Q. Was Jesus Christ really true God and true man? I mean think of it this way: if he was true man then he had all the weaknesses we do but that would mean he was not true God because God cannot have weaknesses.
A. The conclusion holds if you add the assumed premise: that Jesus is true God and true man by a mixing of natures rather than by a union of natures. That is, the argument assumes that after God became man, what “resulted” was half God and half man – like Hercules. But being half God and half man would mean he was neither true God nor true man just like when you mix black and white paint what you end up with is neither black nor white.
But God and man are not one in Christ by mixing like in an alloy. God and man are one in Christ by union like in a chemical compound such as sodium chloride or like an author and his pen. Each element retains its properties.
My analogies may be poor, granted... The Church herself uses a much better analogy: man himself. “In the same way that a soul and a body are one in man, so God and man are one in Christ.” Our soul is completely soul and our body is completely body: we are not a “soulish body” or a “bodyish soul”. So too Christ is completely God and completely man not a man-ish God or a God-ish man.
As God He could - through the words and gestures of His humanity - perform deeds (miracles) that only divinity can. The most spectacular I would say was not just raising other people from the dead, but raising Himself from the dead.
As man He, like all other men, cried and grew tired and suffered and had to be taught things and laughed and sneezed and wondered and died. His divinity did not save Him from these.
Perhaps the greatest illustration is precisely on His deathbed, the Cross. There, while enduring the greatest human suffering the Romans had invented, with His back flogged to shreds, His nose broken, His head throbbing with the crown of thorns, His knees grazed and skinned from the falls, His arms and legs numb with pain from the nails, His vision blurred by spit and blood, Jesus cried out in a loud voice “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?” His divinity gave no assistance to His humanity. He was true God yes, but He was also verily true man.
Happy Sunday!
17thJanuary 2016