Chapter IV: (II) The factual material deals with the person and office of 34 Christ. The person of Christ consists of tw
CHAPTER IV: ON CHRIST’S TWO NATURES IN GENERAL
§ 34. Up to this point we have been explaining the nomenclature. Now follows the factual content in which we discuss (1) the person, and then (2) the office of Christ. Let this be the thesis, then: The person of Christ consists of two natures, the divine and the human. The ancients call the consideration of the divine nature 
[“theology”], but they call that of the human 
[“economy,” “dispensation,” “ministration”]. In Christ there is a duality of natures, because He is not only man, and a unity of person, because Christ is one, who consists of two and in two natures, and these two natures, personally united, are one Christ.
There are two natures in Christ.
There are in Him the one thing and the other [
], because the divine essence or nature is one thing and the human essence or nature is another thing, but there are not in Him the one subject and the other [
], because there is not one God and another man, but one God-man [
], and hence one person.
We prove this duality and diversity of natures in Christ: (1) From His titles. He is called “Immanuel, God with us” (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23), not only with regard to His office but also especially with regard to His person, because He is God and man in the unity of His person, as we have demonstrated earlier. The ecclesiastical title belongs here, that He is called 
[“the God-man”], as well as all the names of His office that indeed presuppose both natures and befit Him according to both natures, as will be demonstrated later. Such names are: “Jesus Christ,” “Savior,” “Redeemer,” “Mediator,” “King,” “Priest,” “Lord,” etc. Some refer to this the titles 
and 
(Prov. 30:1). You see, Ithiel means “with whom God is strong,” and Ukal means “He was able” or “He was powerful,” because of His divine power.
(2) From the prefiguration of types. Melchizedek was “without father, without mother, and without genealogy,” etc. (Gen. 14:18; Ps. 110:4; Heb. 7:3), in order to prefigure Christ, who is without a father according to His humanity and without a mother according to His divinity. In the burning bush (Exodus 3), the wood was not consumed by the fire, etc.
(3) From the description of each nature. Obvious and clear testimonies of Scripture are extant about the divine and human natures of Christ, as will become clear from what follows. Therefore we must acknowledge both natures in Him. We should not deny His true humanity because of our confession of His deity, nor should we deny His true divinity because of our confession of His humanity. John 1:14: “The Word became flesh.” 1 John 4:2: “Every spirit that confesses that Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” 1 Tim. 3:16: “God was manifested in the flesh.” Rom. 1:3[–4]: “The Son of God was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; declared the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctification through the resurrection from the dead.” Rom. 9:5: “Christ is from the fathers of the Jews according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever.”
(4) From an enumeration of His properties. Whomever the essential properties of the divine and human natures befit, in Him a duality of natures must be acknowledged, because the essential properties of the divine nature are in reality the same as the divine nature itself, and the essential properties of the human nature are consequences of the nature and secondary components of the nature. But now, the essential properties of the divine and human natures befit Christ. Therefore. The difference of the natures has not been removed through the union. Damascenus, bk. 3, ch. 17: “After it was deified, the flesh was not changed from its own nature or from its natural properties [
], for even after the union, both the natures remained unmixed and their distinctive properties were unharmed.” To this we can relate that obscure saying about Christ: “I am what I was; I was not what I am; and I am the two.” Again: “I am who I was; I was not who I am; and now I am called according to both, I have become both. You do not know Me unless you consider Me from both roots.”
§ 35. We add: (5) The constant and perpetual confession of the entire Church. Galatinus, De arcan. Cath. verit., bk. 2, ch. 2, proposes this rule:
Wherever the holy writings of the Old Testament hint at the essence of the one God, they almost always also hint in the same place at the plurality of the three persons; and in whatever passage they express the Trinity of persons, they almost always explain the unity of the divine substance in the same place. They do this lest, because of the unity of the singular (one) God, the Trinity of persons be excluded from the divine nature or, because of the Trinity of persons, people believe that there are plural gods. Rather, in the one instance, people believe that there are three divine hypostases distinct from each other without confusion; and in the other case, the unity of God is preserved.
