How do Christians Explain Jesus’ Two Natures in One Person?

Here’s a short quiz about what all Christian traditions—Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox—believe about Jesus. Are the following statements true or false?

• Jesus appeared as if he were human but he actually was not.
• Jesus was created before the creation of the world.
• Jesus is half God and half man.
• Jesus did not actually take on human flesh because humanity is sinful and Jesus did not sin.
• The second member of the Trinity (Jesus, the Son) came into existence at his birth.
• The baby Jesus who was birthed by Mary is not the same as the One who created Mary.

The historic Christian creeds (i.e. Nicaea and Chalcedon) would consider each of these to be false. The first statement is associated with the heresy of Docetism and the second with Arianism. The third statement is one I made during a college Bible study and my leader was quick to point out that the appropriate language is “fully God and fully man” (hey, I was spouting heresy back in the day!). The last statement may sound accurate, but it fails in that it separates the incarnation of Jesus from the One through whom all things were created (see John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16).

Christians assert that Jesus was fully God and fully man, two natures that co-exist in one person.
The precise language to describe this relationship, however, took a few hundred years to sort out and affirm universally through its various creeds. The views that were rejected tended to overemphasize one part of the truth to the detriment of the other. For example, they might highlight the deity of Christ to the neglect of his humanity (or vice versa). Let’s consider a broad overview of this approach:

Overemphasis of Jesus’ Deity to the Detriment of His Humanity
The early heresy of Gnosticism tended to teach a spirit / matter dualism that saw anything material as being evil. An outgrowth of this was a teaching called Docetism which said that Jesus only appeared (from the Greek word dokeo) to be human. Apollonarianism was another teaching associated with this overemphasis of Christ’s deity to the denial of his full humanity.

Overemphasis of Jesus’ Humanity to the Detriment of His Deity
Adoptionism was a view that Jesus was human, but at some point was adopted as God’s Son (e.g. at his baptism). God’s Spirit, however, abandoned Jesus at his crucifixion. Arianism was another view rejected because it undermined the full deity of Christ by teaching that Jesus was a created being.

Overemphasis of Jesus’ Two Natures to the Detriment of the Unity of His Person
Nestorianism tried to make too much of a distinction between the eternal Son of God and the human Jesus born to Mary. What was born of Mary was human, not the one who created Mary. The early church concluded that this separation of the two natures did not do justice to the unity of Jesus’ person.

Overemphasis of the Unity of His Person to the Detriment His Two Natures
Perhaps in overreaction to the Nestorian controversy, Monophysitism believed there was a fusion of Jesus’ two natures into one. The two natures—human and divine—were mixed together to create one single nature (neither fully human nor divine). The early church rejected this view as well.

Jesus is fully human and fully God, two natures in one person. Ultimately, this should not be simply the basis for theological speculation but an opportunity to worship our wonderful Savior in all his splendor!