I. What is being confessed in this article?⤒🔗

What is discussed here is how the Son of God, who was God and remained as such, also became truly human – yet in such a way that he still remained one single Person. This means the following:

1. When God’s Son became man there were not two sons of God and not two Persons. There was and remained one Person but since then he was not only God but also man and thus he possessed a divine and a human nature.
2. Each nature retained its own characteristics. As God, the Son was always there and everywhere, and remained so. But as man he received all the limitations that belong to a human body. He did make his human nature immortal by rising from the grave, yet even then he remained fully human with a true human body. For it also depends on this whether we will rise from the dead.
3. As regards the union of these two natures, not even death separated them. When Jesus lay in his grave, his truly human spirit had left his body but even there he was God at the same time, even though it could not be seen. So it was also when he was still a baby. Therefore we confess that he is truly God and truly man.
4. This confession has everything to do with our salvation, for since he is God, he could overcome death; and because he is man, he could suffer death.

II. Two natures in one Person: a mystery←⤒🔗

1. From the time of paradise there has been a deep connection between God and man, the Creator and his creature. God sought interaction with Adam and Eve. To that end, they were made in his image. Even after the fall, God wanted to continue to dwell and work in the hearts of believers. They are called the temple of the living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). He even moved the prophets with his Spirit to such an extent that they spoke the word of God. So there was always a strong connection between God and man.
2. This connection, however, has not been so wonderfully profound in any person as in Christ. He cannot be compared to anyone, for he was and remained God, while in the process becoming man, yet still remaining one person. He is thus truly God and truly man, and yet he is one single person, one personality. In him there is not a divine self alongside a human self, for “there are not two sons of God, nor two persons." To give an example: Jesus used true human saliva to heal a blind man, but by his divine power and majesty he opened his eyes (John 9:6-7). And yet it was one person who healed the blind man.
3. People have tried to solve this mystery in two entirely different ways. According to one view the deity and humanity of Jesus were fused into a new, partly divine, partly human nature. One thus arrived at one person with one nature. According to the other view, on the contrary, one wanted to completely maintain the Godhead and humanity of Jesus, but then in such a way that Jesus always acts and speaks either as God or as man and never as one person. So one ended up with two natures and two persons. What these two views have in common is that both reason that one person goes together with one nature. For the one speaks of one person, and therefore also one nature; the other of two natures, and thus also two persons.
4. Article 19, however, maintains that there are two natures united in one person. For according to Philippians 2:6-8, one and the same Christ is both in the form of God and in the form of a man. True, it says in Philippians 2:7 that he "emptied" himself as God, but this clearly does not mean that he thereby ceased to be God. It means that his divine glory was concealed. So he remained God and, in addition, took on the form of a human being.
   This is a great mystery, and it remains as such. Our explanation does not serve — and neither is that the goal of Article 19 — to solve this mystery. Then why do we maintain and confess this? That will be addressed in the next section.

III. Two natures in one person: why this needs to be confessed←⤒🔗

1.  It remains a mystery how in Christ God and man are united in one person. Are we better off keeping silent about this altogether? Would that not be the safest way? Indeed, Protestant theologians have claimed that this article has sought to explain too much and is therefore nothing more than a failed and clumsy attempt to clear up the mystery.
2. Over against this it needs to be stated that this article leaves the mystery as a mystery and does not do anything else other than let the Scriptures speak. And the church is obliged to do the latter for more than one reason:
   a. We diminish the glory of the incarnate Son of God if we do not praise him as he has made himself known to us. The second commandment comes into view here.
   b. This is all the more urgent since already in 1916, someone declared that there was hardly any learned theologian left who accepted without question the old church doctrine of the two natures united in one person. Until the present many recognize Jesus as “the true king” or as “the messianic man,” or as someone who was in some sense divine, and so on, yet without acknowledging that he is truly God. That is why this article remains relevant.
   c. Also in view of our own salvation, this confession is really not an unnecessary luxury. Twice our article draws attention to this: first, when it confesses that “our salvation and resurrection depend on the reality of his body," and then in the final sentence: “we profess him to be true and true man: true God in order to conquer death by his power; true man that he might die for us according to the infirmity of his flesh."

