5.04. Christ's Unipersonality
Christ’s Unipersonality Biblical Evidence for Christ’s Unipersonality That the two natures, divine and human, constitute only one person is proved by the following scriptural texts. In Romans 1:3 the one person called “Jesus Christ our Lord” is said to be “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” and “declared to be the Son of God according to the spirit of holiness.” This latter phrase, being antithetic to the phrase according to the flesh, means “according to the divinity” (Shedd on Romans 1:4). Christ is described by St. Paul kata sarka1[Note: 1. κατὰ σάρκα = according to the flesh] and kata pneuma hagiōsynēs,2[Note: 2. κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης = according to the spirit of holiness] the first denoting the human nature, the last the divine. In 9:5 Christ is represented as “God over all, blessed forever,” and as having also a descent from the fathers of the Jewish nation (Php 2:6-11; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 1:6-9 compared with 2:14; John 1:14; 1 John 1:1-3; 1 John 4:3; Galatians 4:4). Ussher (Incarnation in Works 4.580) combines the scriptural data as follows:
He “in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” is the person; that fullness which so does dwell in him is the natures. Now, there dwells in him not only the fullness of the Godhead, but the fullness of the manhood also. For we believe him to be both perfect God, begotten of the substance of his Father before all worlds, and perfect man made of the substance of his mother in the fullness of time. And therefore we must hold that there are two distinct natures in him; and two so distinct that they do not make one compounded nature; but still remain uncompounded and unconfounded together. But he in whom the fullness of the manhood dwells is not one person, and he in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells, another person; but he in whom the fullness of both these natures dwells is one and the same Immanuel, and consequently it must be believed as firmly that he is but one person. That the two natures constitute only one person, is also proved by the fact that in Scripture human attributes are ascribed to the person designated by a divine title; and divine attributes are ascribed to the person designated by a human title. This interchange of titles and of attributes in respect to one and the same person proves that there are not two different persons, each having its own particular nature and attributes, but only one person having two natures and two classes of attributes in common.
Passages in which human attributes are ascribed to the person designated by a divine title are “blood of God” (Acts 20:28);3[Note: 3. WS: The reading theou (θεοῦ = of God) is supported byà, B, Vulgate, Syriac, Textus Receptus, and Hort; kyriou (κυρίου = of the Lord) is supported by A, C, D, E, Sahidic, Coptic, Tischendorf, and Lachmann.] “God spared not his own son (idiou huiou)”4[Note: 4. ἰδίου υἱοῦ] (Romans 8:32); “they crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8); “redemption through the blood tou huiou tēs agapēs autou”5[Note: 5. τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ = of his beloved son] (Colossians 1:13-14); “a virgin shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (Matthew 1:33); and “the Son of the Highest is conceived in the womb” (Luke 1:31-32).
Passages in which divine attributes are ascribed to the person designated by a human title are “no man has ascended up to heaven, but the Son of Man which is in heaven” (John 3:13); “what and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?” (6:62); “as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is God over all” (Romans 9:5); and “worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power” (Revelation 5:12).
