Is it Correct to Speak of Jesus as a Being of Two Natures?
Perhaps, we should understand that at the root of humanity’s existence is our innate compatibility with the nature of God. Created in the image and likeness of God and bearing a moral conscience are innate aspects of being human that make us compatible with God’s nature. This being said, it is evident that a creature with a beginning, a creature that must develop in a hostile environment, who is separate from the deity, would fail at exhibiting God’s character (nature) without some assistance from the deity (Spirit).
The absence of God depicted in the Edenic narrative and afterwards in scripture is a subject worthy of our reflection. I have offered some thought on this subject in my books.
John’s gospel proclaims that Jesus is the only begotten son in an effort to communicate the uniqueness of Jesus. Expressing the incarnated uniqueness of Jesus, scripture uses concepts such as word of God and wisdom of God, these aids guide us in reaching towards reflecting on the mystery of God becoming a human being without exception. Paul will touch the mythical and speak of Jesus as the last Adam - fulfilling a historical role as the progenitor of the children of God in a way that is not subject to biological order, but attests to identity, uniqueness, and completion of God’s will.
It is evident in the gospels that Jesus’ life was prepared with stories, experiences, and a setting wherein exhibiting the nature of God without failure was made possible. So, although Jesus experienced all the struggles (temptations) of the weakness of being an enfleshed creature, Jesus was instructed by the ‘Father’, prepared by his family’s stories, his Jewish heritage, the blessing of a healthy mind, so that fulfilling the image of God as a human being was ensured.
Jesus possessed, as an adult, a vision of God in complete harmony with who God is. This vision, this understanding, informed all of Jesus’ decisions and actions, it resonated with his being. Yet, it is evident that the will of Jesus was not identical to the will of his father in relation to submitting himself to crucifixion. This moment of conflict in the soul of Jesus attests to his sanity. A sane person does not desire to subject themselves to torture and the horrors of crucifixion. Perhaps, from the perspective of Jesus, the cross as part of God’s self-revelation in Christ Jesus was difficult because it is so damning of humanity? From the obverse view of the cross as self-sacrificing love is the view of the cross as revealing humanity’s way of living to be diametrically opposed to the nature of God.
Herein lies the existential conflict of being human; the nature of God is compatible with being human because of image, likeness and moral conscience, yet being human is diametrically opposed to the nature of God because human beings undo creation rather than submit to the voice of God in the structures of their being and of reality. We are perennially attracted to the tree in the center of the garden that requires the submission of our freedom (choice) to God’s limits on our existence. Humanity needs an encounter with God that will align humanity with the nature or holiness of God.
This existential conflict culminates in Christ in a final battle - in the cross – God become a human being (Jesus the Christ) faces the enemy of God and the mortality of being human with outstretched arms, embracing the suffering of existence, exhibiting the nature of God (mercy, love, forgiveness) and reconciles flesh and spirit.
The final word of humanity on human existence is the cross, the crucified God-Man has made part of what it means to be God is to be human. The son has kissed the father and the two are become one. Humanity can live as enfleshed spirit, humanity can be taught the ways of the Lord. The final word of God on human existence is the resurrection, death is rendered powerless and God who is love has been revealed. Humanity can know the transcendent one as creator, as father, as Lord.
Returning to the Question
I want to entertain this thought that in Christ Jesus, God became a human being without exception. I consider the concept of possessing two natures to constitute an exception to Jesus’ humanity. Further, it seems the defining of the concept of nature in relation to God is separate from the transcendent reality of God; we can think of God only in relation to our existence. Likewise, God can only reveal God’s self to us through the realities of our existence and in relation to our relatedness with God.
As a word, ‘nature’ can only be grasped from a linguistic perspective of being human. So, in defining God’s nature, we do so as linguistic creatures, this limits our ability to define God’s nature to our use of language. We need a revelation of God, a self-revealing of incomparable significance to aid us in knowing God in a cognitive manner. Yet, that revelation must be articulated, and able to touch us in all our humanity.
Because we are image-bearing creatures with a moral conscience, we can say that being human is consistent with the nature of God. Although, fulfilling the qualifications of living out the nature of God as a human being is problematic. The problem is not an opposing nature, it is the limits and challenges that interrupt the pursuit of being like our ‘Father’.
Of course, we must contend with the word and concept of sin. Sin is a relational word. First, is the relationship we have with our creator, a relationship established through image and likeness. It is the voice of God ever calling us to live as an enfleshed spirit. To live out the freedom of choice in a loving, redemptive, imaginatively creative way while using words to reflect our relatedness to God. Our failure ‘creates’ a rift in reality that is the realm of mercy where God lets us live in spite of the violence of our sin. Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God is a call to access a new reality that is in conflict with the present.
Also, there is the relationship we have with others. Inclusion through the concepts of mercy, grace, and forgiveness is essential to a successful relationship under the sun where life takes place. The inter-relatedness of humanity makes every sin consequentially repercussive for all of us. Sin is so damaging to reality that it is never merely ‘individual’.
Then, there is the relationship we have with ourselves. Our moral conscience ever calling us to fulfill the image and likeness of God that is ours as creatures related to God as ‘Father’. This is the realm of contemplation where self-reflection takes place and the potential for maturation and development of living out the image and likeness of God takes place. If you will, our self reflects upon our self to create a new self. To refuse the moral conscience and reject the challenge of self-reflection is sin.
