Theological Tidbits

Those who do not correctly answer the question of Christ “Who do you say that I am?” remain in a state of confusion. Peter, with the help of the Father, was the first one to answer Christ’s question correctly when he said to the man standing before him in the district of Caesarea Philippi, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). In other words, Peter was affirming that Christ was both human and divine. On the other hand, Arianism, Monophysitism, and Nestorianism all provided wrong answers to the question of Christ. The content of Peter’s answer must be repeated for each age in a language appropriate to that era so that all would come to know Christ. This service is rendered by Peter’s successors. Therefore, every Pope since St. Peter has been responsible for answering correctly the question posed by Christ to the first Pope. The Popes have confirmed who Christ is—and thereby they have confirmed who we are. They do this as a service to humanity as Peter did it in service to the Apostles and to the early Church.

The Popes have always taught that God the Son assumed a perfect human nature. Christ’s humanity is absolutely perfect because it is united to the second Person of the blessed Trinity (GS, 22). Even the human nature of Adam and Eve before sin was not as perfect as Christ’s. God could not have made our first parents with human nature as perfect as Christ’s because Christ’s human nature belongs to God Himself. In Christ, the divine Person determined the absolute perfection of His human nature. The fact that Christ had a real human body hardly needs substantiation. St. John says it best when he writes in the prologue of his Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory” (Jn 1:14). Christ’s human body was without flaw. Nothing less would have been worthy of God. In and through His body—His “flesh”, Christ manifests His divine Person—e.g., He—God the Son—worked with human hands. Thus, when He worked with His hands, He manifested or expressed His divine Person in and through His body.

“The central nucleus of the Christian faith is constituted by the twofold truth that Jesus Christ is Son of God and son of man, and that God the Father brought about the salvation of man in Him, His Son and Savior of the world” (Pope St. John Paul II).

Any answer to Christ’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” must include the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon—which proclaimed that “one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son, must be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion or change, without division or separation.” In other words, in Christ there is one divine Person—i.e., God the Son, Who unites in Himself a human nature and a divine nature. As man and God, Christ “fully reveals man to himself” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 22). Christ reveals man’s identity, proper activity and God’s bodily expression of His love. In addition, as God and man, Christ is our reconciliation with the Father, dissolving the alienation between God and man and reforging the link of love that joins the two together: “He it was, and He alone, Who satisfied the Father’s eternal love” (Pope St. John Paul II).

A heresy named after Nestorius (c. 451), a bishop of Constantinople, arose in the first half of the fifth century. Nestorianism held that there are two persons in Christ as well as two natures. In other words, Christ is both a divine Person and a human person. Each person is separately expressed through its corresponding nature. In other words, the divine Person is expressed through the divine nature and the human person is expressed through the human nature. The two persons and their corresponding natures are united through their mutual agreement with one another. There are some difficulties with Nestorianism because it denies the union of the divine and the human in one divine Person:

1. God’s love would not have been returned because God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, would not have suffered and died on the cross. A divine Person united solely to the divine nature cannot die. On the other hand, persons united to a human nature can undergo death. The Nestorian Christ is a divine Person united to the divine nature and a human person united to a human nature. Since a divine Person united only to the divine nature cannot die, according to the Nestorians it was only the human person of Christ who died on the cross. However, after sin only God is capable of returning God’s love. Therefore, if the second Person of the Trinity did not offer Himself to the Father through death on the cross, we are not redeemed—i.e., we are still alienated from God.

2. according to the Nestorian answer, Christ’s body would have expressed only His human person, not His divine Person. Thus, for the Nestorians, when the Apostles saw Christ’s body, they would not have seen the second Person of the Trinity expressed—but rather the human person of Christ. For the Nestorians, Christ did not reveal God and therefore did not show us who we are as images of God.

3. if Christ were two separate persons, Mary would not be the Mother of God. A mother is the mother of a person, not merely of a nature. In the Nestorian view, Mary would have given human nature only to the human person because only the human person would have been united to the human nature. Thus, she would not be the mother of a divine Person. She would not be the Mother of God. However, Mary is Theotokos, which means Mother of God. Mary is the Mother of God—i.e., the mother of Christ—because she gave Him, God the Son, His human nature.

