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Two Natures in Christ (Arch Books)

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It has been said that if the second Martin had not lived, systematizing Luther, the first Martin would not have been as successful. It is easy to see why such a claim was made when one reads The Two Natures In Christ. Chemnitz's magnum opus set the stage early on as a standard defense and reference work on the two natures of Jesus Christ. The title page reads: "A monograph concerning the two natures in Christ, their hypostatic union, the communication of their attributes, and related questions, recently revised and prepared on the basis of Scripture and the witness of the ancient church by Dr. Martin Chemnitz..." No library of dogmatics can be complete without this excellent reference work of 542 pages.

Consisting of 33 chapters, this book exhaustively examines what the council of Chalcedon declared to be true orthodoxy in the year 451.

Other books of interest may include: God In Patristic THought by Prestige, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought by Meyendorff, Trinity and Incarnation by Basil Studer, Incarnation-Myth or Fact? by Skarsaune, Christology by Gerald O'Collins, On the Person of Christ by Wesche, the 3 volume work by Grillmeier (Christ in Christian Tradition), Raymond Brown's An Introduction to New Testament Christology, The Gospel Image of Christ by Kesich, The Cruelty of Heresey by Allison. Each of these books deals explicitly with Christology in an orthodox manner, outlining clearly the salvific relevance of the doctrine of the two natures in Christ. Enjoy!

This book was recommended to me in 1989. I bought it in 1990, and have read it a number of times since then, with greater insights coming from it with each read.

If I had to grab a handful of books because a flood was coming, this is one I'd take. This is the finest Christology book I've ever read, and there is no competition. I would argue that in a real sense, it is one of the top 5 theology books I've ever read at all.

A couple of suggestions:

1. Get a good copy. I'm all for buying used books from Amazon, but this might be one where you'd want to get it new, just because you will -- I hope -- be reading it over and over. And you'll very likely never sell it, because this book is so good that you'll feel like hogging it to yourself.

2. Read it slowly. I'm not a fan of devotional books (they're often junk) but this book teaches you about theology, while nurturing your spiritual life. When I'm reading it, I read 2-4 pages a day. Of course, that means it might take a year to get through, but what's the problem with that? When you're finished, you'll feel like starting over.

3. Most errors in Christian theology stem from one of 2 areas. People get messed up on either the PERSON of Christ (who He is) or the WORK of Christ (what He does). This book will inoculate you against both errors.

4. This is NOT a book "just for pastors." Any thoughtful layperson can read and learn from this. A few terms are in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew; most of those terms are translated.

Martin Chemnitz is a master. Get this book (and anything by him) and learn from it. You will be a better Christian for it, and your church will benefit, too.

Chemnitz, following in the footsteps of Martin Luther, and in particular the early church fathers, like John of Damascus, composes a well-balanced treatise on the person of Jesus Christ. Chemnitz is concerned to show how the two natures (God and man) co-inhere so that there is in Jesus Christ, only one person (thus staying within the framework established by the Council of Chalcedon in the 5th century). Working within the philosophical framework of Reformation Aristotelianism, Chemnitz nonetheless provides solid and serious work on which to chew. Worthwhile also is Chemnitz' discussion of the communication of attributes, that is, the divine attributes of Christ and their effect upon the human nature (and us). This is perhaps the greatest dogmatic treatise on Christology that a pastor/ theologian in the Reformation produced. The Two Natures laid the foundation for all Lutheran thinkers who followed. There is nothing comparable until one reaches the fourth volume of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. Well worth the time spent reading!

Dr. Chemnitz does an SUPERIOR job at discussing the nature of Christ. He documents many of the Early Church Fathers and what they taught concerning Jesus humanity and divinity. This is very deep reading but well worth the time. I would recommend this book to any serious student.

This is a technical manual defending and explicating Lutheran Christology at the end of the second round of the eucharistic debates between Lutherans and the Reformed in the sixteenth century.

The debate between the Lutherans and the Reformed was over the precise nature of Christ's resurrected body and where it could and could not be found. The nature of Christ's body was discussed in great, great detail in the early Church, but not in relation to Christ's presence in the eucharist. In the sixteenth century the debate over Christ's body and the two natures in Christ (the human and the divine natures) took on great significance in relation to where Christ was and was not located physically. The Reformed essentially argued "the finite was not capable of the infinite" and thus Christ was not able to be present physically in the Lord's Supper, for a physical body, including Christ's resurrected body, was constrained by the limitations of any physical body and thus Christ's body was located in heaven alone. Luther argued Christ's physical body was everywhere, but that Christ was present "for you" at the Lord's table. Chemnitz accepts Luther's belief in the omnipresence (ubiquity) of Christ's physical body, but with a significant qualification: Christ is able to be present physically wherever He so desires to be (ubivolipraesens) and He desires to be present where He promised to be: at the Lord's table.

In "The Two Natures in Christ" Chemnitz sets out in great detail to explain how the attributes of the divine nature of Christ are communicated to the human nature in Christ. What does that mean? Ultimately that the divine nature's attribute of omnipresence is communicated to the human nature of Christ so that Christ's physical body can be present everywhere and is not limited by space or time as we undertand. The communication of the divine attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence to the human nature in Christ fall under the heading of the "genus of majesty" - one of three kinds (genera) of the famous "communication of attributes" (communicatio idiomatum) first described by the early church fathers, but now applied to Lutheran Christology.

Each of the 33 chapters is quite detailed and filled with a plethora of patristic citations. Chemnitz is eager to demonstrate that the voice of antiquity is on his side, especially Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus.

Chemnitz's conclusions are not as clear as some modern readers might hope for so it's best to read Chemnitz's "The Lord's Supper" (De Coena Domini) before proceeding to this more detailed work. Also, since this work is really a technical manual one would benefit from consulting Francis Pieper's section on Christology in his 3 volume Dogmatics and Hoenecke's section on Christology in his 4 volume Dogmatics to see how Chemnitz fits into the grander scheme of things. Werner Elert's discussion of Christology in "The Structure of Lutheranism" also provides a good overview of orthodox Lutheran Christology from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.