Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself. Yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to name of the other nature.
(WCF 8.7)
As we come to the closing articles of the chapter we have been exploring on Christ’s role as mediator, the confession points our attention to what type of mediator that we really have right now in the Heavens.
First, as we have seen, the person of Jesus is very God and very man. That is a super simple way of saying that Jesus is totally 100% God and totally 100% Human (Jn 1:1-3, Col 1:19, Phil 2:6-8). And He had to be that because He needed to redeem all that we are, and thus didn’t just appear human or pretend to be human but really was. That’s right, Almighty God really took flesh and was born to a virgin 2,000 years ago so that He could be the perfect saviour and mediator for His people (Heb 2:14-17, 1 Tim 2:5-6 c.f. Isa 43:11).
Now without conflating the two natures of Jesus (monophysitism), nor falling too far the other way in separating them (Eutychianism), we do need to acknowledge that Jesus ‘by each nature did that which is proper to itself’. What does that mean? Well we don’t want to push it too far here, but basically when Jesus died on the cross, real blood was needed to redeem people from their sins, and real suffering for the curse had to be met - and it was the person of Christ that was able to do so because He is very God and very man (Isa 53 c.f. Heb 9:14, 1 Pet 3:18). Chad Van Dixhoorn writes, ‘what is important to say is that what is true of either nature of Christ is also true of the person of Christ. This is usually called “the communication of attributes.” That is, what can be said of the humanity of Christ can be said of his person; what can be said of the divinity of Christ can be said of his person.’ (Confessing the Faith, pg 126). All that to say, we are not to separate or conflate the two natures in our Lord to do the degree that he was walking around with two minds arguing with one another, but it is to say that there are real differences in the natures, and what they do can and must be credited to the one person of Christ.
The author of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, actually inspired certain authors to help us see this a little more clearly, and thus Scripture sometimes will highlight certain attributes of the person of Christ to remind us that He simply wasn’t a man, nor was He simply God - but very God and very man both existing in the one person of Christ. For example the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us (Jn 1:14), yet He got tired and hungry (Mk 11:12). This it’s not two people, but one person with two natures with the biblical writers emphasising one of the two aspects that they are wanting us to realise in the moment. They are in no way wanting us to conflate the two natures or make us confused, they are just highlight one aspect over the other in the moment - and sometimes the humanity of Christ is expressed by using divine language and vice versa (see Acts 20:28, 1 Jn 3:16)
Is this hard to understand? Absolutely! We are exploring concepts that are really quite far out of our reach. But one thing we do know, and is made simple for all the people of God is this - we have broken God’s law in every which way, and there was not a chance on earth that we could do anything to fix it, and so in God’s love and kindness and mercy, he became flesh and was tested in every which way yet didn’t sin so that he could go to the cross on behalf of his people and offer his life up as the perfect sacrifice. That life was accepted and Christ was raised from the dead, and raised to the heavens where he is now the perfect mediator between humanity and God - of which he is both (Heb 4:14-16)