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John 20:24–29
“[Jesus] said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe’” (v. 27).
In the aftermath of the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, when the heresy of Nestorianism was condemned and the unity of Christ’s person affirmed, the church had to confront yet another Christological error. This heresy has come to be known as Eutychianism, named after a monk named Eutyches, whose affirmation of the unity of Christ went too far and ended up rejecting the distinction between the Son’s human nature and His divine nature.
To understand Eutychianism, it will be helpful to review the difference between a person and a nature. Simply put, in theology the term person refers to the who of a being and the term nature refers to the what of a being. When we ask, “Who is Jesus?” the answer is “He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.” When we ask, “What is Jesus?” the answer is “Jesus is divine and Jesus is human; He has everything essential to deity and everything essential to humanity.” Theologians also note that a person instantiates a nature or subsists in a nature. Thus, the person who instantiates or subsists in the divine nature of Christ and in the human nature of Christ is the divine person of the Son of God. God could do this because He made human beings in His image, so man is compatible with God in ways that other creatures are not (Gen. 1:26–27). Consequently, the Son of God made a human nature His own in the incarnation.
Jesus must be both truly God and truly human to save us, for only One who is both truly God and truly human can perfectly represent the interests of both God and human beings and effectively mediate between them. The problem with Eutychianism is that it gives us a Savior who is neither truly God nor truly man. Eutychianism teaches that in the incarnation the divine person of the Son of God did not assume a human nature that remained human. Instead, the divine nature of the Son effectively absorbed a human nature such that after the incarnation the Son has one nature that is neither truly human nor truly divine but another nature entirely, one that mixes and confuses divine and human attributes; or the absorption effectively eliminates the humanity of Christ altogether.
Scripture tells us that the incarnation does not negate the true humanity of Jesus. We see in today’s passage, for instance, that Jesus possesses a physical, human body (John 20:24–29), which is essential to a true, complete human nature. His human nature remains truly human forever, distinct from but united to His divine nature.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The church has spent much of the last century fighting against those who would deny the true deity of Christ. Because of that, it can be easy to fall into the trap of downplaying the humanity of Jesus. The true humanity of our Savior is no less essential to our salvation than His true deity. Jesus had to be a perfect man to save us, so let us never forget His true humanity.
For further study
- Psalm 121:4
- Matthew 21:18
- Mark 4:38
- Hebrews 10:5–7
The bible in a year
- Psalms 19–21
- Acts 19:21–41