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2. PROPOSITIONS IN WHICH THE VIEW OF THE CHURCH MAY BE STATED.
a. There is but one person in the Mediator, the unchangeable Logos.
The Logos furnishes the
basis for the personality of Christ. It would not be correct, however, to say that the person of
the mediator is divine only. The incarnation constituted Him a complex person, constituted of
two natures. He is the Godman.
b. The human nature of Christ as such does not constitute a human person.
The Logos did not
adopt a human person, so that we have two persons in the Mediator, but simply assumed a
human nature. Brunner declares that it is the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ that at the
point where we have a sinful person, He has, or rather is, the divine person of the Logos.
c. At the same time it is not correct to speak of the human nature of Christ as impersonal.
This
is true only in the sense that this nature has no independent subsistence of its own. Strictly
speaking, however, the human nature of Christ was not for a moment impersonal. The Logos
assumed that nature into personal subsistence with Himself. The human nature has its personal
existence in the person of the Logos. It is in-personal rather than impersonal.
d. For that very reason we are not warranted to speak of the human nature of Christ as
imperfect or incomplete.
His human nature is not lacking in any of the essential qualities
belonging to that nature, and also has individuality, that is, personal subsistence, in the person
of the Son of God.
e. This personal subsistence should not be confused with consciousness and free will.
The fact
that the human nature of Christ, in and by itself, has no personal subsistence, does not mean
that it has no consciousness and will. The Church has taken the position that these belong to
the nature rather than to the person.
f. The one divine person, who possessed a divine nature from eternity, assumed a human
nature, and now has both.
This must be maintained over against those who, while admitting
that the divine person assumed a human nature, jeopardize the integrity of the two natures by
conceiving of them as having been fused or mixed into a tertium quid, a sort of divine-human
nature.
B. SCRIPTURAL PROOF FOR THE UNIPERSONALITY OF CHRIST.
The doctrine of the two natures in one person transcends human reason. It is the expression of
a supersensible reality, and of an incomprehensible mystery, which has no analogy in the life of
man as we know it, and finds no support in human reason, and therefore can only be accepted