Predication of Divine and Human Qualities to the God-man From these biblical representations, therefore, it follows that both human and divine qualities and acts may be attributed to the God-man under any of his names. If the God-man be called Jesus Christ, then it is proper to say that Jesus Christ raised the dead and Jesus Christ died; that Jesus Christ is God and Jesus Christ is man. If the God-man be called the Redeemer, then it is proper to say that the Redeemer created all things and the Redeemer hungered and thirsted; that the Redeemer existed before Abraham and the Redeemer was born eighteen centuries after Abraham. If the God-man be called Messiah, then it is proper to say that Messiah is seated upon the eternal throne and Messiah was crucified, dead, and buried. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 the God-man is called,” the “second man,” and the “last Adam” and divine acts are attributed: “By man came also the resurrection of the dead”; “the second man is the Lord from heaven”; “the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” It would be correct to say: “The last Adam groaned and wept: and the last Adam will judge the world.” In Acts 20:28 the God-man is called “God,” and human characteristics are attributed, namely, blood and the pains of death. “Feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.” The term God here denotes incarnate God: a complex person, not an incomplex nature. In this use, the ecclesiastical phrase God’s blood is proper.6[Note: 6. WS: “Virgo Maria non nudum aut merum hominem, sed verum dei filium, concepit et genuit: unde recte mater dei appellatur” [AG: The virgin Mary did not conceive and give birth to only a mere man, but the true Son of God. Consequently, she is rightly called the “Mother of God”]; Formula of Concord 8.] So also is the expression God the mighty maker died because “God” here designates the theanthropic person having two natures-God in the flesh-not the one abstract divine nature. It would be improper to say “God’s nature died” because this can have but one meaning. But it is proper to say “God died” because this may mean either “God’s nature” or the “God-man”-either unincarnate or incarnate God, either the Logos or Jesus Christ. It would be proper to speak of the blood of Immanuel. But Immanuel means “God with us.” The humanity assumed by the Logos is the Logos’s or God’s humanity; just as the body is the soul’s body. When, therefore, the humanity suffers, it is as proper to say that it is “God’s suffering” as it is when the body suffers to say that is the “soul’s suffering”-not meaning, thereby, the suffering of the soul considered separately as an immaterial substance, but of the soul as put for the total person. We speak of “the blood of souls” because the soul is united with a body that bleeds. Similarly, Scripture speaks of “the blood of God” because God is united with a humanity that has blood: The matter of which the human body is composed does not subsist by itself, is not under all those laws of motion to which it would be subject if it were mere inanimated matter; but by the indwelling and actuation of the soul it has another spring within it and has another course of operations. According to this then, to “subsist by another” is when a being is acting according to its natural properties but yet in a constant dependence upon another being; so our bodies subsist by the subsistence of our souls. This may help us to apprehend how that as a body is still a body and operates as a body, though it subsists by the indwelling and actuation of the soul, so in the person of Jesus Christ, the human nature was entire and still acting according to its own character, yet there was such a union and inhabitation of the eternal Word in it, that there did arise out of that such a communication of names and characters as we find in the Scriptures. A man is called tall, fair, and healthy, from the state of his body; and learned, wise, and good, from the qualities of his mind; so Christ is called holy, harmless, and undefiled, is said to have died, risen, and ascended up into heaven, with relation to his human nature. He is also said to be in the form of God, to have created all things, to be the brightness of the Father’s glory, with relation to the divine nature. (Burnet, Thirty-nine Articles, art.2) Christ’s Twofold Consciousness In accordance with this complex constitution of Christ’s person, we find that his consciousness, as expressed in language, is sometimes divine and sometimes human. When he spoke the words “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), the form of his consciousness at that instant was divine. Divine nature yielded the elements in this particular experience. When he spoke the words “I thirst” (19:28), the form of his consciousness at that instant was human or an experience whose elements were furnished by the human nature. When he said: “Now, O Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before the world was” (17:5), his mode of consciousness at that instant was that of the eternal Word who was in the beginning with God. When he said: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), his mode of consciousness was that of a finite creature deserted of his Creator. In each of these instances, it was one and the same person, namely, Jesus Christ, who possessed the consciousness. The ego denoted by I in the phrase which I had with you before the world was is the very same ego denoted by I in the phrase I thirst. There is no alteration in the person, but there is in the form of the consciousness. And this alteration arises from the fact that there are two natures in the person which furnish the materials of consciousness. Had Christ possessed, like an ordinary man, only a human nature, there could not have been this variety in the modes of his consciousness. A brute can have some of the forms of human consciousness. He can feel hunger and thirst and physical pain, like a man, because he has a physical nature like that of man. But he cannot experience religious emotions like joy in God or esthetic emotions like delight in beauty or rational perceptions like the intuitions of geometry, because he has no rational nature like man. These modes of consciousness are precluded in his case because there does not belong to his constitution that rational, esthetic, and moral nature which alone can furnish the materials of such a consciousness. Man has two general forms of consciousness, the animal and the rational, because he is complex in his constitution; but the brute has only one form of consciousness, the animal, because he is simple in his constitution.