IV. Two natures in one person: and yet no confusion ←⤒🔗

1. A certain Eutyches was the head of a monastery in Constantinople. He lived in the fifth century and had his own views on this matter. At his incarnation Christ’s human nature was said to have merged into and blended with his divine nature, somewhat like a honey drop is absorbed by water from the sea. The deity of Jesus would thus have absorbed his humanity. In fact, one new nature remained. Jesus’ body had also been deified. Eutyches thus reasoned according to the scheme of one person, so then also one nature (see Section II, point 3, above). Already the Council of Chalcedon (451) rejected his teaching by pronouncing that the two natures of Christ “undergo no confusion, no change, no division, and no separation” (see appendix at the end of this chapter). How exactly the two natures are at work in the one person, this council could not, and rightly did not,  say; however, it definitely rejected the error of Eutyches.
2. The Anabaptists also thought along these lines. According to them, the body of Jesus was not a fruit of Mary’s womb and therefore not truly human. Somehow God would have prepared it in a different manner. Refer back to our discussion of Article 18, Section VII, point 1. To them, Jesus’ humanity is absorbed by his deity.
3. Even Luther erred on this point. According to him, even though Jesus’ human nature had not been completely absorbed by his deity, it had changed. He compared that change to a piece of iron that is made red-hot and thereby acquires not only the properties of iron but also those of fire. After all, the piece of iron is also one mass of fire. And so the humanity of Jesus, being completely imbued with his deity, acquired divine properties, such as, for example, omnipresence. Therefore, according to Luther and his followers, Jesus is also physically present in the signs of the Lord’s Supper. Especially after his ascension, Jesus would have started to make use of these divine attributes. See theHeidelberg Catechism, q/a 47-48.
4. Over against these views, the church confesses the following:
   a. “his divine nature has always remained uncreated,” and
   b. “his human nature has… remained created. It is finite and retains all the properties of a true body."
   For both points we will cite places of evidence from Scripture:
   a. “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven” (John 3:13). Between Jesus’ descending from and ascending into heaven lies his incarnation: he ascended with a human body. But clearly, his deity did not change as a consequence of his incarnation, for he who descended as God is the same who ascended as God and man. See also John 1:18, John 6:62, Ephesians 4:10.
   b. Yet in addition to being God, Jesus was truly human. He says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), but also, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). He knows everything (John 21:17) and yet he does not know the date or hour of the last day (Mark 13:32). “In him the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and yet he was “raised from the dead” (Colossians 2:12).
   Especially against the Lutheran view of the omnipresence of Jesus’ body, we point to Acts 1:11: “Jesus was taken up from you into heaven” and will return; and to 1 Peter 1:8: “Though you have not seen him, you love him.”
5. Some of the texts mentioned in the previous point, in paragraph b, may appear to contradict one another. This is related to the mystery that Jesus is both God and man. This mystery must be left untouched. For example, if on the one hand Jesus knew "everything and yet did not know the last day of the world, that remains a mystery to us. After all, behind his unawareness lies his divine omniscience and yet it was not accessible to him at this point. This will therefore belong to him having emptied himself, as we read in Philippians 2 (see Section II, point 4 above), so that his divine omniscience was covered for him. Here we are at the edge of our comprehension and our ability to explain this.

V. Two natures in one person: and yet no separation ←⤒🔗

1. Bishop Nestorius lived in the same century and place as Eutyches, in the fifth century, in Constantinople. He reasoned that where there are two natures, then there are also two persons. According to him, there is no mixing or confusion, as Eutyches claimed and there is not even unison as we teach, but only indwelling. The deity dwells in the man Jesus as in a temple. Thus both natures form anything but one person. The Council of Chalcedon—as mentioned earlier—condemned not only the teaching of Eutyches but at the same time also the doctrine of Nestorius by using the terms “no division” and “no separation."
2. We have already seen in Section IV, point 4b, above, how the Bible mentions both Jesus’ divine and his human attributes. Yet these are not separated in such a way that each belongs to its own person. For there are “not two persons, but two natures united in one single person,” which is supported by Scripture: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Therefore we may and cannot divide Christ’s actions and words into what he said or did as God or as man. Doing this would break the unity of what belongs together. All his speaking and doing is about his work as a mediator.
3. The strong connection of both natures to one person is also evident from the fact that Christ is often said to have been able to do something only because he is human, even though he is referred to in his deity. For example, Paul says in Acts 20:28 (alternate translation) that God obtained his church with his own blood ("the blood of his Own"). So here we have the blood of... God. That is how strongly Jesus’ body is connected to his deity. See also 1 Corinthians 2:8, where he is called “the Lord of glory” according to his deity, whereas he could only be crucified as a human being.
4. The article notes that the humanity and deity of Jesus were not separated “even when he was lying in the grave," or “when he was a little child." The purpose of these sentences is only to confess the inseparable miraculous unity of Jesus’ two natures, and certainly not in order to resolve the mystery. This is already evident from the fact that with respect to his time as a small child no more is said than that his deity was then indeed present in him, “even though it did not manifest itself as such for a little while." His deity was present in him yet it was hidden at the same time. The mystery remains a mystery – but what Scripture revealed about Jesus is positively confessed.

Points to discuss←⤒🔗

1. The Athanasian Creed says in Article 37, “For just as soul and flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ.” What is the point of that comparison? Is it some attempt to shed light on the mystery? Or is this a reference to another mystery that is more closely known to us? Incidentally, does this comparison apply also to the period when the “Son of God was lying in his grave”?
2. Should we pray to God in the name of Jesus or may we also pray directly to Jesus? Concerning praying in his name, see what Jesus himself says about it in John 14:13-14. It is striking that Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I [and therefore not my Father!] will do.” Jesus clearly regards the prayer, apparently addressed to the Father, as also addressed to himself. And in John 14:14 he even says, “if ye ask me anything...” Can we not conclude from this that praying “in the name of” Jesus is at the same time praying “to” Jesus? Then the dilemma “in the name of” or “to” is no longer relevant.
3.  We are not to worship any creatures. Therefore, some people ask the question: should we worship Jesus according to his human nature or according to his divine nature?
4. Is this question correct, or is it true that by doing so do we essentially break up the unity of the one person who is Jesus? Consider Thomas who, in view of the human scars of Jesus’ wounds confesses, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
5. Do our prayers sufficiently honour Christ in a direct way? See, for example, 2 Timothy 4:18, Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:13.