How Can Jesus Have Two Spirits?
by
Jason Dulle
JasonDulle@yahoo.com
Question:
I am very confused as to how, in Jesus, there could be a human spirit and the Divine Spirit, and yet Christ be one spirit/person. The only way that I can rationalize this is to say that the Divine Spirit that was in CHRIST took on Himself human attributes, therefore having human aspects to Him. But to say that the Son has a spirit and the Father has a Spirit sounds borderline Trinitarian.
Answer:The testimony of Scripture is that Jesus had a humans spirit. On the cross Jesus said, "Father, into your hand I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46). Was Jesus giving the Father back His Holy Spirit? How could Jesus' divine Spirit separate from Him? Death occurs when the spirit separates from body (James 2:26), but if the Divine Spirit separated from Jesus He would cease to exist. If God did not actually become a man, with all that that entails, we end up with a picture of Jesus’ humanity being nothing more than that of a suit that God put on.
I do not see any way of getting around the idea that Jesus had an authentic human spirit and the authentic divine Spirit. How exactly these two spirits came together in the one person of Christ Jesus is something I do not claim to know. The Scripture never says anything about it. I do not find this concept as difficult as I do the idea of the incarnation. How could God ever become man in the first place? How could the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and infinite God become a man who is limited in power, knowledge, location, time, and finitude? That is the greatest of all mysteries.
If we deny that Jesus has a human spirit, then we cannot confess that God ever truly became a man (John 1:1, 14). Just having a body does not make someone a human being. There is more to being a human than the outer-man. There is the inner-man which consists of the spirit/soul. If Jesus did not possess these constituents, He would not have been fully man. As the Cappadocians were fond of saying, "What He did not assume, He cannot redeem." The major purpose of the incarnation was so that God could offer the perfect sacrifice for us, to atone for our sins. This required a human existence (Hebrews 10:5-10). God had to become like us. If Jesus was not like us in every way, He could not die for us in our place. One who represents another must be like that other. A bird could not be our legal representative. We could not send our pet dog to prison for us to pay for our crimes. Another individual, however, could stand in our place and take our punishment. If Jesus lacks a human spirit, then He cannot save our human spirit. The problem with denying Jesus a human spirit is primarily soteriologically (having to do with salvation), although it also lacks Biblical evidence, and denies explicit Biblical passages.
Either God actually became a genuine man in every respect or He did not. But if He is going to be able to redeem man, He has to be like a man in every respect. The author of Hebrews made this point, saying, "Wherefore in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted" (Hebrews 2:17-18, emphasis mine). Notice that Jesus was made like other humans in all things, not some things. If we have a human spirit, He likewise had to have had a human spirit. If He did not, then He was not made like us in all things.
In order to reconcile the idea of two spirits in Chris, one Divine and one human, you have suggested that the Spirit of God "took on itself human attributes, therefore having human aspect to it." Although this is a plausible argument, one must ask themselves if this is Biblically accurate? Does the Bible present Jesus in a fashion that would demonstrate that He was not fully man? How can God take on human characteristics without becoming a human? One cannot be part-human, or almost-human. Either they are a human or they are not. If Jesus only took on some of our characteristics, namely a human body and behavior, the Jesus was only pretending to be like us, and was never really a true human being. He was only acting as a man. Again, the Bible is very clear that the Word, who was God, became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14). He did not just take on the characteristics of flesh, but became flesh. God did not put on a costume of man, but became man.
If Jesus is both God and man as the Scripture portrays Him to be, and declares Him to be, He has to have both the Divine Spirit and a human spirit. If Jesus lacked God's Spirit, He could not be God, because God is by definition, Spirit (John 4:24). Likewise if Jesus did not have a human spirit, He would not be fully human, because having a human spirit is essential to being a human. If we deny Jesus a human spirit, we deny His authentic existence as a man.