Similarly, there arise in the person of the God-man two general forms of consciousness, divine and human, because there are two distinct and specific natures in his person. When the human nature yields the matter of consciousness, Jesus Christ hungers, thirsts, sorrows, rejoices, and expresses his consciousness accordingly. When divine nature yields the matter of consciousness, the very same Jesus Christ commands the raging sea to be still and it obeys; commands the dead Lazarus to rise and he obeys; says, “My Father works hitherto and I work”; “before Abraham was, I am”; “I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the temple.” This fluctuation of consciousness in the identity of a person is occurring continually in the sphere of human life. When a man says “I am thirsty,” the elements and form of his consciousness, at this particular instant, are furnished from his material and physical nature. When the same man says, with David, “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications” (Psalms 116:1), the elements and form of his consciousness issue from his mental and spiritual nature. The difference between these two modes of consciousness, the sensuous and the spiritual, is as real and marked, though it is not as great, as between divine and human consciousness in the person of the God-man. And yet there is no schism in the person or duplication of the person. It is the very same individual man who says “I thirst” and “I love God.”7[Note: 7. WS: When St. Paul says: “I hate what I do” and “with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh I myself serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:15; Romans 7:25), the two modes of consciousness spring out of one nature, namely, the mental or spiritual and are both alike mental. This would not illustrate the difference in the consciousness that arises from two diverse natures.]
These varying modes and forms of consciousness chase each other over the field of human personality like the shadows of the clouds over a landscape. At one moment, the man’s experience is sensuous. At another, perhaps the very next moment, it is intensely spiritual. If the nature of the individual person should be inferred from the sensuous consciousness in him, we should say that he is nothing but an animal; if only from the spiritual consciousness in him, we should say that he is nothing but a spirit. Putting the two together, we say that the person who has these different modes of conscious experience is “human.” We do not say, using terms strictly, that he is a sensuous person, though he has a sensuous nature. We do not say that he is a spiritual person, though he has a spiritual nature. “Human” is the proper denomination of the person. In like manner, in the complex person of Christ there was a continual fluctuation of consciousness, according as divine or human nature was uppermost, so to speak, in the self-consciousness. At one moment, he felt and spoke as a weak, dependent, and finite creature; at the next instant, he felt and spoke as an almighty, self-existent, and infinite being. Finite and infinite, man and God, creature and Creator, time and eternity, met and mingled in that wonderful person who was not divine solely or human solely, but divine-human. Says Bengel (on Mark 13:32):
There is an admirable variety in the motions of the soul [i.e., in the self-consciousness] of Christ. Sometimes he had an elevated feeling, so as hardly to seem to remember that he was a man walking on the earth; sometimes he had a lowly feeling, so that he might almost have seemed to forget that he was the Lord from heaven. And he was wont always to express himself according to his mental feeling for the time being; at one time, as he who was one with the Father; at another time, again, in such a manner as if he were only of that condition in which are all ordinary and human saints. Often, these two are blended together in wonderful variety. (See supplement 5.4.1.) At this point, it is proper to notice the effect of Christ’s exaltation upon his humanity. When the humiliation of Christ ends and his exaltation begins, the human nature, though still unchanged in its essential properties, no longer yields certain elements of consciousness which it previously yielded. Christ on the mediatorial throne hungers no more and suffers no more. Certain accidental properties are left behind, but all essential properties of humanity are retained. The exalted human nature still keeps its finiteness. It is not invested with infinite properties. It does not acquire omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence by Christ’s exaltation. It is man’s nature still. The change which occurs in the instance of the perfected nature of a redeemed man illustrates the alteration in Christ’s human nature. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” and yet the redeemed are as really and truly men as they ever were. But there will be certain modes of consciousness which the redeemed experienced when upon earth that will be impossible to them in heaven. Not because they are different persons in heaven from what they were upon earth, but because there has been a change wrought in their physical nature by the resurrection and glorification of their bodies, so that this nature, though human and physical still, does not need meat and drink as it did while upon earth and is not liable to sickness, suffering, and death as it was here below. Those modes of consciousness which involved pain and suffering, which man was capable of here upon earth by reason of the state and condition of his body while here upon earth, are no longer possible to him as redeemed and glorified in heaven. And so, likewise, those experiences of earthly suffering and sorrow which Christ passed through in his state of humiliation will constitute no part of his self-consciousness in his state of exaltation.
Lutheran Doctrine of “Communication of Properties”
While, in this way, the acts and qualities of either nature may be attributed to the one theanthropic person, the acts and qualities of one nature may not be attributed to the other nature. It would be erroneous to say that divine nature suffered or that the human nature raised the dead; as it would be erroneous to say that the human body thinks or that the human soul walks. The man or “person” whose is the body and whose is the soul both thinks and walks; but the natures by whose instrumentality he performs these acts do not both of them think and walk. One thinks, and the other walks.