Nestorianism was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 because it denied our redemption, the revelation of God through Christ’s human body and Mary’s divine motherhood.

A knowledge of Christ is vital to each of us if we are to live fully as images of God and if we are ever to recover in any way from sin and its effects. We are never able to leave the question of who Jesus Christ is unanswered. “Each one of us must let himself be touched personally by the question: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ You who hear Me spoken of, answer Me. What do I really mean for you?” (Pope St. John Paul II). This question never ceases to be asked in one form or another because, for each of us, to seek the identity of Christ is to seek one’s own identity; it is to seek one’s own proper activity; it is to seek to know how to love God through our bodies and how to love others by using things for their benefit; and it is even to seek salvation. In Christ’s question and its proper answer lies the entire mystery of humanity. Consequently, those who do not correctly answer the question of Christ “Who do you say that I am?” remain in a state of confusion.

Peter, the spokesman for the Apostles, correctly answered Christ’s question when he said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). However, over the centuries since Christ, especially in the first centuries after His ascension, there were many incorrect responses to Christ’s question. One of the earliest incorrect answers was offered by Arianism, named after its founder, Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria in Egypt. Arianism held that Christ is only human—i.e., that Christ is only a human person, possessing a human nature. Nature (essence) signifies “what” someone is. Person signifies “who” someone is. For Arius, Christ is not God. Rather, He is only a human being, albeit a human being very close to God. However, this is impossible. If Christ were only human, He could not have satisfied God’s love rejected by Adam and Eve when they sinned. Moreover, if Christ were only human He could not have revealed God to us. Therefore, He could not have revealed who we are as images of God. Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325.

A knowledge of Christ is vital to each of us if we are to live fully as images of God and if we are ever to recover in any way from sin and its effects. We are never able to leave the question of who Jesus Christ is unanswered. “Each one of us must let himself be touched personally by the question: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ You who hear Me spoken of, answer Me. What do I really mean for you?” (Pope St. John Paul II). This question never ceases to be asked in one form or another because, for each of us, to seek the identity of Christ is to seek one’s own identity; it is to seek one’s own proper activity; it is to seek to know how to love God through our bodies and how to love others by using things for their benefit; and it is even to seek salvation. In Christ’s question and its proper answer lies the entire mystery of humanity. Consequently, those who do not correctly answer the question of Christ “Who do you say that I am?” remain in a state of confusion.

Peter, the spokesman for the Apostles, correctly answered Christ’s question when he said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). However, over the centuries since Christ, especially in the first centuries after His ascension, there were many incorrect responses to Christ’s question. One of the earliest incorrect answers was offered by Arianism, named after its founder, Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria in Egypt. Arianism held that Christ is only human—i.e., that Christ is only a human person, possessing a human nature. Nature (essence) signifies “what” someone is. Person signifies “who” someone is. For Arius, Christ is not God. Rather, He is only a human being, albeit a human being very close to God. However, this is impossible. If Christ were only human, He could not have satisfied God’s love rejected by Adam and Eve when they sinned. Moreover, if Christ were only human He could not have revealed God to us. Therefore, He could not have revealed who we are as images of God. Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325.

If Christ were not God and man, we would not be able to experience God—our prototype—in human form, we would not be able to see who God is, to see how He acts or to see the One we should love. Consequently, we would not know our identity, our proper activity or the fact that we are to love God through a mutual bodily exchange of love and that we are to love others by using things for their benefit. Further, only the divine Son could definitively love us, His Father and the Holy Spirit. Thus, if Christ is not God and man, then original sin and its effects remain—and the friendship between God and man, broken by original sin, is not restored. With the same breath that we proclaim Christ’s divinity, we must proclaim His humanity.

God the Son became man to love us, His Father and the Holy Spirit. Obviously, in Christ we see an act of God’s love. God the Son also became man to reveal Himself—i.e., the Wisdom of God. God’s wisdom is revealed in every act of Christ. However, the divine wisdom is most especially manifested in Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. Further, Christ’s life is not only an act of divine love and the most complete manifestation of God’s wisdom, it is also an act of divine power. The power of God can be seen in the union of the two natures in the one divine Person. The power of God is also obviously present in the miracles of Christ. In the incarnation and the redemption, the Trinity—Power, Wisdom and Love—act as one principle.