4:14-5:2; 7:13-28; 12:2-3).

Not less significant is Peter’s use of Isaiah 8:12-13 (1 Pet. 3:14). He cites the Greek (Septuagint) version, urging the churches not to fear what others fear but to set apart the Lord as holy. But where the Septuagint text of Isaiah says, “Set apart the Lord himself,” Peter writes, “Set apart Christ as Lord” (1 Pet. 3:15). Peter would give the adoring fear due to the Almighty to Jesus of Nazareth, his Master and Lord.

The New Testament forbids worship of angels (Col. 2:18; Rev. 22:8-9) but commands worship of Jesus and focuses consistently on the divine-human Savior and Lord as the proper object of faith, hope, and love here and now. Religion that lacks these emphases is not Christianity. Let there be no mistake about that!

From Concise Theology by J.I. Packer

Is "Jesusanity" "Christianity"?

Al Mohler on the tendency among postmoderns to dethrone Jesus (http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=1038).