Properties belong to a nature and are confined to it. Hence properties are always homogeneous. A material nature or substance can have only material properties. It cannot be marked partly by material and partly by immaterial properties. Natures, on the other hand, belong to a person and may be heterogeneous. A nature must be composed wholly of material or wholly of immaterial properties; but a person may be composed partly of a material and partly of an immaterial nature. Hence two or even three kinds of natures may be ascribed to a person, but only one kind of properties may be attributed to a nature. By overlooking the difference between person and nature, the later Lutherans have partially revived the ancient error of Eutyches of confounding or mixing the natures in Christ’s person. They distinguish three kinds of communicatio idiomatum8[Note: 8. communication of attributes (see glossary 1)] or communication of properties, namely, genus idiomaticum-the attribution of the properties of either nature to the person; genus apotelesmaticum-the attribution of the mediatorial acts to either nature; and genus majestaticum. The last of these is of such an exalted species as to amount to a communication of the properties of one nature to the other. It is founded upon those texts in which, according to Hase’s definition of this genus, the Scriptures speak of “the human nature as exalted by divine attributes: quibus natura humana attributis divinis effertur”9[Note: 9. in which the human nature is exalted by divine attributes] (Hutterus, 238). The texts in which this is supposed to be done are “the Son of Man is in heaven” (John 3:13); “the Son of Man has authority to execute judgment” (5:27); “all power is given unto me … I am with you always” (Matthew 28:18; Matthew 28:20); “concerning the flesh, Christ is God over all, blessed forever” (Romans 9:5); “at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow” (Php 2:10). In these passages, the titles “Son of Man,” “Jesus,” and “Christ,” according to the advocate of the genus majestaticum, denote, not the theanthropic person, but the human nature; and this human nature is exalted by divine attributes of omnipresence-being upon earth and in heaven simultaneously; of sovereignty-being the judge of mankind; of omnipotence-having all power in heaven and earth; of absolute deity-being God over all. (See supplement 5.4.2.) The foundation for this view is laid in the Formula of Concord, though this creed is somewhat wavering and contradictory and not so pronounced as later individual theologians. It affirms that by the glorification of the human nature, after Christ’s resurrection, this human nature received, in addition to its own natural essential properties, certain “supernatural, inscrutable, ineffable, and celestial prerogatives of majesty, glory, virtue, and power above everything that is named in time or eternity” (Hase, Symbolical Books, 774). This, however, is guarded by the affirmations that “these two natures in the person of Christ are never confounded or changed the one into the other”10[Note: 0 10. Hae duae naturae in persona Christi nunquam confunduntur, vel altera in alteram mutatur.] (Hase, Symbolical Books, 762); that “the essential properties of one nature never become the essential properties of the other nature”11[Note: 1 11. Unius naturae proprietates essentiales nunquam alterius naturae proprietates essentiales fiunt.] (Hase, Symbolical Books, 763); that “in this union, each nature retains its essence and properties”12[Note: 2 12. In hac unione, utraque natura essentiam et proprietates suas retinet.] (Hase, Symbolical Books, 765). But these statements, again, are modified and seemingly contradicted by the affirmations that Christ “not only as God, but even as man, is everywhere present and rules and reigns from sea to sea, even to the ends of the earth”13[Note: 3 13. Non tantum ut deus, verum etiam ut homo, ubique praesens dominatur et regnat a mari ad mare, et usque ad terminos terrae.] and that Christ’s promise to be continually with his apostles, cooperating with them and confirming their word with attending miraculous signs, was fulfilled “not in an earthly manner (non terreno modo), but as Luther was wont to say, after the manner and method of God’s right hand: which certainly does not mean a certain circumscribed locality in heaven, as the Sacramentarians claim, but denotes the omnipotent energy (virtus) of God, which fills heaven and earth, into possession of which Christ according to his humanity (juxta humanitatem suam) really and truly came, yet without any confusion or equalizing of the natures” (Hase, Symbolical Books, 768). This last clause is contradictory to preceding statements in the creed, unless it can be shown that Christ’s human nature can have the attributes of omnipresence and omnipotence without any equalizing of the natures and without causing any essential property of divine nature to become a property of the human nature.14[Note: 4 14. WS: A similar self-contradiction is found in the Formula of Concord respecting the doctrine of predestination and election (see Müller, Sin 2.228-30 [trans. Urwick]).] In a similar contradictory manner, Brentz (Concerning the Incarnation of Christ, 1001) affirms that the humanity of Christ is omnipotent and omnipresent, and yet is not omnipotence itself (quoted by Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, 113).
