Christian Denominations 2024

Nature of Christ Blog 8

One Entity or Two Entities

Blog 8

Jesus can do everything God can do and at the same time can do everything a man can do. The question is, does Jesus has one entity or two?

Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople from 428 to 431 AD, claimed that Jesus has two entities when he emphasized, “Mary did not bear the Godhead but a man, the inseparable instrument of the Divinity, ..., the Creature did not bear the Creator, but bore a man, the instrument of Godhead.” [1]

Nestorius talked about the Son of God who did everything that God can do. This consisted of performing miracles, rebuking Satan, raising people from dead, healing diseases, creating eyes for the blind man, and knowing everything in the world. Moreover, he was the Son of Mary who became hungry, thirsty, and felt pain and grief. In other words, the Son of God is homoousios with the Father and the Holy Spirit, while the weakness and weeping refers to the Son of Man.

St. Gregory of Nyssa said "We neither hold two Christs nor two Lords, that we are not ashamed of the Cross, that we do not glorify a mere man as having suffered for the world."
NPNF2-05. Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises p.259


[1] Fr. Shenouda M. Ishak, “Christology and the Council of Chalcedon,” (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2013), 6.



Comments