CAN
WE SEPARATE THE TWO NATURES OF CHRIST FOR THEOLOGICAL STUDIES?
In the year 457, the Council of Chalcedon, declared
official orthodox doctrine the monoprosopic doctrine of Christ, that asserted
that Lord Jesus had two natures, one divine and one human, united in a single
personality, and that these two natures were impossible to separate while they
remained independent from one another in their qualities (1)
This was born from a possible misunderstanding of
the teachings of bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia, who was alleged to profess a duoprosopic
doctrine of Christ, where our Lord had two persons, instead of one; and since
we cannot access these days their writings from first hand, and since Nestorius,
the man at the time being condemned for representing this Antiochian view and rejecting,
based on that, the term ‘THEOTOKOS’ or ‘Mother of GOD” applied by the council
to St Mary the mother of our Lord; we can only assume a conspiracy in this case,
especially since the Church of the East, who accepted Nestorius when he ran away
from the Roman Empire in search of refuge, has never accepted and taught ‘two
persons’ in Christ, as the cannons of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon
proclaimed; but instead have sustained that Jesus had two natures, living independent
in one person, Jesus of Nazareth, but that even though these two natures are
together in Christ, they must not be confused one with another.
The Assyrian Church of the East, founded by Thomas
the apostle, has since then proclaimed Nestorius doctrines to be such and not
the kind of duoprosopic doctrine Nestorius was alleged to proclaimed, and has
elevated even the status of Nestorius to the rank of saint and martyr of the Christian
Faith. (The Church of the East is also Nicene Trinitarian).
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT THE HYPOSTATIC
UNION AND THE TWO NATURES OF CHRIST
We have written before about the canonical definition
of the hypostatic union and the concept of it from Scripture, but not about how
this concept needs to be handled, according to Scripture.
The Bible teaches that Jesus is divine (John 1:1;
Colossian 1:19), and also human (John 1:14; 1John 4:2).
But it also teaches that the Logos IS Jesus Christ
in the flesh, and not a possessing force into a different human body, or a
human person adopted ‘as’ Son of God, or any other form, except the INCARNATION
OF THE DIVINE LOGOS:
“And the Word became flesh”
John 1:14
A humanity not adopted, but begotten by GOD the
Father YHWH in St Mary, the mother of our Lord:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Most-High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be
borne will be called holy—the Son of God.”
Luke 1:35
As far as this, the Bible agrees with the
traditional concept of hypostatic union, but how strict can we be with the term
that they are ‘indivisible’ (2).
REASONING
Jesus is one, not also by Scriptural teaching but by
reason.
GOD is perfect, and is also jealous. He never shares
his glory with anyone of anything.
God could not have possessed a person, having
created humanity, to show Himself as human. But He created a human for his own
existence in our earthly nature. BUT also, He could not exist in two persons,
since He is ONE and INDIVISIBLE.
To fail to any or all of these two issues, would
have cause to commit idolatry, since we would be worshipping a human form,
independent from the divine being. But
the Logos, incarnated and became Jesus of Nazareth, having divine and human
nature, in one single being.
BUT does that mean that Jesus, as a human did not
need to eat or sleep? Or as divine, He
could sin or die?
No.
The two natures, as traditional Christianity proclaims,
are not mingled, and therefore, they can be divided conceptually for the
purpose of theological study.
As a human, Jesus of Nazareth had to learn, digest,
grow, and get tired as any other human being, even though He was sinless from
birth, since his humanity had GOD the FATHER and not another human as progenitor,
who could pass Him, Adam’s fall.
However, as a sinless human being, He could not get
sick, or age, or die for natural causes, the same way as Adam was prior to the
fall.
BUT AS GOD, He knew everything, He was omnipotent, omniscient
and omnipresent all the time. He could not die, or be begotten, or be taught,
or tempted, or sin. He remained sovereign and immutable, as He was from the beginning,
all during his life on Earth, and as He is now, forever and ever.
If we mixed these two natures, we fall into mistakes
like saying that GOD died with Jesus on the Cross, or that Mary is the ‘Mother
of GOD’, which are blasphemies indeed.
When Jesus suffered on the cross and died, only his
humanity died, not his divine part. Even though this divinity followed his humanity
during all the passion and death, and even followed Him into Hades, his
Divinity was untouched, and is that divinity that sustained the human part of
Jesus through all temptations and sorrows, and resurrected Him, by the will of
the Father, on the third day.
GOD CANNOT DIE OR SUFFER.
The same way, GOD YHWH, through this Holy Spirit, impregnated
St Mary, taking from her DNA to form the embryo of Jesus, who then developed
into a foetus, and then born a baby boy. The divinity of Jesus did not enter,
but ‘followed’ the process of impregnation, so that in no moment his humanity
was detached from his divinity, but in regards to Mary, her DNA was used ONLY
to beget the human nature of the Son of God, never his divine, which
pre-existed and existed at all moments, independent from her.
MARY WAS THE ‘CHRISTO-TOKOS’ or MOTHER OF JESUS, and
not the Mother of God, even though it was born as an honorary title and not a
theological concept, since at all times the baby in her womb was also divine.
LAST WORD
The Christology of the Bible, our only source of
truth; is very general in its teachings, and generally suffers when subjected
to the curiosity of men who aim to know the mechanics of the mysteries that God
has revealed in his word.
But us Christians, should never forget to protect
GOD’s honour and his immaculate dignity, before we submerge ourselves into the
depths of the biblical knowledge, avoiding thus, to fall into the same mistakes
of our ancestors did.
Omar Flores.
(1)
The Oecumenical Documents of the
Faith by T. Herbert Brindley, 1899, p.297.
(2)
The Emergence of the Catholic
Tradition (100-600) volume 1, by Jaroslav Pelikan,
1971, p.394.
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