Later Lutheran theologians are more explicit and self-consistent than the Formula of Concord. Hollaz defines the genus majestaticum as that mode “in which the Son of God, on account of the personal union, truly and really communicated the attributes (idiomata) of his divine nature to his human nature, unto a common possession, use, and designation”15[Note: 5 15. Quo filius dei idiomata divinae suae naturae humanae naturae, propter unionem personalem, vere et realiter communicavit, ad communem possessionem, usurpationem, et denominationem.] (Hase, Hutterus, 238). He asserts that “the subject, to which divine majesty is given, is Christ according to his human nature, or, what is the same thing, the human nature assumed into the hypostasis of the Word (hypostasin tou logou)”16[Note: 6 16. Subjectum, cuidata est majestas divina, est Christus secundum humanam naturam, vel quod idem est, humana natura in ὑπόστασιν τοῦ λογού assumpta.] (Hase, Hutterus, 238). He defines the communicatio idiomatum in the following terms: “The communication of the natures in the person of Christ is a mutual participation of the divine and human nature of Christ, through which the divine nature of the Word (tou logou)-made a partaker of the human nature-permeates, perfects, inhabits, and appropriates it to itself. But the human nature-made a partaker of divine nature-is permeated, perfected, and inhabited by it”17[Note: 7 17. Communicatio naturaram in persona Christi est mutua divinae et humanae Christi naturae participatio, per quam natura divina τοῦ λογού particeps facta humanae naturae, hanc permeat, perficit, inhabitat, sibique appropriat; humana vero particeps facta divinae naturae, ab hac permeatur, perficitur et inhabitatur.] (Hase, Hutterus, 234). According to this Lutheran definition, the “communication of idioms” or of properties means far more than the Reformed divines meant by it. The latter intended by it only the communication of the properties of both natures to the person constituted of them. In the Lutheran use, it denotes the communication of the properties of one nature to the other nature. It is thus the communication of a nature to a nature, rather than of properties to a person.18[Note: 8 18. WS: Dorner (Christian Doctrine §§93, 95) so understands it: “The Reformed disown the communication of essence of the Lutherans.”] Similarly, Hahn (Hase, Hutterus, 238) says: “The genus majestaticum includes the propositions in which the attributes (idiomata) of divine nature are predicated of human nature.”19[Note: 9 19. Genus majestaticum continet propositiones quibus de natura humana idiomata naturae divinae praedicantur.] Gerhard (Loci 4.12) says: “We teach that the [human] soul of Jesus in the very first moment of the incarnation was personally enriched, as with other excellences, so also with the proper omniscience of the Logos, through, and in virtue of, the intimate union and communion with the Logos. But as he did not always use his other excellences in the state of exinanition, so also the omniscience personally communicated to him he did not always exercise” (quoted by Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, 143). The principal motive for the Lutheran tenet of the ubiquity of Christ’s humanity is to explain the presence of the entire Christ. The God-man promises to be with his disciples upon earth, “always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). The Reformed explanation is by the conjunction and union of the limited and local humanity with the illocal and omnipresent divinity. “Presence by way of conjunction is in some sort presence,” says Hooker (5.55). The divine nature of Christ is present with his human nature wherever the latter may be, though his human nature is not, as the Lutheran contends, present with his divine nature wherever the latter may be. But this continual presence of the deity with the humanity is equivalent to the presence of the humanity with the deity. The humanity is in effect ubiquitous, because of its personal connection with an omnipresent nature and not because it is in itself so immense as to be ubiquitous. Christ’s deity never is present anywhere in isolation and separation from his humanity, but always as united with and modified by his humanity. But in order to this union and modification, it is not necessary that his humanity should be locally present wherever his deity is. Distance in space is no bar to the personal union between the Logos and his human nature. Suppose, for illustration, the presence of the divine nature of Christ in the soul of a believer while partaking of the sacrament in London. This divine nature is at the same moment conjoined with and present to and modified by the human nature of Christ which is in heaven and not in London. This conjunction between both is equivalent to the presence of both. The whole Christ is present in this London believer’s soul, because, though the human nature is in heaven and not in London, it is yet personally united with the divine nature which is both in heaven and in London. There is no separation between the two natures; so that whatever influence or effect the divine nature exerts in the believer’s soul as he receives the sacrament is a divine-human influence-an influence proceeding from the union of the divine with the human in Jesus Christ.
