In Ephesians 1:11, we see that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will.” Here and in other scriptures, it becomes apparent that God had a plan and a purpose for His creation by which He would show forth His glory. In eternity past, before creation, God determined exactly how He would express Himself so that we might be able to know and enjoy Him. The invisible, unchanging God would indwell a visible man.  Standing outside of time, God pointed to this man throughout the Old Testament by means of many instances, types, prophecies, and even narratives between Himself and the man. In doing so, God not only wrote the script; he played the parts and spoke the lines. From Genesis until the time Christ was born at Bethlehem, all these prophetic scriptures would bear witness that Jesus was THE man. A close reading of the gospel of John bears out this relationship of Christ to God His Father.

Because Christ's will was to do that of His Father, he is the perfect image of God. He, as the second Adam, is also the perfect example of man, what God intends for us to be. Here is what we choose to call the Dual Nature of Christ—the nature of God and the nature of man, each retaining its own opposite attributes, existing in one person, in a union of perfect harmony. First touched upon in 451 A.D. at the Council of Chalcedon, this truth that was termed the “hypostatic union,” even then it was not fully appreciated and remains so yet today. In essence it declared:

“In the person of Christ there are two natures (deity and humanity) united in such a way as to be without mixture, confusion, separation, each nature retaining its own absolutes.”

Though such a statement was a great milestone in the Church’s quest to understand Christ as both man and God, its full significance was missed because of the presumption that both natures belonged to Christ. No, the two natures were not united in terms of a common “substance” (as regarded in that day) but by a common will and purpose. Consider what has been said, that the Father took up residence in the physical body of Jesus. Are not the two natures evident? One is God and the other is Christ. One is the Father and the other is the Son. Two natures, each with attributes completely opposite to the other. There it is, the Dual Nature. Chalcedon had the right formula, though it reached the wrong conclusion. Influenced by the Creeds that credited Christ with both deity and humanity, the two natures were thought to be exclusively those of Christ. The Deity nature was assumed to be that of Christ–wrong! No, in Christ the Deity nature dwelled in him who was fully man—right! Scripture is always right.

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