How is Jesus Christ unique?

He took up humanity into union with deity in His Person; yet His incarnation did not in the least detract from His deity nor His eternal relationship as Son to the Father but only gave to His humanity His infinite perfection. Each of His two natures retained its own proper character without any confusion. His human nature as well as His divine nature possessed each their excellent characteristics and both united to form His glorious Person as incarnate Son. Scripture never divides the Person nor confounds the natures. They are united in His Person by a unique and inscrutable bond. He is the God-man He is God in all that God is and He is Man in all that man is, apart from sin. Such is the Son of God come in flesh — the God-man — that He might manifest the Godhead in the flesh and by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, might redeem us unto God.

The opposite error to saying that He is two persons is to say that His two natures have combined into one. It was an ancient heresy that the two natures, Manhood and Deity, merged together. For this reason the writer does not like the expression the “God-man”. It implies to him (though not to many orthodox Christians) that He is half man and half God. Such an idea must be resisted. He is wholly Man and wholly God. He possesses all the attributes and properties of real, unfallen, holy Manhood, and at the same time possesses all the infinite attributes and properties of Deity. The unity consists, not in the amalgamation of essence, but in the Oneness of His Person.

Now who does not know that a person among men consists of both parts and unity? There are spirit and soul and body; and yet they constitute the person. There may be temporary dissolution of the outer tie by death; there will surely be their unity in one person for eternity. But for the true believer Christ's Person is distinguished from every other by the infinite fact of God and man united thus. These are in Him for ever indissoluble, though no saint doubts that He is Son of God and Son of man. Whatever His profound emotion in spirit, whatever the conflict when He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became as great drops of blood, that Man was inseparably God; and as from His conception, so fully in His death and resurrection. Thus had His every word, work, thought, and suffering divine value. It is not the Son alone, but "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." The man Christ Jesus is not only the one Mediator, but the true God and eternal life; the sent Servant, and the "I AM"; Christ of the fathers as according to flesh, yet He that is over all, God blessed for evermore. Amen.

The blessed Lord in assuming manhood took all that was necessary for manhood, spirit, soul, and body; the spirit of a man, the soul of a man, the body of a man—in other words a human spirit, a human soul, a human body—full complete manhood. And yet, united to Deity there was but one indivisible Person. Such is the teaching of Scripture, such the mystery that our Lord declares none can know but the Father.

This is a great mystery, and all the historic fundamental errors concerning His Person have been attempts to explain it in some measure. It is inexplicable. He is a real Man and true God in One Person. The two natures, manhood and Deity, are not joined together to form one nature, but are united in One Person. They ever remain distinct but are never separated. Their union is personal, not consubstantial.

Scripture never divides His Person into two parts, one human and one divine, but reveals Him as having taken up perfect humanity into union with His eternal deity so that they are united in one unique, inscrutable and indissoluble bond in His Person. While Scripture never confounds the two natures it never divides the Person. Even what He does in manhood is still the action of Himself, the eternal Son, who has of His own self, and without giving up His personality as eternal Son, "taking a bondman's form, taking His place in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7, J. N. D. Trans.). It is He the eternal Son that is there as Man. It is this fact of His Person as the eternal Son of God, having taken His place as Man, that gives the infinite perfection of His unique Person to all that He does as incarnate Son. It is this indissoluble union of perfect manhood with eternal deity in His unique Person that constantly comes out in all that He does as God (the Son) manifest in flesh.

Running through the Gospel of John there are assertions by the Lord Jesus as to who He was, and what He came to do, which, if not true, would have been the most frightful blasphemy possible. No servant of God, other than the Lord, ever used or could use such language. They are assertions that could not be true unless He was the Jehovah of the Old Testament on the one hand, and the Seed promised to Abraham, the Child of the virgin, the Man, Christ Jesus, on the other, yet one blessed Person.

Scripture clearly claims eternal Sonship and Godhead glory for our Lord Jesus Christ. The two words, Eternal Son, are not found in Scripture, but the truth these words convey is found in the very texture of Scripture, sometimes stated, often inferred. Scripture acclaims Him as the Son in eternity before time began (John 17:5; 1 John 1:2); and also as born into this world to Manhood’s estate (Heb. 1:5). The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that in these last days God has spoken by His SON. When the prophets spoke, God spoke through channels. The speakers were not God. They were but men, and God spoke through them. But when the Son spoke, God spoke. He is described as the brightness, the effulgence of God’s glory, the express image of His Person, that is image representation, in all its fulness. Who could answer to this description? Only One, and He must perforce be God Himself, and this He was. Hebrews 1:8 is very emphatic. The Son is here addressed,

John’s Gospel truly shows what was unique in the life of Jesus, and this because of who He was as the only-begotten in the bosom of the Father, a place that He can share with no other for it is His place as the eternal Son of God. No man had seen God at any time, but the only-begotten, who every dwelt in His bosom has made Him known. John shows that there is much that is uniquely the Son’s. Not only has He life in Himself because of who He is as God (John 1:4), but this has also been given to Him because He has become Man (John 5:26). He is the One who communicates life, to whom all judgment is committed, and who shall bring all the dead out of their graves. Every step of the life of Jesus manifested the divine dignity that was conscious of having such things given to Him of the Father, and of who He was as the eternal Son of the Father.

The Lord Jesus is none other than the Son of God, not only as a man, but also from eternity. He, and He alone, was able to reveal the Father’s heart. He was the object of the Father's love, even before the universe was created (John 17:24). We see Him as a glorified man, but He is none other than the Son of God, the "only begotten of the Father”, the absolutely unique One (John 1:14).