In the same way we can form a similar rule with regard to Christ: Wherever the sacred writings of the Old Testament discuss the Messiah, they almost always explain the duality of the two natures and the unity of the person in the same place, lest people deny the duality of natures because of the unity of the person or claim that there are plural persons in Christ because of the duality of His natures. In the protevangelium (Gen. 3:15), the promised Messiah is called “the seed of the woman,” because, as true man, He was going to be born of the Virgin. To Him is attributed the bruising of the serpent’s head, because, as true God, He was going to destroy with His divine power the kingdom of Satan and restore the good things that had been lost through the fall. For this reason, Eve also assigns the name “Jehovah” to her son, whom she had falsely persuaded herself would be the Messiah (Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 26:4; 28:14). It says that the Messiah would be born of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and would bring back the blessing—that is, the spiritual and heavenly goods that had been lost through the fall. The former declares His true humanity, but the latter, His true divinity. In the promise of the Messiah repeated to David (2 Sam. 7:[19]; 1 Chron. [17:]17), both natures are mentioned: “You have seen me in the form of man, You who are God most high.” In the Psalms and the prophets the descriptions of both natures are always connected. Isa. 9:6: “Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given.” Jer. 23:5: “The Messiah is the shoot of David and Jehovah,” etc. The devout made the same confession regarding Christ in the apostolic church, as is evident from all the statements of the New Testament that deal with the person and office of Christ. The same thing was confessed with regard to Christ in the early church, which followed the apostolic church, as is evident from the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds.
§ 36. Here we should cite the outstanding statements of the fathers. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 9, p. 160: “To deny either divinity or the flesh of our body in Christ is a matter of the same peril, for the one without the other attributes no hope to our salvation. He who does not know Christ as true God and thus also as true man simply does not know, does not know his own life at all.” De Trinit., bk. 10, p. 205: “Christ is both God and man. He has within Himself what is man wholly and truly, and what is God wholly and truly.” On Psalm 46: “Who is this Christ who is of the Jews according to the flesh and who is God, blessed forever? He is God before the flesh, God in the flesh, God with the flesh.”
The Council of Chalcedon, in Zonaras, vol. 3, p. 139, and Evagrius, bk. 2, ch. 4, p. 810: “We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, who consists of a soul endowed with reason and of a body. He is of the same nature with the Father and of the same nature with us, and He has been made like us in every respect.”
Augustine, De civ. D., bk. 11, ch. 2: “Now the only way that is infallibly secured against all mistakes is when He Himself is at once God and man—God, to whom we go; and man, by whom we go.” De civ. Dei, bk. 18, ch. 46: “[He is] man, revealed, from a human, the Virgin; God, hidden, from God the Father.” Enchirid., ch. 35: “Jesus is the Son of God, God and man. He is God before all ages, man in our age. He is God, because He is the Word of God; man, because flesh and a rational soul come together to the Word in the unity of His person.”
Leo, Letter ad Flavian: “The same one who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity when the lowliness of man and the height of God are present together. After all, just as God is not changed by pity, so man is not consumed by dignity …. Just as the Word has not departed from the equality of the Father’s glory, so His flesh has not left the nature of our race; for the Son of God and the Son of Man are truly one and the same. He is God through ‘in the beginning was the Word’ [John 1:1]; man through ‘He was made of a woman, made under the Law’ [Gal. 4:4]. The birth of His flesh is the revelation of His human nature, the birthing of the Virgin is the proof of His divine power. The infancy of the little child is shown by the humility of the cradle; the magnitude of the Most High is declared by the voices of the angels.”
Vigilius, Contra Eutych., bk. 3: “Every confession is completely useless and wicked that reveres the Lord Jesus Christ only as God and not as man or only as man and not as God.”
Alcuin, De Trinit., bk. 3, ch. 15:
We must distinguish two substances in the one Christ: one that has its beginning from the Virgin’s womb, the other that has no beginning and is coeternal with God the Father; one that advanced in age and wisdom, the other that is the eternal wisdom and power of God; one that slept in the ship and was wakened by the apostles, the other that commanded the wind and the waves; one that wept for a dead friend, the other that called him forth from the grave solely with His voice and raised him to life; one that grieved to the point of death, the other that frees the saints from grief and gives them the joy of unending life; one that ascended into heaven in the sight of the apostles and is seated at the right hand of the Father, the other that never departed from the bosom of the Father but has always been with the Father and in the Father and never ceases to be with and in Him.
