12/28/12- Two natures in one person

³ regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thoughts: This passage sounds like some of the councils debating the nature of Christ- his humanity and divinity (like Chalcedon below).  Here Paul speaks of the human nature (of David) and the divine nature (declared by the Spirit and the resurrection).  Paul is explaining the theology of Christmas- God becoming man.  Jesus went to Bethlehem because he was a descendant of David. He was declared divine by the angels who appeared to Joseph, Mary, and the shepherds, and the guidance of the magi to Jesus.  Jesus was not just divine- he was born in all too human a fashion- left out- in poverty.  He later showed his humanity in weeping, suffering, hungering and thirsting, and the most human thing of all- dying. Jesus was not just human- with no supernatural signs of his divinity.  We follow Jesus' example of love and service as a human.
        We believe and trust in his ability to help us because he is not just human but divine.  Today some have no problem with Jesus being an angel-like being (Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims).  Others have no problem with his humanity- but think anything supernatural is just made up/myth (Marcus Borg, John Shelby Spong, Jesus Seminar leaders, deists, et al. ).  If God is God, we would and should expect Him to act and interact with His creation.  To say that this is unnecessary or impossible is to put ourselves in God's place.  On the other hand those who say that Jesus could not have become human because this is too mundane for God are unable to appreciate the great humility, servitude, and love of God.  We really need both to appreciate the richness of God.  

Prayer: Help me, O Lord to appreciate both your humanity and your divinity.  Help me to follow in your footsteps but also rely on you each step of the journey. 


Chalcedon's Definition of 451 says in part: 

"one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεὸν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;"

[There was a time when the Coptic churches (mainly of Egypt), and the Jacobite churches (mainly of Syria and Armenia) rejected this definition entirely following Cyril of Alexandria's idea of oneness-miaphysite.  In recent times Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Batholomew I have restatted this position to include Cyril's and the miaphysite poisiton as part of orthodoxy].