Q.
1. “Does Christ have two wills?”
Christ does have two wills. As both man
and God, He has the will of a perfect man and the will of God. A will belongs
to each of His two natures. That this is true, Christ Himself expressed in His
words in the garden: “not my will, but thy will be done.” The first will was
His will as a man, a sorely pressed man; the will of God was His own will as
God. (Prof. David J. Engelsma)
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Q. 2. “Did not Christ in His human will
desire the salvation of all men, even though in His divine will He willed only
the salvation of the elect?”
Christ’s submission of His human will
to the will of God [especially in His prayer, “not my will, but thy will be
done”] refutes the notion that Christ’s human will (desiring the salvation of
all) is in contradiction to the will of God (desiring the salvation of the
elect only). Elsewhere, Christ announces that He has come to do the will of God
His Father, which will is the salvation of the elect only. Christ as Savior has
no mission of His own independent of and in contradiction of the will of God
who sent Him. For Christ to will the salvation of all, when the will of His Father
is the salvation only of the elect would be rebellion on Christ’s part and
confusion in the work of salvation. It would amount to heresy: Christ then
would have died for all, as a substitute for all. If all are not saved, the
death of Christ would have failed, and the implication would be that the
salvation of some only depends, not on Christ’s death, but on their own
acceptance of that death by their own wills. (Prof. David J. Engelsma)
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Q. 3. “Does Christ have two ‘minds’?”
Possessing two, real, distinct natures,
Christ had, and has, two minds, even as He has two wills. Human nature consists
of a mind and a will, with accompanying emotions. That Christ has two minds, a
divine and a human, is evident in His statement in the days of His humiliation
that He did not know the day and the hour of His return (Mark 13:32). As God He
certainly did know, having decreed it Himself. But as a man, He did not know
it. He has a human mind as well as a divine mind. Nor did the divine nature
negate the human. The two natures are distinct and distinguishable. One does
not encroach upon the other. (Prof. David
J. Engelsma)
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Q. 4. “How is it that Christ as God, knows all things, even the day
and hour of His coming again, but doesn't know the same as man? Christ knows that He is God, and knows that He knows all
things as God. Why does He say then
that He doesn’t know certain things, as the
man, Christ Jesus? As man, is He not able to know what He decreed in
eternity as God?”
As God He certainly did know, having
decreed it Himself. But as a man, He did not know it. He has a human mind as
well as a divine mind.
In the days of His humiliation, on
behalf of His humiliation and suffering, He voluntarily put His human nature
into the foreground. This culminated in His death. As God He could not die. But He died. His human nature took
“precedence” over the divine. This is the grand truth of Philippians 2. As God
the eternal Son, He emptied Himself on behalf of His redemptive work in the
human nature. “Emptied,” as you know, is the meaning of the bold word that the
AV translates as “made Himself of no reputation.”
I add that today, in the time of His
exaltation at God’s right hand, and as the man who carries out the counsel of
God concerning the end, the man Jesus
does know the day and the hour of His return. But He knows it, not only as God, but also as the man whom God has rewarded with such knowledge.
To be sure, deep matters. But matters
of revelation and therefore matters into which we may peer in the light of the
Bible. Deeply as we look, we are convinced that there are depths that we cannot
penetrate. This, the apostle confesses with awe and wonder—the
awe and wonder occasioned by the grace of God in Jesus Christ—at
the end of Romans 11. (Prof. David J.
Engelsma)
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Q. 5. “When Christ prayed, ‘O my
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ...’ it sure seems like
Christ’s will was contrary to the will of His Father. How is it that Christ
prays that the eternal decree of the Father, of which He was not ignorant,
should be revoked? How is it that Christ, in His humanity, can will something
different than what He himself, and His Father has decreed in eternity?”
The prayer, “Let this cup pass from
me,” was not whatsoever rebellion against the will of the Father. That it was
not is evident from the conditional phrase attached, “If it be possible”—that
is, if and only if it can be in accord with and subject to the will of the
Father concerning the salvation of the church. As a man, Christ did not know
that there was no other way to fulfill the will of the Father than the cross. Rather
than expressing any contradiction of the will of the Father, the petition
expresses the dreadful agony of the cross and the obedience of Christ to the
will of the Father at all cost: not my will but thine be done. In the petition,
Christ did not will something different than what the Father willed. Rather, if
the Father could will another way than the cross, that would be the will of the
Son in human nature. (Prof. David J.
Engelsma)
The Eternal Son of God has His divine will and
counsel with the Father and the Son. And, the man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God
in the flesh, had a human will according to His human nature. As the Son
of God He is eternal, but as the Son of man He has a beginning of days in His
conception and birth. Similarly, the Son of God willed eternally, but as
the man, Jesus Christ, He willed temporally and righteously, but with its
creaturely limitations according to His human nature. The reference to
Luke 22 and the wrestlings of Jesus in His suffering in the Garden
of Gethsemane in which He learned obedience points to the distinction
between what Jesus according to His human nature may have wanted to avoid, if
possible, in that moment in time (because of the reality of being forsaken by
God), but still in glorious submission to what God had eternally willed
(ordained, determined, decreed, foreordained).
Although Jesus is God and man, He never willed
according to His human nature what was in disobedience to the divine will of
God. He expressed in His agony the desire for the cup of wrath to be
removed from Him, but always in subjection to the divine will of God. No
conflict or “tension”—a popular word among modern theologians when talking
about God’s will and sovereignty and man’s will. Rather, His will as the
Son of God according to His divine nature and according to His human nature
were unified (in that sense of the word “one”). As a result, we believe
that the Person of the Son of God according to His human nature did not demand
something which God and so the Son of God according to His divine nature had
not eternally decreed and ordained. This we must believe in order to
maintain the “unity of His person,” mentioned in the Athanasian Creed, article #36, to which is united His two distinct,
but inseparably united natures. (Anon.—PRCA)
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Q. 6.