Hypostatic Union and the Two Wills in Christ The union of the two natures in Christ’s person is denominated hypostatic, that is, personal. The two natures or substances (ousiai)20[Note: 0 20. οὐσίαι] constitute one personal subsistence (hypostasis).21[Note: 1 21. ὑπόστασις] A common illustration employed by the Chalcedon and later fathers is the union of the human soul and body in one person or the union of heat and iron, neither of which loses its own properties (Formula of Concord; Hase, Symbolical Books, 765). (See supplement 5.4.3.) The doctrine of the two natures implies the doctrine of two wills in Christ. Either nature would be incomplete and defective without the voluntary quality of property in it. Each nature, in order to be whole and entire, must have all of its essential elements. A human nature without voluntariness would be as defective as it would be without rationality. The monothelite party regarded the two natures as having only one theanthropic will between them: mia theandrikē enargeia.22[Note: 2 22. μὶα θεανδρίκη ἐναργεῖα = one theandric (i.e., God-human) energy] From the union of the two natures there resulted a will that was not divine solely nor human solely, but divine-human. The Monothelite contention was that “the one Christ works that which is divine, and that which is human, by one divine-human mode of agency” (Neander, History 3.177). This was in reality a conversion of the two natures, so far as the voluntary property in the nature is concerned, into a third species which is neither divine nor human. It was thus a modified Eutychianism. In opposition to this error, the Catholic theologians asserted two wills in order to the completeness of each nature and met the objection of the monothelites that there must then be two persons, by affirming that by reason of the intimate personal union of the two natures neither will works without the other’s participation in the efficiency. If the human will acts, the divine will submits and coacts. This is the humiliation of the divine. If the divine will acts, the human will submits and coacts. This is the exaltation of the human. One and the same Christ, therefore, performs the divine or the human action, as the case may be, although each action is wrought in accordance with the distinctive qualities of the will that corresponds with it and takes the lead in it. Moreover, as the human will in Christ was sinless, there was no antagonism between it and the will of the Logos. This is taught in the words nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42). Thus, in any agency of the God-man, although there are two wills concerned in it, a divine and a human, there is but one resulting action. Two wills are not incompatible with a single self-consciousness, even when they are not hypostaticly united in one person. The divine will works in the regenerate will “to will and to do,” and yet there is not duality in the self-consciousness of the regenerate man.
We have already observed that the personalizing of the human nature by its union with the Logos is seen in the fact that the activities of the human nature appear as factors in the single self-consciousness of the God-man. He is conscious of finite inclination and finite volitions; this proves that there is voluntariness in the human nature that has been individualized. He is conscious also of finite and limited perceptions, judgments, and conclusions; this proves that there is rationality in the human nature that has been individualized. These two elements or properties of human nature, the rational and the voluntary, are no longer dormant, as they are in all nonindividualized human nature, but are active and effective in the one self-conscious person Jesus Christ. And one of them is as necessary as the other to the wholeness and completeness of the human nature. To omit the will from the humanity is as truly an error as to omit the reason; and therefore the Monothelites deviated from the true doctrine as really as did the Apollinarians.
S U P P L E M E N T S
5.4.1 (see p. 653). The alternation in the self-consciousness of Christ, according as the human and divine natures advanced or retreated, explains how it was possible for him to have his desires unrealized and his endeavors thwarted. The question naturally arises how Christ could consistently and sincerely say, “How often would I have gathered your children, and you would not,” when as incarnate deity he could have inclined them to come to him. How could he have wept genuine tears over refusing Jerusalem, when he might, by the irresistible energy of the Holy Spirit, have overcome the opposition that caused his tears? The answer is that though he was God incarnate, it was a part of his humiliation to be “emptied,” for most of the time while here upon earth, of his divine power-that is, not to employ it continually and invariably as he did in his preexistent state. This exinanition made him like an ordinary man, who cannot prevail upon men except in the ordinary way of argument, entreaty, and persuasion, all of which might fail to move them. Though God incarnate, yet the nature of his mediatorial office while on earth, as one of humiliation, prohibited the constant use of his omnipotence. He was therefore in this low estate subject to the disappointment and grief which any one of his own ministers is subject to, when he sees no fruit of his labors and grieves over the perversity and obstinacy of men.