(Here, however, we must be careful lest a breaking apart or separation be inferred from the distinction of natures in their union or working, and lest the communication of divine properties made to the flesh be overturned, as we shall point out in greater detail below.)
Antithesis.
§ 37. Whoever denies either His divine or His human nature denies the duality of natures in Christ. You see, as the essential whole [totum essentiale] consists of its essential parts, the integral whole [totum integrale] of its integrating parts, such that the whole is destroyed if one part is denied, so also Christ, the person, consists of two natures, divine and human, such that if one or the other is denied, both the duality of natures and the unity of His person are undermined.
The Photinians especially, who follow the judgment of their reason, declare that the dogma of the two natures is absurd and paradoxical. Schmaltzius, Exam. 157 errorum, err. 6, p. 5: “That union of the two natures in Christ is so great a fable that hardly any fable is its equal. In addition to the fact that in the entire sacred codex no mention occurs of those two natures in Christ, tell me, please, what does that have in common with sound reason? After all, the one nature, the divine, is imagined to be a person; but the other, namely, the human, is not and cannot be a person but is I know not what, inhering in that person, but yet not an accident,” etc. Pisecius in Not. ad append. Vilkovianas, p. 29: “Whoever is God by nature is not man, and whoever is man by nature is not God. This opposition of the natures is valid, and Roman theology tries to dissolve that opposition by uniting the natures as a finite thing and an infinite one that are not in harmony with each other. I say, it tries to do that, but with no foundation of arguments besides that of Roman theology.”
However, what Vigilius (Contra Eutych., bk. 2, p. 34) once said against Photinus, their father, who in his explanation of the human nature inferred illogically a negation of the divine nature in Christ, so also we say the same thing against our Photinians, against “the bad egg of a bad raven” [
]:
When a Manichaean looks at the miracles of such great power that the Son of God has accomplished, he does not want to confess that He is man. When Photinus pays attention to the nature of our body in Him, he judges Him not to be God. The former does this to propagate His powers; the latter, to fill up His weaknesses. The former proclaims His deity; the latter proclaims His humanity. The majesty of so great a name calls the former back from a confession of His humanity. The humility of the injustices that the latter thinks unworthy of God holds him back in his confession of Him as only man. The miracles call the former away; the sufferings hold back the latter. The former is deceived by His deity; the latter is offended by His humanity. The former says, “He is God”; the latter, “He is man.” It is a great miracle for the truth to be confirmed by an attack on it, that both speak the truth when they both are lying. Hear then, O Manichaean, you speak the truth when you say that He is God, and you are deceived when you say that He is not man. And hear, O Photinian, He is truly man, as you assert, though not in the way you assert, but the same one is also God, whom you wickedly flee: He is God to such an extent that the Manichaean denies that He is man; He is man to such an extent that you do not believe He is God, etc.
We respond briefly. Articles of faith should not be opposed to each other but should be humbly believed, the judgment of reason having been taken captive to the obedience of one and the same faith. (The argument of the Photinians that Christ is man and therefore is not God was taken from the school of the Jews. John 10:33: “We stone You because of Your blasphemy, because You, being a man, make Yourself God.”)
[Questions.]
§ 38. (I) The question arises: What do “nature” and “essence” properly denote in this mystery? They call that “the essence of a thing” by which each thing is what it is, and which is explained by the definition of the thing. Some call it that by which a thing is established formally in a certain genus of being. This definition indeed befits the human essence, but it cannot be attributed to the divine, which obviously is not established in a certain genus of being but is Being beyond all being [
], which is not included within classes of categories but transcends all genera of beings.
“Nature” is either the same as “essence” or, if something adds to the essence, it is the essence clothed in its natural properties. Nature is the essence that constitutes a thing and distinguishes it from others, the intrinsic principle of actions. The divine nature of Christ is the divine essence by which Christ is coessential with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The human nature of Christ is the human essence or substance, consisting of a rational soul and the body as an instrument, by which Christ is consubstantial with us humans. The essence or nature differs from the person and subsistence, which the Greeks call “hypostasis.” The confusion of this distinction in this article is the target against which all heretics once struck, not knowing how to distinguish the person or hypostasis from the nature. (See Nazianzen, Orat. 2 de Filio; Theodoret, Dial. 2; and Damascenus, bk. 3, ch. 3 and 11.) However, this distinction will be discussed in our chapter on the personal union.
