What was the difference between Jesus’ divine acts and his human acts?
There is quite a history to this question. The Greek and Western Christians wanted to define the different natures of Jesus. He was a human but he was also God. But how much of him was human and how much was God?
This great debate is based on the term hyperstatic union. Scholars and theologians have been debating for centuries what actions of Jesus were divine and which actions were human. They have come to the conclusion, also written into several church creeds, that Jesus is fully God and fully human.
When I was in Bible College, one of my theology professors presented the argument (I believe he agreed with it) that Jesus’ divine acts ran along the lines of healing and miracles, showing foreknowledge and knowledge that people could not have had, disappearing in crowds, and the like.
His human acts were things like eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, etc. But I had a problem with trying to split the human and divine acts of Jesus. For instance, why did eating and sleeping have to be human acts alone?
Consider Matthew 8:23-27. Jesus gets into the boat with his disciples and falls asleep. As they are crossing the sea, a great squall comes across the water, so much that it frightens professional sailors and fishermen.
But in the midst of their fear of dying in the storm, Jesus is sleeping. This act of sleeping in the midst of such danger show Jesus’ divine power and ability to trust in the Father for his life? In fact, he points to the little faith of the disciples when he wakes up and calms the storm. Call me in the storm with a word is a divine acts.
I submit that Jesus’ ability to sleep through the most dangerous storm his professional sailor disciples, who had sailed on that same sea since they were children, was a divine and human act together.
We need not split the acts of Jesus. We cannot fully understand the fully human and fully divine natures of Jesus. But we know the Bible attests both. We can affirm in faith the human hand divine natures of Jesus. We do not have to fully understand it to trust it. We can also see what we categorize as human acts and divine acts as much as we want, but there are times when these actions by Jesus can be what we don’t classify them to be.
If you are interested in checking out the nature of Jesus further, search for “hyperstatic union” or “the natures of Jesus” and you will find a lot of material. Every theology book covers this topic.
