How Many Spirits Does Jesus Have?

by
Jason Dulle
JasonDulle@yahoo.com

Question:

Do you believe that Jesus had a human spirit AND a divine spirit? If He does, doesn’t this make Jesus two persons? I always thought that Jesus had one spirit which was the Father. What do you think?

 

Answer:

The teaching that says Jesus did not have a human spirit, but only had a divine spirit is called Apollinarianism, named after its most famous propagator, Apollinarius. He lived during the late fourth and early fifth centuries A.D. Apollinarius taught that the Logos replaced Jesus' human spirit/mind. His views were condemned at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 because this conception of the incarnation made Jesus less than fully human. Apollinarianism limits humanity to the physical, because it can say that Jesus was human even without a human spirit/mind. In the end we end up having God merely peering out into the world through a human set of eyes. It makes God into the driver of a taxi-cab; the flesh of Jesus was just the vehicle for God to redeem the world.

One of the most important deficiencies of this doctrine is soteriological. As the Cappadocian maxim says, "What He did not assume He did not redeem." If Jesus did not have a human mind and spirit, then He cannot redeem mankind in their totality because we have a human mind and spirit. Jesus could only redeem that which He became. If He did not have a human spirit/mind, then He cannot redeem this aspect of man.

From a Biblical perspective, if Jesus was to be the last Adam (I Corinthians 15:45) His humanity had to be like Adam's in every respect (Romans 5:12-21; I Corinthians 15:21-22). Paul’s argument in Romans is that just as sin entered the world through one man, causing all men to die a spiritual death because of God’s condemnation on sin, righteousness was gained for mankind through the one righteous act of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to reverse the effects of Adam’s sin. Whereas Adam brought death and condemnation to man, Jesus brought life and righteousness.

In the Corinthians passage Paul states a similar argument, namely that since death was brought into the world by man, the resurrection from the dead also had to brought into the world by a man. All of those who are born from Adam will die both physically and spiritually; however, those who are in Christ, though they will physically die (except those that are still alive at the resurrection of the dead), they will be resurrected from the dead to spiritual life. The point of both passages is that since death and condemnation was brought on by man, spiritual life, righteousness, and the resurrection from the dead to life everlasting also had to come from a man. Whatever Adam was, the last Adam, Jesus Christ, had to be. Only a man like Adam could reverse what Adam did. If Adam had a human spirit/mind, then Jesus had to have a spirit/mind. This is especially telling since Adam succumbed to temptation with his mind/will. If Jesus was to objectively overcome temptation, He likewise had to resist it with a human mind. God cannot be tempted, but if the divine Spirit/mind replaced the human spirit/mind, then Jesus, as God, was tempted.

Hebrews 2:11, 14-18 is very clear as to the completeness and genuineness of Christ’s humanity. The author said, "For indeed he who makes holy and those being made holy all have the same origin, and so he is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters…. … Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in the same as well, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil), and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death. For surely his concern is not for angels, but he is concerned for Abraham’s descendants. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. For since he suffered and was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted" (NET Bible). The author argues that Jesus shared in the same flesh and blood that all other humans possessed. He is of the same origin. He had to be made like all the rest of humanity in every respect if He was to be able to suffer and overcome temptation, in order to represent humanity as a priest, to help those who are tempted. The phrase in every respect most assuredly includes a human spirit/mind.

Some, while maintaining the fact that Jesus has a human and divine spirit, do explain it in a fashion that seems to make Jesus two people. Nestorius was one such individual. His teaching, known as Nestorianism, was condemned at the Councils of Ephesus (A.D. 431) and Chalcedon (A.D. 451). Jesus' two natures, which consist of a fully divine Spirit, and a fully human spirit, exist "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the difference of the natures having been in no wise taken away by reason of the union, but rather the properties of each being preserved." This quote is directly from the Chalcedonian Creed. Both the divine Spirit and the human spirit in Jesus were brought together in a metaphysical unity so that whatever can be said of the human spirit can also be said of the divine Spirit in Christ. Christ is one whole unified person, not fragmented into natures, but nevertheless we know that all that makes up God is in Christ. Likewise we know that all that makes up a human being is in Christ. How God could become a man in this metaphysical way is the mystery of the incarnation.

To confess that Christ had both the divine Spirit and a human spirit is absolutely essential to a proper and orthodox understanding of Christology. What we must wrestle with is not the ontological nature of Christ, but the functional outworking of the divine and human natures in Him. How exactly the divine Spirit and the human spirit could dwell in Christ in their entirety of properties, and not end up with two people in Christ can only be interpreted through our understanding of the incarnation. If we understand that the Word became flesh (John 1:1, 14), then we can see, at least on a theoretical basis, how Jesus can be fully God and fully man, with all that that entails, and still be one person. God did not come and dwell in a man, and neither did God just create a human body to live in, but the Almighty Spirit of God became a human being. I stress "theoretical" because the Scripture nowhere tries to explain the functionality of the hypostatic union, but it does declare it to be a reality by speaking of Jesus as both fully God and fully man.

As a way of illustration, it might be good to think of the incarnation in a similar manner to the conception of any human being. Just as when the fullness of a man’s existence, and the fullness of a woman’s existence come together at conception to form one new person with one spirit, likewise when the Spirit of God became a man, uniting with Mary’s egg, the result was that of one person, Jesus Christ. Just as a human baby does not come out with two separate spirits, likewise Jesus did not have two separate spirits. This illustration breaks down in that a human being only receives certain aspects of each of his parents characteristics, whereas Jesus received all of His Father’s characteristics and all of His mother’s. He did have both a divine and human spirit, but in the incarnation they were joined in such a way that they are united into one and not divided; inseparable, yet distinguishable; the properties of each being present in Christ in their fullness, yet united as one person. That this is so, is known from the revelation of the Scripture. How exactly this is so, is mystery.

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