The focus shifted to the nature of the Son. Because He is God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), the central question became: How are we to understand His two natures?
Arius had got this debate rolling. As previously discussed, he viewed the doctrine of the Trinity as a threat to the oneness of God. His solution was to teach that the Son was not fully divine – almost God, but not quite. His assertion prompted the early Nicene Council (AD 325) which found him to be in error and affirmed the scriptural teaching of the deity of Christ and His eternal Sonship. Therefore, his solution was to deny that the Son had two natures and assert solely a human one.
Apollinarius was at the other extreme. He had no issue with the Son being fully divine. His issue was that He was not quite fully human. His concept was not that “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), but rather that the Word was covered in flesh. The divine nature was covered with a body, so that His humanity consisted merely of a body, while His soul and spirit were divine. The council at Constantinople (AD 381) wrestled with his concept that Christ was not fully human and concluded that Apollinarius was in error. They asserted that full humanity was required for Him to be able to be a true sin-bearer and thus be qualified as a satisfactory substitute on our behalf at the cross.
Nestorius affirmed the full humanity of Christ. His issue was reconciling how God could grow older and develop (cp. Luke 2:40) as a human being. On the other hand, he could not see how a human could perform a miracle. His reasoning was that, since the Son is both fully human and fully divine, He must therefore be two persons – a “diunity” (one being in two persons), analogous to the Trinity (one God in three persons). The council that convened in Ephesus in AD 431 debated this point, and out of it the phrase “hypostatic union” was coined. They denied Nestorius’ concept and taught that Christ is a unified person with two natures (divine and human). He does not and did not flip between one and the other depending on the circumstance – He is one person.
This led to an attempt to reconcile the two natures of the Son. Eutyches argued that they were amalgamated – the human nature was mixed with the divine. Naturally, he presented the divine overwhelming the human, but regardless, the upshot was a singular nature that was a mix of divine and human. The council of Chalcedon (AD 451) rejected this and affirmed that in the incarnation (literally, the taking on of flesh), the divine nature of the Son was unaltered, and the human nature was preserved intact.
These various strands of teaching were clarified and expanded in what has become known as the Chalcedonian Definition, which will be considered in the next article. The table below highlights the substance of what has been outlined in this article.
Proponent of error | Church Council | Year | Issue Affirmed – Christ is . . . |
Arius | Nicaea | AD 325 | Fully Divine |
Apollinarius | Constantinople | AD 381 | Fully Human |
Nestorius | Ephesus | AD 431 | One Person |
Eutyches | Chalcedon | AD 451 | Both Human and Divine |
I once heard Kevin DeYoung helpfully describe these different concepts in pictorial form on a podcast. When conceptualizing the dual natures of the person of Christ, visualise a circle labelled “God” and another circle labelled “Man”:
· With Arianism you have a line from “Man” that does not go all the way to “God”
· With Apollinarianism you have a line from “God” that does not go all the way to “Man”
· With Nestorianism you have lines leaving both “Man” and “God” that do not meet in the middle
· With Eutychianism you have a line floating in the middle that does not reach either side
The scriptural view, as defined by our brothers over these succeeding councils, is a line that goes all the way from “God” to “Man”, thus affirming that the Son fully possesses both divinity and humanity.