Now, does essence also differ from existence? The matter stands on the sense of the terms. If one understands nothing else by the word “existence” than the essence that exists in actuality, apart from consideration of its causes, there is no real difference between essence and existence. But if existence is taken as “subsistence,” that is, what exists of itself, by which something is not in another as in the terminus of its own existence but has complete existence of itself, then there is the sort of difference between essence and existence as there is between essence and subsistence or hypostasis.
§ 39. (II) The question arises: Are the two natures in Christ, properly speaking, contrary? Nazianzen, Theodoret, and others of the ancients sometimes call them contrary. Damascenus, bk. 3, ch. 3: “How will one and the same nature become capable of receiving contrary and essential differences?” From this the Photinians weave their argument: “It is impossible for two essences that are contrary to each other to be joined together in one person. But the divine and human natures in Christ are opposites. Therefore.” (See Catech. Racov., p. 55, and Socinus, Defens. animadv., p. 63.) Properly speaking, however, the divine and human natures are not contrary because, according to the philosopher, “nothing is contrary to substances”; they only differ. The example of man who consists of an immortal soul and corporeal body teaches that two essences that differ really according to themselves and according to their properties can be joined together in a single subject [suppositum]. (See our commonplace On God the Father and the Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], § 147.)
Socinus objects (loc. cit.): “It could perhaps occur that Christ may have been constituted from God and man, though the substances have contrary qualities or natural properties; but that the same Christ is both God and man must surely be counted among the things that are impossible, even more than that the same man is both soul and body, because the nature of God conflicts with the nature of man even more than does the nature of the soul with that of the body.” We respond. It is enough for us that man could have been constituted by God’s power from soul and body as from two substances having opposite qualities. From this we infer that by the same divine power the two natures, divine and human, could have been united personally. The fact that a third thing is constituted from soul and body is by accident, because these parts are not complete, and neither constitutes a person of itself. In Christ, therefore, a third thing that is neither God nor man is not constituted from the two natures, because before the incarnation the Word was a complete person. We must distinguish, therefore, between the thing and the manner of the thing. The negation of the manner does not remove the thing itself. Although the soul and body are not united in the same manner as the divine and human natures are united in Christ, they are nevertheless truly united, and that is enough, for our adversaries are attacking with their argument not the manner of the union but the union itself.
§ 40. (III) The question arises: What should be decided about the comparisons by which the devout ancients declare the union of the two natures in Christ? There are many of these, among which those stand out that are taken from a body endowed with a soul and from iron glowing with fire. Luther uses the comparison of a violet, in which the color purple signifies the crucified human nature and gold signifies the divine nature. In regard to these comparisons, however, we must decide the same thing that we made clear in its own place with regard to those things that are used to explain the mystery of the Trinity: “They are fitting, but not in every detail.” They are similar but not the same. Damascenus, bk. 3, ch. 26: “It is not necessary for models to be similar in every way and without failure to the things themselves, but to have something similar and something dissimilar.”
Let the same judgment be made about the types that are applied to this from the Old Testament. In the ark of the covenant there was cedar wood and gold. Hilary, explanation of Psalm 131: “The ark of the covenant was a representation of the body that the Lord assumed.” Hippolytus, in Theodoret, Dial. 1: “The ark was a type of Christ the Savior.” In the [burning] bush [Exod. 3:2], the fire is a very clear and penetrating symbol of the divine nature. The fire kindles the wood that has risen from the earth (which is a symbol of the human nature), but it does not consume it, because all the light of the divine majesty dwells in Christ’s human nature without consuming or destroying it. The Word took up the flesh, but did not take it away. The glory communicated to the flesh extols it, but does not remove it; perfects it, but does not kill it.
[Practical use.]
§ 41. The use is consoling. Because Christ is true God and true man, He is therefore also our true and perfect Savior, Mediator, and Redeemer. Anselm, Cur Deus homo, bk. 2, ch. 18:
The diversity of natures and the unity of person in Christ was powerful for this: that if the human nature could not do what had to be done to restore men, the divine would do it; and if that was not befitting for the divine nature, the human nature would provide it. It was not one and another who were doing it, but He Himself. Existing perfectly in both natures, He would pay through the human nature what was owed and would be able to do by the divine nature what was fitting…. The debt was so great that though no one but man had to pay it, yet no one but God could pay it, so that the same one who is God would be man. For that reason, it was necessary for God to assume man into the unity of His person, since He who had to pay the debt and was unable to do so would be in the person who could.
