Jesus as the God-Man

What is the relationship between Christ's humanity and deity?

Jesus Christ is unique. He is a divine-human being. This is called the Hypostatic Union of Christ. There has never been another like Him nor will there ever be. The Bible is His story of redeeming His people. He came to earth to die for our sins so that we might have eternal life. For Jesus Christ to be a complete and perfect Savior, He thus had to be fully God and fully man.

The first aspect of Jesus humanity and deity in their relationship is the truth that they are both fully in Christ. Christ was 100% God and 100% man. Without diminishing either His perfect deity or His complete humanity He lived in one body on this earth as both God and man. As the Athanasian Creed states, “Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human”. Nestorius taught that Jesus’ divinity must be shielded from His humanity. He declared Jesus to be two distinct separate people. That is not what the Bible makes clear about the relationship of Christ two natures.

The second aspect of Christ’s two natures in His one being, is the truth that they were united natures, being they were unified in Christ. Christ never once contradicted Himself. What His deity did, His humanity also did. What His humanity did, His deity also did. Christ was unified within Himself, as John Calvin so helpfully points to in his Institutes 14.1, “He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person”.

The Gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God”. Jesus Christ is fully God. But John continues in verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as the only Son from the Father”. Jesus Christ was also fully human at the incarnation. This means Jesus contained two perfect, yet fully distinct natures, unified in His one person, all for His glory to bring salvation to the elect for the glory of the Father.