There are two great mysteries in the Bible, one is the Triune God-the Father, Son, and Spirit, and the other is the Person of Christ. Christ is both God and man, and the two natures, divinity and humanity, are complete in Him. Although He has both divinity and humanity, He is still one Person. Our mind cannot thoroughly comprehend this. We can only accept this fact according to the revelation of the Scripture.
Before considering the revelation of the Bible concerning the Person of Christ, let us look at the views and teachings of different men throughout the ages concerning this matter. From the first century A.D. to the middle of the sixth century, the so-called bishops held different teachings concerning Christ’s Person. Hence, there were often disputations and eventually divisions in the church in the first six centuries. These different views and teachings can be summarized and classified into seven kinds. Among these, only one is proper and may be considered the orthodox teaching. The other six are improper; they are either wrong with respect to Christ’s humanity or mistaken regarding His divinity, and they either overly separate Christ’s divinity from His humanity or merge His divinity and humanity into one. We shall briefly discuss the seven different schools.
This is the erroneous teaching of the Docetists (A.D. 70-170). They said that Christ has divinity only and is without humanity. To the Docetists all matter is essentially evil. Since Christ is holy, He could never have the defilements of the human flesh. The body which He took on Himself while on earth was not a real body, but a mere illusion. His birth was not a real birth, and His death was not a real death.
Of course, this teaching is altogether absurd and clearly contrary to the revelation of the Scripture. The Bible definitely and explicitly says that the Lord is the Word of God who “became flesh” (John 1:14), who “also Himself in like manner shared in the same [i.e., blood and flesh]” (Heb. 2:14) and who became “man” (1 Tim. 2:5). Having a human body and human nature, He is a complete, true man.
Just as is mentioned in 1 John 4:2-3, this school denied that Christ is come in the flesh. The Gospel of John refutes them at its very beginning by declaring that Christ is the Word and that He is God who became flesh (John 1:1, 14).
This is the heresy of the Ebionites (A.D. 107). They maintained that Christ has human nature but is without the divine nature and that His life followed the common human pattern, though His behavior bore a special relationship to God.
This teaching is even more absurd than the preceding one. It closely resembles the false teachings of the modernists today and contradicts the Bible to the uttermost. The Bible definitely states that Christ is man, and it also clearly reveals that He is God (John 1:1; Heb. 1:8; Rom. 9:5). Christ is a complete, true man as well as the perfect, real God. He possesses complete and perfect humanity as well as complete and perfect divinity.