No one could make satisfaction except God; no one had the debt except man. If he is only man, he will not do it because he will not be able to pay. If He is only God, He will not do it because the debt is not His…. Therefore God became man in order that He who was able to pay might owe the debt and that he who had the debt might be able to pay it.
Here we must repeat the reasons why our mediator had to be both God and man. He had to be God because of the magnitude of the evil He had to wipe away and the magnitude of the good He had to bring in, for example: (1) For the sake of a sufficient and complete ransom. Had He not been God, His obedience and suffering would not have been a sufficient ransom for the sins of the whole world. (2) To bear divine wrath. A mere creature could not have borne the immense weight of sins and of the divine wrath due to the sins of the entire human race. (3) To remove evils. A mere man could not have wiped away sin, struck the head of the infernal serpent, destroyed the kingdom of the devil, and swallowed up death. (4) To restore goods. A mere man and finite creature could not have brought in perfect righteousness, distributed the Holy Spirit, and granted eternal life to believers. (5) To reveal the divine decree. A mere creature could not have known the decree of God regarding our salvation, something that nevertheless had to be revealed through the mediator. John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God.” (6) To defend the Church. A mere creature could not defend the Church against the devil and all the gates of hell; rather, a divine and infinite power is necessary for this. (7) To preserve the gifts granted. Our mediator had to preserve the gifts granted to us better than Adam, the first parent of the human race, who lost the gifts God gave him, not only for himself but also for all his descendants. But Christ preserves these gifts faithfully for all believers. (8) To hear prayers. The office of the mediator requires that He be everywhere present to His Church, that He listen to those who invoke Him, that as an intercessor He take their prayers to God. Surely, then, He had to be true God. (See more about these reasons in Irenaeus, bk. 3, ch. 9 and 20; and bk. 5, f. 293; Lactantius, bk. 4, ch. 23–25; Augustine, De civit. Dei, bk. 9, ch. 15; Fulgentius, De incarn. et grat., ch. 8; etc.)
On the other hand, He also had to be true man: (1) For the establishment of divine justice. Man had sinned; therefore satisfaction had to be provided through man. But what would yield to divine justice, which is totally unmoving and unchangeable? (2) To restore human nature. Through sin the entire human race and even all of human nature had been corrupted wretchedly so that all men were slaves to sin and condemned to eternal death. Therefore the Son of God in the assumed human nature was willing to overcome death and again lift up the wretched human nature to heavenly glory. (3) For our reconciliation with God. Through the sin of Adam we were all separated from God (Isa. 59:2). Therefore Christ united a human nature to Himself personally, that in and through it He might bring us back into communion with God. (4) To strengthen our faith. In, with, and through His human nature, the Son of God wanted to complete His work of redemption, that we might be assured that those benefits imparted by the suffering and death of Christ truly do belong to us and that we will be partakers of those good things. (5) For kinship with our nature. Christ wanted to deposit, in a manner of speaking, all His goods and the fullness of the treasures He acquired into His assumed human nature, according to which He is our brother and kinsman, so that through it they might be passed on to us and come down to us from the divine nature through the human nature. (6) To endure temptation. The Son of God assumed the human nature so that He could be tempted as any other true man and Himself experience the affections of those who are tempted (Heb. 2:17; 4:15). (7) To confirm the promise to hear. The Son of God wanted to become our brother through assuming flesh so that we, who flee in faith to Him as our brother and kinsman in all our perils and adversities, may be sure that He looks upon us and listens to us, etc. (8) So that the Redeemer would have the condition that the Law required. The divine Law had stipulated that the goel or redeemer had to be closely connected with the person to be redeemed according to the law of blood relationship, and he had to offer the redemption by paying a certain price (Leviticus 25). By assuming human nature, therefore, Christ wanted to become our kinsman to be able to free us legally and to purchase us with His blood to be His own. (9) For our adoption. Through sin we became the slaves of the devil. The Son of God, therefore, wanted to become a son of man that through Him we humans might become the children of God. (10) To certify our resurrection. The Son of God in the assumed human nature wanted not only to endure death but also to overcome it, that we might be made certain that our mortal bodies, too, will be raised up from the ground.