5.4.2 (see p. 654). Ursinus (Christian Religion Q.37) thus explains the communicatio idiomatum or communication of properties: “The communicating of the properties is to attribute that to the whole person which is proper unto one nature; and this is attributed in a concrete term [denoting the person], not in an abstract [denoting the nature]; because the concrete term signifies the whole person in which are both natures, and, consequently, the properties of that particular nature whereof something is affirmed. But the abstract term signifies only the nature which is in the whole person, but not the whole person. And therefore it is that nothing hinders why that which is proper to one nature only may not be affirmed of the whole person, so that this property itself may be in and of the person; but contrariwise of the abstract term, only the properties of that nature designated by it are affirmed unto it. As, for example, of the Godhood [deity], which is the abstract impersonal term, no property of the manhood may be affirmed, but only the properties of the Godhood, because Godhood [deity] signifies not the whole person who has both natures, but only the divine nature itself. But of [incarnate] God, which is the concrete or personal term, the properties not of the Godhood only, but of the manhood also may be affirmed; because incarnate God signifies not the divine nature merely and only, but the person who has both the divine nature and the human.”
5.4.3 (see p. 657). Charnock’s (Power of God) account of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ in one person is as follows: “(1) There is in this redeeming person a union of two natures. He is God and man in one person: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows’ (Hebrews 1:8-9). The Son is called God, having a throne forever and ever, and the unction speaks him man: the Godhead cannot be anointed, nor has any fellows. Humanity and divinity are ascribed to him in Romans 1:3-4 : ‘He was of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God by the resurrection from the dead.’ The divinity and humanity are both prophetically joined in Zechariah 10:10 : ‘I will pour out my Spirit’; the pouring forth of the Spirit is an act only of divine grace and power. ‘And they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced’; the same person pours forth the Spirit of God and is pierced as man. ‘The Word was made flesh’ (John 1:14). Word from eternity was made flesh in time; word and flesh in one person; a great God and a little infant. (2) The terms [factors] of this union were infinitely distant from each other. What greater distance can there be than between the deity and humanity, between the Creator and a creature? A God of unmixed blessedness is linked personally with a man of perpetual sorrows; infinite purity with a reputed sinner; eternal blessedness with a cursed nature; almightiness with weakness; omniscience with ignorance; immutability with changeableness; incomprehensibleness with comprehensibility; a holiness incapable of sinning made sin [a sin offering]; a person possessed of all the perfections of the Godhead inheriting all the imperfections of the manhood in one person, sin only excepted. (3) This union is strait [strict]. It is not such a union as is between a man and his house he dwells in; nor such a union as is between a man and his garment; nor such a union as one friend has with another. The straitness [strictness] of this union may be somewhat conceived by the union of fire with iron; fire pierces through all the parts of iron, it unites itself with every particle, bestows a light, heat, purity upon all of it; you cannot distinguish the iron from the fire, or the fire from the iron, yet they are distinct natures; so the deity is united to the whole humanity, seasons it, and bestows an excellency upon it, yet the natures still remain distinct. As during that union of fire with iron, the iron is incapable of rust or blackness, so is the humanity as united with the deity incapable of sin; and as the operation of fire is attributed to the red-hot iron (as the iron may be said to heat and burn, and the fire may be said to cut and pierce), yet the imperfections of the iron do not affect the fire, so in this mystery those things which belong to the divinity are ascribed to the humanity, and those things which belong to the humanity are ascribed to the divinity, in regard to the person in whom these natures are united. The divinity of Christ is as really united with the humanity as the soul with the body; so united that the sufferings of the human nature were the sufferings of that ‘person, and the dignity of the divine was imputed to the human by reason of that unity of both in one person; hence the blood of the human nature is said to be the blood of God’ (Acts 20:28).”