Having asked and answered the question of “what” Jesus Christ is (CLICK HERE to read previous posts in this blog series), this leaves us with the next question of “Who” Jesus Christ is? Remember that it’s not “what is calling me on the phone, but who is calling me on the phone?” Because there will be a person acting through the nature. As to this, Jesus is like us insofar as He is one Person – we are one person and one nature, He is one person with two natures – Jesus is like us insofar as He is one Person, but unlike us in that He is not a human person. The human being will never have more than one nature…but Jesus is not a human being, but rather the Divine being. Jesus Christ is a man because He possesses a human nature – nature, and not person, determines what a thing is, and thus He is a man because He possesses the nature of man. However, Who He is is not a human person, as you and I, but rather a Divine Person. Because Who Jesus Christ is is God the Son, 2nd Person of the Most Holy Trinity. God is one God in three Persons, three Persons in one God – God is one essence, existing as three persons…God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And Jesus Christ is that 2nd Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Son. That’s “Who” He is. Who, as God, already possesses the Divine nature from all of eternity, being consubstantial, coequal, and coeternal to the Father and Spirit. But then also, at the Annunciation to His mother Mary 2,000 years ago in Nazareth, assumed a human nature, uniting it to His Divine Person. And these two natures, the Divine and a human, are now from the Annunciation onwards united in the one Person of Jesus Christ in a personal union that we call the “hypostatic union” – Jesus is one because there is, in His one Person, or hypostasis, in the Greek, a union of the Divine and human natures, both natures remaining complete and distinct because the union is on the level of Christ’s Person, or hypostasis. In other words, the one Person of Jesus Christ possesses two natures, but His human nature was not absorbed by the Divine, nor was His Divine nature absorbed by the human, nor was there some union of the two natures that resulted in a hybrid third nature that was a composite of the two. No, fully Divine and fully human, one Divine Person with two complete and distinct natures, Divine and a human. One Person, the 2nd Person of the Most Holy Trinity, operating through each of these complete and distinct natures, Divine and a human.
This fact of God becoming man by way of assuming a human nature and uniting it to His Divine Person is what we call the “Incarnation”. That word incarnation meaning to take flesh, as a body, with it here indicating our Lord’s taking flesh, that is, taking a body like ours, when He became man, “clothing” Himself with a human nature. All of which leaves us with profound truths to meditate upon! The baby in the manger is not a human person, but God. The child circumcised on the eighth day is not a human person, but God. The child that wicked, psychopathic King Herod wants to kill is not a human person, but God. He Who dies on the cross for us is not a human person, but God, the 2nd Person of the Most Holy Trinity crucified on Good Friday. And the Sacred Heart is a fully human heart, but not the heart of a human person, but rather a Divine Person. Which, as you can imagine, will lead to a truly unique experience in the heart of Jesus – a mysterious coming together of Divine and human experiences of love in the one human heart of Jesus Christ!
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