Jesus is God and Human
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Hebrews 1:1-3
The question of exactly how the divine and human were united in Jesus was a pressing question in the early centuries of the church. Some wanted to emphasize the divine aspect of Jesus’ nature. They said that, as God, he only appeared to be human, for how could God suffer on the cross? Thus, when Jesus died on the cross, it must have been the appearance of suffering that Jesus underwent rather than real suffering. They thought the divine overshadowed the human in the life of Jesus. Other early theologians emphasized the human aspects of Jesus. They asserted that his apparent divinity was only the dignity of a creature rather than God. That is, the Son was the height of the Father’s creation but a created being nevertheless.
None of these seemed biblical or true to the early church. At several important church councils, at Nicea in 325 A.D. and Constantinople in 451, the church developed language that affirmed the full divinity and full humanity of Christ. It also distinguished between the person and nature of Christ. Christ’s person was the person of the Son. The use of the term “person” enabled the church to affirm the existence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the Trinity without suggesting three separate gods. Christ’s nature, however, was the same as the Father and Spirit. His nature was of the same substance and essence of God. His person was distinct from the Father and Spirit but his nature the same. One way to express this is to say that, as to his divinity, he is eternally begotten of the Father. As to his humanity, he is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. It was the Son of God who became truly human and lived among us.
The question remains, however, as to how God could suffer and die on a cross. The answer is that Christ suffered fully, as any person would, because he was fully human. In his humanity, Christ experienced the terrible pain associated with crucifixion on the cross. The divinity of Christ is known in the affirmation that he is the only begotten Son of God, who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” and who upholds the universe by the word of his power. His glory fills heaven and earth. In terms of his human life, the glory of Jesus is seen in his sacrificial death on the cross for the sake of others.
How then then did the human and divine combine in Jesus? This is a great mystery but one about which we can have a partial understanding. In Jesus two natures were present, divine and human, in one person. There was not a communication of attributes such that what resulted was a blending of the two natures that changed the integrity of either. Neither was Jesus, in some way, a hybrid of the human and divine. The church has always rejected any suggestion that the two natures blended in such a way that Jesus was either a third kind of being or someone who was neither truly God nor truly human.
In Jesus Christ we see the glory of God the Father. Jesus is not just “like” the Father. Rather, he is the “exact imprint” of his very nature. In other words, Jesus Christ was both God and human. This is the wonder, miracle, and mystery of the Incarnation.