This is why I stress that the question is not whether or not Jesus had a divine and human spirit, but how these two spirits co-existed in the one person of Christ. The orthodox understanding of the way Jesus could have the Divine Spirit and a human spirit, and yet be one person is as follows: In the coming together of the Spirit of God and Jesus’ human Spirit, the result was one indivisible spirit, which still possessed the fullness of the properties of each particular spirit. The Spirit of God and the human spirit of Jesus were not blended to form a third substance that was not purely God or purely man, nor was either spirit overshadowed by the other so that one was dominant over the other. The Divine Spirit was uncompromised by the human spirit, and the human spirit was uncompromised by the Divine; both being perfectly preserved in their wholeness and genuineness, yet united in every way. The Divine Spirit was not obscured by the human spirit, and neither was the human spirit overwhelmed by the fullness of the Divine.
The only analogy I can offer is that of grafting. There is a practice of cutting off a branch of one fruit tree, and attaching it to a tree which bears fruit of a different kind. The foreign branch is held on to the new tree by a certain type of glue and tape. Over time the foreign branch will grow together to the branch on the natural tree, thus becoming one branch, functioning as natural as all the other branches. The branch which has been grafted will continue to grow its own particular fruit, and the branch that the foreign branch was grafted to will continue to grow its own kind of fruit, all on the same branch which is now physically one. The fruit of the foreign branch never bears the fruit of the other, and vice-versa. Two branches, which were once separate, are now one branch, not two. In a similar manner God never gave up the essence of His Spirit, and Jesus never gave up the essence of His human spirit, when the two came together in the one person of Jesus Christ. We only have one person, Jesus Christ, yet there are still two "fruits in that one branch" so to say. Both spirits have become one, yet never cease to be what they were in their essence before the union.
Another way of viewing this issue is by examining our own human spirit. How did we get our one spirit? The spirit of man seems to be passed on by the reproduction process. The Bible says that Adam was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). It is then said that Seth was made in Adam’s image (Genesis 5:3). The image of God that began in Adam is passed down to successive generations. Exactly how this occurs is not the issue here, but what I am calling attention to is that the human spirit is brought into existence by the reproduction process. Each of our parents have a human spirit, thus making two spirits before reproduction. When our two parents came together and conceived us, two spirits were involved: the spirit of our father, and the spirit of our mother. The end result, however, is one spirit—our own spirit. The analogy breaks down in several ways, and is not intended to be an exact parallel. What it does demonstrate is that just as we can confess that our one spirit is the result of two spirits coming together, all the while not understanding how this can be so, we can also confess that the Spirit of God and the spirit of man could be united into one spirit in the person of Jesus Christ, without understanding exactly how this can be. If we cannot understand the way in which we received our one spirit from the two individual spirits of our parents, we should not be surprised that we have difficulty grasping how the two spirits (divine and human) of the person of Christ could be one. Just as we are not two people, even though we were made from two spirits, neither is Jesus two people, though He has both the Divine Spirit and a human spirit.
I understand your desire to stay away from the Trinitarian doctrine, but confessing that Jesus had a human spirit and the Divine Spirit does not lead to Trinitarianism. In fact, it has virtually nothing to do with the issue of Trinitarianism. The doctrine of the Trinity deals with how many personalities (distinct subsistencies) exist in the one God. It is believed that there are three subsistencies. Trinitarians’ idea of Jesus Christ is that one of those three subsistencies (God the Son) became a man. So the question of Trinitarianism is how many personalities there are in the Godhead, not how many spirits are in Jesus. By saying that Jesus has a human spirit does not affect the Godhead in any way, for nowhere are we examining the nature of the Divine Spirit of Christ. What we are talking about is the one divine essence of God becoming a genuine human being, and assuming all that it entails to be a human, including a human spirit. It would only be Trinitarianism if we said the Son’s divine Spirit was different than the Father’s Spirit, but we are saying that the Son has the Spirit of the Father and a human spirit.
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