6/6/16

Two natures of Christ as revealed in Scriptures

While the divine nature doesn't have any need of "improvement" the divine nature does communicate attributes to His humanity. Hence He healed with human touch yet the power to heal was divine. He walked on water with human feet, but the power to do so on water was divine. His human blood paid for our sins but as that was the blood of God, it was His divine nature that gave it divine saving power. He walked through closed door with His human body but it is His divine power that allowed Him to go through that door. He died on the Cross for our sins as death was a human characteristic yet it is proper to say God died according to the flesh. For while the divine nature cannot die, the person of Jesus did died because His human nature did possessed death as an attribute. But it was divine power that raised Him from death and defeated death. His submission to do God's will reflected His human will which submitted to the divine will which He possessed (hence one person of God and man, with two natures and two wills, neither mixed, as when some say the humanity of Christ ceased to exist, nor seperated, as when some say omit the man Jesus was born, but not the divine Jesus). Such are many examples in the Gospels of His two natures in communion together, working together, and involving communication of attributes.

More to the point, He showed He isn't limited to one spot to the human eye then when He promised to heal a human from miles away and He healed that person right there and then despite to the human eye, the distance between Him and the person healed. He said He would be with us to the end of the ages. He spoke from context of having all authority given Him. Now that wouldn't be in accordance with His divine nature, since as God, He had authority all along. It would be in accordance with His human nature that is glorified by His resurrection and Ascension. So likewise, His promise to be with us would mean the whole Jesus, including His humanity, not just the divine nature. And He could do so despite human nature by itself limited to one location because of it joined in communion with the divine nature in one person where the divine nature can communicate attribute to it without obliteration the human nature and without taking away from the human nature retaining its own characteristics. Hence, it wasn't impossible with Him as God Incarnate to be present in body and blood in the Eucharist even when He was there to the  human eyes and ears to institute it. Nor impossible now to be present in both Baptism and Eucharist though both are all over the world.

To have a Jesus with us with only the divine nature in Word and Sacrament would mean a pre-incarnate God the Son, not Christ as Incarnate God as He is now. He is both God and man. It is proper to say the Man Jesus, as Paul called in 1 Timothy 2, was God as Paul called him in Philippians 2. And it is proper to call the God Christ man as well. God is man, and man is God are proper phrases in reference to Christ and no one else. He is with us to the end of the ages as both God and man as He promised He would. If He was just man only, He would not have been able to do so. But He was also God so what He wills divinely, He could accomplish. The whole person of God with us (as in Immanuel) is thus not destitute of His humanity.

Think of fire and iron joined together. Fire (like divine nature) heats up the iron (as in human nature). Fire remains fire with own characteristic while iron has communication of attributes (heat) given it. And iron still retains own characteristics even as it takes on new characteristics. Yet together iron and fire though two become joined, with each retaining own characteristics yet fire giving iron its heat.

This the God and Savior of all men that we confessed to.

Here we stand.

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