Sin is a position before God and not reflective of God’s nature. Sin is the undoing of God’s intent for human freedom, it (sin) is a reality that God allows to exist that we might know God as gracious and merciful, as love. Sin is not humanity’s nature. Our nature is either developed in the process of being lived or undone by our choice. Our ongoing conflict is with choice, we must choose to submit to the voice of God found within us, around us, that makes every day ‘today’ so that if we will hear his voice we will find rest from our conflicted selves. When we align ourselves with God’s nature we bring God into the world; this is the presence of the Kingdom of God, of rest, of being in Christ, of receiving eternal life in our souls.
God’s nature needs some sort of definition for us to even grasp the challenge of living in relationship with God. Since, the evolved meaning of the English word ‘nature’ is not compatible with the word(s) for nature used by the New Testament writers, I will work with the meaning for the word nature consistent with modern understanding.[1]
There is the inwardness of knowing through conscience, through image and likeness that is revealing of God’s ‘nature’. I think it is correct to say, It is God’s nature to be holy, God cannot be other than who God is. However, we human beings can be other than who we have been created to be; this we call sin. Holiness then is God’s nature.
Created in God’s image and likeness, God made us related to God. God’s nature is to be holy. God cannot be other than who God is; meaning there is no lack in God’s being that would cause, contribute to, or make possible, any change or shadow of possibility for God’s character to be changed or diminished. This is so because God is one, the cause and creator of existence and all that we see. God’s self-sufficient existence, Lord of existence, and the sole source for all being, for all life, make any rift in God’s ‘holiness’ to be impossible.
Holiness, as a word, represents the uniqueness of existence that only God can possess (God’s nature) and is understood in relation to humanity as God sharing God’s self with us. Holiness in humanity is by association with God, we have no inherent holiness. It is because God related us to God that we can share in the holiness (nature) of God.
Summary
The incarnation of God as a human being is possible because of image and likeness. In the incarnation, God became a human being without exception. The holiness of God in Christ during his earthly sojourn was lived out daily, experientially. Christ Jesus was not immune to the power of sin present in the world. Jesus vision of God was nurtured by the stories of his mother, the story of his conception, his birth, his cousin, by his Jewishness, by the attentiveness of his ‘Father’ in heaven who watched over his development. Jesus’ vision of God connected Jesus with the indomitable power of spirit within his humanity to live out image and likeness and not fall into the position of sin. Jesus did not have two natures.
Excursus
A Few Notes on the Human Condition
I prefer to use the phrase human condition rather than applying the concept of nature to universal human behavior. As creatures created in the image and likeness of God, bearing a moral conscience and facing the reality of death, our condition is more conflicted than use of the word nature entails. The word nature does not leave room for variance, change, or possibility.
Our existence, the unreliability of our behavior, according to a God speech in Hosea, has produced times of conflicted response from God (Hosea 6:4). The question posed in the God speech is not merely rhetorical it is richer than rhetoric and even using the word conflicted is inadequate, it is a place to begin. God it seems, is struggling with humanity’s continual failure to respond to God’s goodness. Jeremiah will write in a God speech that God thought he would get a different response from Israel (humanity) than he received (Jeremiah 3:7,19). I have stated that it seems God is surprised by the human propensity for evil (violence) based upon my readings of the prophets. In relation to humanity, God experiences conflicted emotions. God’s expectations for human behavior affirms that possibility for a different outcome was real and God’s hope was disappointed.
Rather than apply to our state of being the concept of a fallen nature, it seems more fitting to begin with the concept of a condition because we are creatures in conflict. Our inward self is related to God and given both image and likeness. Likeness is, in part, the power to create reality, it is also a freedom of choice that allows for both difference with God and even the choice to say no to God without being removed from existence! Likeness is also resident in the image of God that enables us to respond relationally to God and one another as spirit through love, kindness, service, and giving of self for the sake of the other.
Yet, we are creatures, not spirit. We live facing the unnatural reality of death. Death will always be unnatural to creatures bearing the image and likeness of God. It is notable that death is God’s enemy, this is so because of God’s desire for humanity to know and love God and one another.; death impedes our development as human beings. As creatures, we experience the cheapening of life because of the presence of death. As creatures, we fear death and pursue self-preservation. Self-preservation is an instinct and can be subject to rational thought (ethics) but the instinct speaks, always reminding us of the brevity of life.
As instinctual creatures, we descend quickly into violence. Violence is first inward, it is the no to God, it is the refusal to become spirit in the face of death. As breathing, defecating, procreating, creatures, our instinctual drive mixes with our desire for godlikeness (creating reality to suit our individual existence) creates a descending spiral into unchecked violence.
Our condition as conflicted creatures is the adventure of life under the sun. Our error is to resist the call of God for a world without violence. This is the true adventure, the soul learning to live within the context of a struggle that is at times paradoxical. A struggle that cannot be challenged without grace and mercy, without forgiveness, without self-giving love, without redemption, without reconciliation, without all the finer attributes of our potential as human beings to be godlike.
As creatures, we also experience the formation of our lives through events that begin to impact our development long before we are cognitively capable of any power of choice. This is humanity’s inter-relatedness. We are all in this together. It is evident that we were not created to rule over one another. It is even correct to say we are not fit to rule over one another. The power that liberates humanity from the conflict of our existence as beings is to serve one another; to be our brother’s keeper.
[1] The Old Testament language of Hebrew does not possess a word translatable as the English word nature. In the NRSV the word nature is added to the text often as contextual explanation and not translated from any Greek word. Briefly, the root for one of the words for nature in the New Testament is translated as being or presence and indicates existence. It is primarily theology that has caused the word nature to be a problematic word. Theological use of the word nature has loaded the word with meaning that was not present to the New Testament writers.
