One Body: The Person of Jesus Christ, Part 3
Lesson 17 in our series (series began September 7, 2025)
Click here to view the lesson slides
Lesson Highlights
The focus returns to the central question: what do the Scriptures teach us to confess about Jesus Christ, and why is that confession comforting. The class begins exploring how Jesus can be fully God and fully man at the same time, and why that unique reality matters for salvation, worship, and the Lord’s Supper.
The starting point is the incarnation. The eternal Son of God—the Word (Logos)—does not change or become “less God,” but truly takes on human flesh. From that point forward, the one person Jesus Christ is the God-Man: one Christ with two complete natures, divine and human, united in what the Church calls the personal union.
Historic Christian teaching is introduced through the Council of Chalcedon and the Athanasian Creed. Jesus is confessed as equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, and less than the Father with respect to His humanity. This helps Christians speak carefully and faithfully when Scripture says things like “the Father is greater than I,” without splitting Jesus into two separate persons.
A key principle is emphasized: Christians talk about the person, not the natures as if they act independently. The one Christ does miracles, suffers, dies, and saves. The class also explains why the Church often describes the personal union “by negation,” guarding the mystery by saying what it is not: the natures are united without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation.
The lesson introduces Martin Chemnitz and his helpful categories for describing how the two natures relate within the one person of Christ. The first category, the genus idiomaticum, explains why it is faithful to say things that sound paradoxical—such as “God died” or “Mary is the mother of God”—because the subject is always the one person Jesus Christ, who is both God and man.
Finally, the discussion highlights how genealogies and biblical promises show God faithfully preserving the promised line of the Messiah. Once Christ has come, the goal of those genealogies is fulfilled, and the Church becomes one people in Christ drawn from every nation, tribe, and tongue.
Scriptures Referenced
John 1:1–14Matthew 28:18John 14:28Genesis 3:15Romans 9:51 Corinthians 2:81 Timothy 2:5Galatians 3:28
Revelation 7:9 (allusion)