A core teaching of the Catholic Church is that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man. His human nature and his divine nature exist together, united but distinct, in one divine Person.
As part of God’s saving plan, the Word of God took on a complete human nature when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The Second Person of the Trinity remained fully God but the Incarnation provided a human soul and human body.
Being fully human, Jesus has everything that a human person has, except for sin. No longer pure spirit but still God, Jesus has everything that a divine being has at the same time.
While the divine nature of Jesus never changes, his human nature allows Him to experience all things that humans experience, including change, emotions, suffering and even death.
Since death entered the world because of the sin of man, Jesus dual nature allowed Him to offer his sinless human Body on the Cross to redeem man and restore the relationship between man and God.
The mystery of the two natures in the one divine Person of Jesus was debated and challenged by various heresies that claimed that He was either only God, just partly God, or not God at all.
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, the Church responded to false teachings by declaring Jesus’ two full and complete natures as the hypostatic union, fully God and fully Man united in one divine person.
100% God and 100% man:
The incomprehensible mystery of the hypostatic union:
Two realities come together in one person:
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Natures that are distinct but not separate:
Divinity and humanity meet in Jesus:
The Word and the flesh, the divine glory and his dwelling among us! It is in the intimate and inseparable union of these two aspects that Christ’s identity is to be found, in accordance with the classic formula of the Council of Chalcedon: “one person in two natures”. The person is that, and that alone, of the Eternal Word, the Son of the Father. The two natures, without any confusion whatsoever, but also without any possible separation, are the divine and the human.
Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 6 January 2001
The fullness of God in a human body:
Jesus is God and the image of God :
The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 464
The early Church rejected errors about Jesus’ identity:
Jesus’ two natures were clarified by a council:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Maximum reverence:
Share this page with friends and family to start a conversation about your faith.
Don’t miss a post. Learn more about the Catholic Church and strengthen your Catholic faith.
Find more Fiercely Catholic video issues here.
Subscribe here.