“I'm not sure I agree with the
statement, ‘As a man, Christ did not know
that there was no other way to fulfil the will of the Father than the cross.’
The above statement suggests that
the man Christ Jesus was open to the idea that His Father had two wills and
that it was possible that His Father might change the way by which He would
satisfy divine justice and atone for the sins of His people.
Jesus knew the OT prophecies
concerning Himself and teaches His disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem,
and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be
killed, and be raised again the third day (Matt 16:21). He would have taken them
to Zechariah 12:10: ‘And I will pour on the house of David and on the
inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will
look on Me whom they pierced …’ Also Psalm 22 and Isaiah 52-53, where the
sacrifice and resurrection of Christ are clearly portrayed.
In light of the above OT
prophecies, I can’t see how Christ could not know that there was no other way
to fulfil His Father’s will, than by way of the cross, or that He could even
entertain the notion that His Father might possibly change the way by which He
would satisfy divine justice and save the elect. Christ knew that the OT
Scriptures revealed God’s one and only will concerning His sufferings, death
and resurrection, and that the will of God was fixed in the eternal counsel
before time.
Hebrews 10:7 says, ‘Then said I,
Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O
God.’
Christ, as man, was not ignorant of
His Father’s eternal decree. He came to fulfil what He knew was His Father’s
one, unchangeable will.”
The argument and reasoning here are at first glance
convincing. The trouble with them is that they have Christ opposing the will of
God, which He knew to be the fixed will.
This would be sin on Christ’s part, which is
unthinkable.
The starting point of the one who raises this
argument is mistaken. Christ could not sin. As a man, He did not therefore know
with certainty that God’s will for the salvation of the elect could be realized
only by the cross. If it were possible—an important condition in the prayer—let another way be determined. So
awful was the cross.
With regard to God’s having made known that Christ
was to die the death of the cross, it was a possibility in Christ’s mind that
the meaning of the revelation of this will of God was that it might move Christ
to request another way, in response to which request God would make known
another way. God made known to Jonah and Nineveh that Nineveh would be
destroyed in 40 days. Yet when Nineveh repented and prayed for mercy, God did not
destroy the city. This does not represent a change in the counsel of God. Rather,
the meaning is that God willed the sparing of Nineveh by way of Nineveh’s
repenting in response to the warning of its destruction in 40 days (see Jonah
3).
What makes clear that Christ did not by His
petition oppose the will of God is His “if it be possible.” This is fundamental
submission to the will of God. In this spirit, we may make known to God our
petitions and will without sinning.
(Prof. David J. Engelsma)
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Q.
7.
A Three-Part Inquiry:
(1)
“Jesus, as a man, had two possible
ideas concerning what would happen: (A) He is going to die. (B) He is not going
to die. He expressed His ‘wish’ (i.e. weak desire) by the conditional phrase
‘If it be possible …’ He did not want to contradict the eternal counsel, but it
was more pleasing to Him to avoid the sufferings. Therefore, He had a ‘wish’
which was in submission to the eternal counsel. This ‘wish’ was not sinful even,
as we know, He must die. He ‘wished’ to avoid the sufferings, How else do you
understand these words: ‘nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done’ (Luke
22:42)? These words necessarily mean that He, to some degree, wished that.”
(2)
“If Christ ‘did not know,’ how then
do we explain, ‘For this cause came I into the world ...’ (John 18:37)? …
and Christ’s words to Peter, ‘Get thee behind me Satan ...’ when Peter said
‘far be it from thee to have to die’ (Matt. 16:23). Surely this verse tells us
that He did know, both as a man and
as God?”
(3)
Admittedly this is unknown territory to a lot of us, as there are many of
differing opinions, and many who have fallen into the ‘Monophysite’ teaching
(something which I myself don’t have a lot of knowledge about). I would
appreciate your thoughts on this.
The Monophysite heresy taught, as the word itself
means, that Jesus had only one nature—one mind and one will. It denied that He was
and is both fully God and fully human. It seems to me that those who
question Jesus’ fully human fear of
the cross and request that ‘if possible another way of redemption be chosen’
are guilty of the Monophysite error by denying the fully human nature of Jesus.
As fully human, and a weakened human besides,
Christ shrank from the cross because of its dreadful reality as abandonment by
God. He did not “wish” to escape death, but He willed to be spared the
death of the cross—“if it were possible”: only if it were possible. Rather than
coolly affirm what He could have known intellectually in that awful hour, we
should appreciate how the looming cup of the wrath of God against our sins
overwhelmed Him, terrified Him, and nearly killed Him in the “mere”
thought of it. This pressed out of Him the anguished cry, “If it be
possible,” etc. He was a genuine man, with genuinely human reactions and
actions.
All the logical reasonings in this e-mail impress
upon me, not that Jesus somehow disregarded the necessary will of the Father,
including His own will as the eternal Son, but how awful must have been
the deserts of my sin upon Him that pressed out of Him, who otherwise knew
the will of God about the cross, this anguished cry. And if there is
something mysterious about His petition, and there is, it is the mystery of the
love of Jesus Christ for me that moved Him willingly to the cross, that so
terrified Him, to atone for my sins. I am not surprised that He cried out
as He did. What surprises me is that He—a real human—did not decide at that hour, “I will not go through
with such suffering for such a wretch as David Engelsma.”
(Prof.
David J. Engelsma)
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