Divinity: Christ is God. He is God eternally, anterior to creation and to His incarnation. It was precisely while “He existed in the form of God” and while He possessed equality with the Father (“did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped”) that He became incarnate. This reflects the resounding doctrine of Scripture that the Son is the eternal God.[1] Indeed, “from everlasting to everlasting” He is God (Ps. 90:2), even “the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity” (Is. 57:15, NKJV). As the eternal God, He is the immutable God (Heb. 1:10-12).[2] As He was forever, He is now and shall forever be, indeed “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8) as God. This basic doctrine of Christ came under attack in the early years of church history and the Council at Nicaea affirmed Him as “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father” (Nicaea, 325 AD).

Humanity: While He existed as God, coeternal and coequal with the Father, Christ made Himself nothing (“emptied Himself”), becoming subordinate (“form of a slave”) and incarnate (“in the likeness of men… in appearance as a man”).[3] In the hypostatic union, Christ never ceases being God but takes on the second nature of man and thus becomes the Theanthropos, the God-Man, “truly God and truly man… one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” (Chalcedon, 451 AD). We worship and trust in Him who is both God and man, the final revelation of God to us (Heb. 1:1-2).

[1] Cf. Is. 9:6; Micah 5:2; John 1:3; 8:58; 17:5; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:2, 8; 1 John 1:1-2; Rev. 1:17-18; 22:12-13.

[2] Immutability precludes the loss of any divine attribute (e.g., omniscience, omnipresence, etc.). Christ cannot be God and set aside any divine attribute, because God does not change. Moreover, God is simple; He is not composed of parts. Divine attributes cannot be piecemealed; Christ is God in all His fullness (Col. 2:9).

[3] Christ is human: Is. 9:6; John 1:14; Rom. 1:3; 1 Tim. 2:5; 3:16; Heb. 2:14, 17; 1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18; 1 John 1:1; 4:2.