Section 9
essence. Actually, any conception is a matter of mingling. With the conception of the Man- Savior the divine essence was not merely added to the human essence; on the contrary, the divine essence was mingled with the human essence.
In ancient times there was a debate regarding the word "mingling." Some who did not under stand the matter of the mingling of the divine essence with the human essence in the Person of Jesus Christ taught the heresy that this mingling means that Christ was not quite God nor quite man but a third thing with a third nature, some thing neither God nor man. What a great heresy this was!
Nevertheless, even though this word has been used wrongly, the Bible reveals the truth that Christ our Lord is the mingling of God with man. But this mingling did not cause Him to lose either the divine nature or the human nature, and it did not produce a third nature. Rather, in this mingling both the divine essence and the human essence remain distinguishable, and no third nature, no third essence, is produced.
We agree with the first definition of the word "mingle" given in Webster's Unabridged Diction ary: "to combine or join (one thing with another, or two or more things together), especially so