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Acts 20:28
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”
Ebionitism, adoptionism, and Arianism erred in denying the full deity of Jesus even if they affirmed His true humanity. The Nestorian heresy, on the other hand, affirmed Christ’s true humanity and true deity but rejected the unity of His person.
Nestorianism is named after its leading proponent, Nestorius, a fifth-century bishop of Constantinople. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, opposed Nestorius. The fundamental debate concerned the identity of the subject of the actions of Christ. Is the subject (the person, the one who acts) who slept and hungered the same subject who performed miracles? Or does the incarnation give us a Christ in whom there is one person who does divine things and a different person who does human things? Did the Son of God take on a human nature as His own, or did He join to Himself a distinct human person or subject?
The church rejected Nestorianism at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 and in the Definition of Chalcedon of AD 451. The definition states that “the difference of the natures [is] in no way removed because of the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into one person and one hypostasis; not as though He were parted or divided into two persons, but one and the self-same Son and only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ.” After the incarnation, there remains one person, not two Sons or persons, each with His own nature. Later clarifications of Chalcedon make it even clearer that the person of Christ did not emerge from the union but that the person of the eternal Son of God, possessing the divine nature from all eternity, assumed a human nature in the incarnation (see Westminster Confession of Faith 8.2).
Christ’s divine nature did not receive human attributes in the incarnation, and His human nature did not receive divine attributes; the person of the Son, however, now possesses both divine attributes and human attributes. Dr. R.C. Sproul writes, “What is said of the divine nature or of the human nature may be affirmed of the person.” Thus, Scripture can speak of God’s having blood (Acts 20:28). Who possesses blood after the incarnation? The Son does, because blood is a property of His human nature. What nature accounts for His having human blood? It is His human nature, not His divine nature, for blood belongs to humanity, not deity.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Salvation must be worked out in human nature because human beings have sinned. But human persons are limited, so a human person cannot provide salvation for many. A divine person acting according to His human nature, however, can pay the price that humans owe and save many because the value of His work is not limited but can be applied to as many as He chooses. Were Christ not the divine person of the Son of God, we could not be saved.
For further study
- Psalm 3:8
- Lamentations 3:26
- 1 Corinthians 2:8
- 1 John 1:1–4
The bible in a year
- Psalms 17–18
- Acts 19:1–20