Jesus had two natures—one divine and one human.
A nature is a complex of attributes that comprise the essence of a thing. It is those qualities which makes something what it is; qualities without which it would cease to be that thing.
e.g., a mammal has a backbone, produces milk, has hair/fur, and is warm-blooded.
a fish has scales, gills, and fins, and is cold-blooded.
a bird has a backbone, feathers, and wings, and reproduces by laying eggs.
Take any of these away, and they are no longer fish, birds, or mammals
Romans 1:3–4—He was “made of the seed of David” (a reference to his human nature; it had a beginning) but “declared to be the Son of God” (a reference to his divine nature, the eternal essence of God).
Romans 9:5—He is “Christ according to the flesh,” “God blessed forever more.”
At the same time, Christ had one indivisible person, seated in the Logos (the divine nature), that governed both natures simultaneously.
A person has a nature (or in the case of Christ two natures) but is something more—independent subsistence, individuality, self-consciousness, self-determination, etc.
- Jesus never refers to himself in the plural. Jesus distinguished himself from other men (John 8:23), from God the Father (John 8:18), and from the Holy Spirit (John 16:7); but never from himself, that is, he never distinguished between the natures in his own person and attributed certain activities to just one of them.
- Both natures find expression in the one person of Christ.
John 8:58—“I AM”
John 19:28—“I thirst.”
Sometimes these even appear side by side:
Matthew 8:24–26—He awoke (man) and calmed the storm (God).
John 4:6–7, 13–14—He was thirsty (man), and offered living water (God).
1 Corinthians 2:8—They crucified (man) the Lord of Glory (God).
The “hypostatic union” is a unification of the two natures of Christ without mixture of those two natures. If these two natures were to mix with each other, we would not have had God or man, but a compound nature that is neither.
For instance, red paint is useful for making stop signs. Blue paint is useful for making hospital signs. Mix them together and they will be purple, which is used to make no road signs. It has lost its value.
Likewise, as a man, Christ could suffer and die and impute his life and death to us. As God he could give infinite value to that death. Mix them, and he could have done neither. So it is essential to keep his natures separate.
Jesus was “very God of very God and very man of very man.” He was truly God and truly man in one indivisible person. He was the God-man.
By means of this union, certain divine powers could be transmitted to the human nature without passing over the divine essence over to the human nature.
Stand Firm! 