09/04/2026
Reverend Dr. and Canon Theologian Mike Michielin returns this September with his monthly column: 'Do you know?'
This month, Mike addresses the question of who is Jesus Christ and why does it matter that He is fully human and fully divine?
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If a group of Anglicans were asked, “Who is Jesus?”, the answers might differ considerably. Yet the early Church addressed this question in the ecumenical councils, and its conclusions are expressed clearly in the Creeds found in Anglican prayer books. Most Christians readily understand that Jesus was human. Greater difficulty arises when we consider His divine nature, how it relates to His humanity, and how both natures belong to one person. It may be harder still to see why these theological claims matter in everyday life. This essay therefore asks, “Who is Jesus?”, and explains why the answer is essential both to our salvation and to the Christian life.
The early Church’s teaching begins with the Gospel witness. Mark’s Gospel repeatedly raises the question, “Who is Jesus?” His accounts of Jesus’ miracles show why those who witnessed them were astonished: could a mere man perform such works? Mark points to Jesus’ divinity from the beginning. At His baptism, the Father declares from heaven, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matthew and Luke develop the picture further by recounting Jesus’ early life. Jesus is born of Mary as a human child, yet Joseph is not His father. He is conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, and God is His Father.
This is where the question becomes more demanding. If Mary is human and the Father is God, what does that tell us about Jesus’ identity? His humanity is relatively easy to grasp. But if He was begotten by the Father and born of a virgin, how can He also be fully God?
John’s Gospel provides the key: “In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.” The source of confusion is often the language of begetting or being born of. As the Word of God, Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father; His divine nature therefore has no beginning. His human nature, by contrast, was assumed—taken up by the eternal Word—when He was conceived and born of Mary. Put simply, Jesus belongs fully to both heaven and earth: He is truly God and truly human.
Gregory of Nazianzus, a fourth-century theologian, wrote, “What is not assumed is not saved”—or healed. His words answered Apollinaris of Laodicea, who taught that Jesus possessed a human body and soul but that His human mind, or rational spirit, was replaced by the divine Word. Apollinaris intended to protect Jesus’ sinlessness, but his teaching created a serious problem: if Christ did not assume a human mind, then the human mind could not be healed through His saving work. For Christ to redeem the whole person, He had to share fully in human nature and experience our needs and trials. Yet His humanity differed from ours in one decisive respect: He was without original sin—the deep inclination to disobey God—because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit rather than by a human father. Jesus nevertheless experienced genuine temptation. The Gospels recount His forty days in the wilderness, where the devil tempted Him, but He did not yield. Had He sinned, He could not have served as the pure and acceptable substitute who bears the consequences of humanity’s wrongdoing.
Jesus’ full divinity is equally essential. Arius, an early fourth-century priest from Alexandria, taught that Jesus was not eternal and therefore was not, as John’s Gospel teaches, eternally begotten of the Father. Related ideas later appealed to some nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholars who sought to accommodate Enlightenment objections to the supernatural, and their influence reached many theological schools and clergy.
The theological problem is fundamental. If Jesus is not eternally begotten and fully divine, He is reduced to a moral example who lacks the power to forgive sin and reconcile humanity to God. Only if Jesus is fully human can He represent humanity. And only if He is fully divine, can Jesus overcome sin and unite us to the Father.
One further truth is crucial: Jesus is one person with two distinct natures. If He were instead two persons inhabiting one body—one divine and one human—the Christian account of salvation would collapse. This union is known as the hypostatic union. The term hypostatic comes from the Greek hypostasis, which Christians used to mean “person” or “individual reality.” In Christ, the divine and human natures do not merely exist alongside each other; they are united in the one person of the eternal Son of God.
What does the hypostatic union mean for us? First, it means that God entered fully into human suffering. In Christ, God did not leave suffering and death to a separate human person; He Himself truly became human, suffered, and died for us. Second, because Christ’s divine and human natures are united without confusion or destruction, He makes it possible for us to share in God’s life without losing our humanity. This participation will reach its fullness at the resurrection, when we “shall behold his face” (Psalm 11:7) and be “crowned with glory” (Psalm 8:5). Even now, through faith and participation in the Eucharist, we share in God’s life, know His delight in us, and receive the grace to follow Jesus as His disciples.
In summary, the Christian confession that Jesus Christ is one person who is fully human and fully divine is not an abstract theological formula but the foundation of salvation and discipleship. Because He assumed the whole of human nature without sin, Christ can represent, heal, and redeem humanity; because He is eternally divine, He can conquer sin and death, forgive us, and reconcile us to the Father. In the hypostatic union, God truly enters human suffering while opening the way for human beings to share in His life. To know who Jesus is, therefore, is to understand both how we are saved and how we are called to live in communion with God.
