We subjoin various definitions of personality: Boëthius, quoted in Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:415 (Syst. Doct., 3:313)—“Persona est animæ rationalis individua substantia”; F. W. Robertson, Lect. on Gen., p. 3—“Personality = self-consciousness, will, character”; Porter, Human Intellect, 626—“Personality = distinct subsistence, either actually or latently self-conscious and self-determining”; Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 408—“Person = being, conscious of self, subsisting in individuality and identity, and endowed with intuitive reason, rational sensibility, and free-will.” Dr. E. G. Robinson defines “nature” as “that substratum or condition of being which determines the kind and attributes of the person, but which is clearly distinguishable from the person itself.”
Lotze, Metaphysics, § 244—“The identity of the subject of inward experience is all that we require. So far as, and so long as, the soul knows itself as this identical subject, it is and is named, simply for that reason, substance.” Illingworth, Personality, Human [pg 696]and Divine, 32—“Our conception of substance is not derived from the physical, but from the mental, world. Substance is first of all that which underlies our mental affections and manifestations. Kant declared that the idea of freedom is the source of our idea of personality. Personality consists in the freedom of the whole soul from the mechanism of nature.” On personality, see Windelband, Hist. Philos., 238. For the theory of two consciousnesses and two wills, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:129, 234; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 2:314; Ridgeley, Body of Divinity, 1:476; Hodge, Syst Theol., 2:378-391; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:289-308, esp. 328. Per contra, see Hovey, God with Us, 66; Schaff, Church Hist., 1:757, and 3:751; Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 12-14; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 148-169; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 512-518.
(f) Effect upon the human.—The union of the divine and the human natures makes the latter possessed of the powers belonging to the former; in other words, the attributes of the divine nature are imparted to the human without passing over into its essence,—so that the human Christ even on earth had power to be, to know, and to do, as God. That this power was latent, or was only rarely manifested, was the result of the self-chosen state of humiliation upon which the God-man had entered. In this state of humiliation, the communication of the contents of his divine nature to the human was mediated by the Holy Spirit. The God-man, in his servant-form, knew and taught and performed only what the Spirit permitted and directed (Mat. 3:16; John 3:34; Acts 1:2; 10:38; Heb. 9:14). But when thus permitted, he knew, taught, and performed, not, like the prophets, by power communicated from without, but by virtue of his own inner divine energy (Mat. 17:2; Mark 5:41; Luke 5:20, 21; 6:19; John 2:11, 24, 25; 3:13; 20:19).
Kahnis, Dogmatik, 2d ed., 2:77—“Human nature does not become divine, but (as Chemnitz has said) only the medium of the divine; as the moon has not a light of her own, but only shines in the light of the sun. So human nature may derivatively exercise divine attributes, because it is united to the divine in one person.” Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 151—“Our souls spiritualize our bodies, and will one day give us the spiritual body, while yet the body does not become spirit. So the Godhead gives divine powers to the humanity in Christ, while yet the humanity does not cease to be humanity.”
Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:131—“The union exalts the human, as light brightens the air, heat gives glow to the iron, spirit exalts the body, the Holy Spirit hallows the believer by union with his soul. Fire gives to iron its own properties of lighting and burning; yet the iron does not become fire. Soul gives to body its life-energy; yet the body does not become soul. The Holy Spirit sanctifies the believer, but the believer does not become divine; for the divine principle is the determining one. We do not speak of airy light, of iron heat, or of a bodily soul. So human nature possesses the divine only derivatively. In this sense it is our destiny to become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1:4). Even in his earthly life, when he wished to be, or more correctly, when the Spirit permitted, he was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, could walk the sea, or pass through closed doors. But, in his state of humiliation, he was subject to the Holy Spirit.”
In Mat. 3:16, the anointing of the Spirit at his baptism was not the descent of a material dove (“as a dove”). The dove-like appearance was only the outward sign of the coming forth of the Holy Spirit from the depths of his being and pouring itself like a flood into his divine-human consciousness. John 3:34—“for he giveth not the Spirit by measure”; Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles”; 10:38—“Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him”; Heb, 9:14—“the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish onto God.”
When permitted by the Holy Spirit, he knew, taught, and wrought as God: Mat. 17:2—“he was transfigured before them”; Mark 5:41—“Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise”; Luke 5:20, 21—“Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.... Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”—Luke 6:19—“power came forth from him, and healed them all”; John 2:11—“This beginning of his signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory”; 24, 25—“he knew all men.... he himself knew what was in man”; 3:13—“the Son of man, who is [pg 697]in heaven” [here, however, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, omit ὁ ὢν ἔν τῷ ὀυρανῷ,—for advocacy of the common reading, see Broadus, in Hovey's Com., on John 3:13]; 20:19—“when the doors were shut ... Jesus came and stood in the midst.”
Christ is the “servant of Jehovah” (Is. 42:1-7; 49:1-12; 52:13; 53:11) and the meaning of παῖς (Acts 3:13, 28; 4:27, 30) is not “child” or “Son”; it is “servant,” as in the Revised Version. But, in the state of exaltation, Christ is the “Lord of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit (John 16:7—“I will send him unto you”), present in the Spirit (John 14:18—“I come unto you”; Mat. 28:20—“I am with you always, even unto the the end of the world”), and working through the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45—“The last Adam became a life-giving spirit”); 2 Cor. 3:17—“Now the Lord is the Spirit”. On Christ's relation to the Holy Spirit, see John Owen, Works, 282-297; Robins, in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1874:615; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208-241.
Delitzsch: “The conception of the servant of Jehovah is, as it were, a pyramid, of which the base is the people of Israel as a whole; the central part, Israel according to the Spirit; and the summit, the Mediator of Salvation who rises out of Israel.” Cheyne on Isaiah, 2:253, agrees with this view of Delitzsch, which is also the view of Oehler. The O. T. is the life of a nation; the N. T. is the life of a man. The chief end of the nation was to produce the man; the chief end of the man was to save the world. Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 59—“If humanity were not potentially and in some degree an Immanuel, God with us, there would never have issued from its bosom he who bore and revealed this blessed name.” We would enlarge and amend this illustration of the pyramid, by making the base to be the Logos, as Creator and Upholder of all (Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:16); the stratum which rests next upon the Logos is universal humanity (Ps, 8:5, 6); then comes Israel as a whole (Mat. 2:15); spiritual Israel rests upon Israel after the flesh (Is. 42:1-7); as the acme and cap stone of all, Christ appears, to crown the pyramid, the true servant of Jehovah and Son of man (Is. 53:11; Mat. 20:28). We may go even further and represent Christ as forming the basis of another inverted pyramid of redeemed humanity ever growing and rising to heaven (Is. 9:6—“Everlasting Father”; Is. 53:10—“he shall see his seed”; Rev. 22:16—“root and offspring of David”; Heb. 2:13—“I and the children whom God hath given me.”)
(g) Effect upon the divine.—This communion of the natures was such that, although the divine nature in itself is incapable of ignorance, weakness, temptation, suffering, or death, the one person Jesus Christ was capable of these by virtue of the union of the divine nature with a human nature in him. As the human Savior can exercise divine attributes, not in virtue of his humanity alone, but derivatively, by virtue of his possession of a divine nature, so the divine Savior can suffer and be ignorant as man, not in his divine nature, but derivatively, by virtue of his possession of a human nature. We may illustrate this from the connection between body and soul. The soul suffers pain from its union with the body, of which apart from the body it would be incapable. So the God-man, although in his divine nature impassible, was capable, through his union with humanity, of absolutely infinite suffering.