Does God Have Two Natures?

All Christians believe there is only one God—Yahweh—who exists as three “persons” or “hypostases.” (The word “person” is problematic because of American individualistic culture. Augustine rightly said we do not say “persons” because we want to but because we have no alternative.) However, traditionally, Christian theologians have argued that our one God has only one nature whereas Jesus Christ, God incarnate, has two natures—human and divine.

But, if Jesus is still human, as the Bible more than implies, doesn’t God have two natures—divine and human—because the second person of the Trinity is the man Jesus? It seems so.

The fourth ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon (451), decided that Jesus Christ is one person, the eternal Son of God, God the Son, equal with the Father, who took on a human nature having two natures “without separation or division, without confusion or change.”

When Jesus ascended after his resurrection the angel said to the disciples that “this same Jesus will return even as you have seen him go.” 1 Timothy 2:5 says that there is “one mediator,” “the man Christ Jesus.” Jesus is still the second person of the Trinity; the second person of the Trinity is Jesus. Jesus did not “drop his humanity” when he ascended!

So, the Trinity is Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. A man, Jesus Christ, is “part” of the Trinity. (“Part” is a problematic term here since the three “persons” of the Trinity are not really “parts” of God but equal and inseparable hypostases, subsistences, within the one, perfectly united Godhead.)

The point here is that the man Jesus Christ is one of the three “persons” of the Trinity which means the Godhead includes a human being, however, exalted, glorified, transformed. Still a human being. Thus, God has two natures—divine and human, but only since the incarnation. Thus—God has changed. So much for “divine immutability.” Sure, and of course, God never changes in terms of his eternal divine attributes. God doesn’t lose some or gain some. However, with the incarnation and forever afterwards, God gained a second nature, human. Thus, Karl Barth rightly wrote a book entitled “The Humanity of God.”

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