The Two Natures of Christ

Our satisfaction, Mediator, and deliverer, must be fully divine and yet fully human, while also being only one Person. There is a crucial excerpt from the Athanasian Creed which helps further elaborate upon the two natures of our Mediator—

[The Son] is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.

The Person of Christ is essentially and necessarily divine. His Person is identical to the divine essence. All that is in God is in the Father; all that is in the Father is in the Son; and all that is in Father and Son is in the Holy Spirit—such that all three Persons are not separate gods, but three relations in which the one Godhead subsists fully and completely. Every attribute that the Father possesses, so too does the Son. When we speak of God’s infinite, immutable, and simple omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, we speak not only of the Father, but also of the Son and Spirit. When we speak of God’s wisdom, goodness, justice, and mercy, we speak not only of the Father, but also of the Son and Spirit. On the divine essence, the Second London Confession states—

The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and withal most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

Everything contained in that paragraph can be applied to the Father fully, to the Son fully, to the Spirit fully. Thus—as we focus in on the Son—He is all these things because He is fully and completely God. This is who the Son is eternally and infinitely as a divine Person.

However, according to the will of God, this divine Person, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, took to Himself the Seed of Abraham—that is, a human nature composed of both a body and a rational, human soul. Hebrews 2:16 says, “For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham,” which could be rendered, “but He takes on the seed of Abraham.” And indeed this becomes abundantly clear in Galatians 3:16, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.” And in v. 19 it says, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.”

John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Thomas Goodwin, writing of the human nature taken up by the Person of Christ, says—

He did take man’s nature into one person with himself. He not only took on him, but to him… he took not the person of a man, but man to be one person with himself. “He took the seed of Abraham” to himself… (Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, vol. 5, [Grand Rapids: Soli Deo Gloria Publication, 2021], 51.)

To reiterate: The divine Person of the Son took to Himself a human nature, such that He now is both fully God—which He has always been—and fully man—which He shall thenceforth always be. These natures are not two persons, but two natures in one Person. These natures are not confused or mixed, such that the divine nature becomes the human nature, or that what is proper of the divine might be transferred to the human. But these natures are nevertheless not separate, but united. They are united in that they are in the same Person, not different persons. And they are in a certain communication with one another, being in one Person, such that the divine Person of Christ is the foundation for the human nature, and this explains the perfection and impeccability of Christ’s humanity. Goodwin says, “the second person becomes the foundation of subsistence to the human nature of Christ, as an oak is to the ivy.”

Since we have now taken a glance at the Person of Christ and His natures, we can now advisedly proceed to QQ. 16-18. And this we will do in the next sermon or two. The key take-away here is, again, the orthodoxy of it all. We need to make sure we get this right, and take great care when speaking about God and His infinite condescension to us in the Person of the Son. The Son is one divine Person who has taken a human nature to Himself. This human nature is not another person. These two natures are united in the one Person of Christ, and they are not confused, mixed, or separated from one another.