Calvin’s Understanding of the Communication of Properties

By Joseph N. Tylenda

Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Calvin speaks of the communication of properties or idioms,[1] in two areas of his theology: (a) in his christology, when he treats the two natures of Christ united in the one person, and (b) in his teaching on the Eucharist, when he answers the Lutheran claim of ubiquity for the body of Christ. It is not the purpose of this brief article to discuss the theological background to the origin, meaning, and use of the communication of properties;[2] rather, its scope is very limited, namely, to see how Calvin understood this communication. Calvin, in fact, says very little about it; he seems to mention communicatio idiomatum only in passing,[3] but what we have is sufficient to achieve our goal. There is also a practical reason in undertaking this short study. A quick (and therefore unreflective) reading of Calvin may lead one to ask, “Since, Calvin and Luther held the same principles in this matter, how did they arrive at such diverse conclusions?” This article, then, is intended to offer some light on Calvin’s position.

In the definitive edition of the Institutes (1559) Calvin wrote: “Thus…the Scriptures speak of Christ: they sometimes attribute to him what must be referred solely to his humanity, sometimes what belongs uniquely to his divinity: and sometimes what embraces both natures but fits neither alone. And they so earnestly express this union of the two natures that is in Christ as sometimes to interchange them. This figure of speech is called by the ancient writers ‘the communicating of properties.’“[4] Even in the earliest edition of the Institutes (1536) we find the same teaching, though its expression is slightly different: “sometimes they attribute to him that which can refer only to the humanity, sometimes that which belongs particularly to the divinity; sometimes that which is appropriate to the two natures and not to one alone. Finally, and by the communication of properties, they assign to the divinity that which is proper to the humanity, and to the humanity that which concerns the divinity.”[5] In both passages Calvin has four points, but of these, only the fourth deals with the communication of idioms. A brief explanation of the first three points is given to help better understand the fourth.

Calvin recalls in the first place, that the Scriptures at times attribute to Christ properties which refer solely to his humanity. We read, for example. that Christ “increased in age and wisdom” (Luke 2:52), that he did “not know the last day” (Mark 13:32), and that he was “seen and handled” (Luke 24:39) after his resurrection.[6] Clearly, these are human attributes, proceeding from his human nature, and because Christ is a true man, these human properties are properly assigned to him. As a divine person Christ could not increase in anything, nor could anything be hidden from him; nevertheless, these human characteristics are ascribed to Christ himself, as being in harmony with the person of the Mediator. Furthermore, Calvin maintains that there is “no impropriety…in saying that Christ who knew all things (John 21:17) was ignorant of something in respect to his perception as a man…and if Christ, as man, did not know the last day, that does not any more derogate from his divine nature than to have been mortal.”[7]

Secondly, sometimes the Scriptures attribute to Christ properties which belong uniquely to his divinity. Christ asserted that “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), and that he was “glorious in his Fatber’s presence before the world was made” (John 17:5), and that he works together with the Father (John 5:17).[8] Because Christ claimed for himself a power that was more than human, a power which is in fact divine, it follows that these qualities are utterly alien to human nature. Since Christ is true God, then these properties, by reason of his divine nature, are truly and properly attributed to him.

Calvin notes in the third point, that the Scriptures sometimes speak of characteristics which are appropriate to both natures together, and not to one alone. These characteristics do not proceed from his human nature alone as in the first category, nor from his divine nature as in the second, but they proceed from both natures together. Among his examples Calvin cites Christ’s power of remitting sins (John 1:29), of raising to life whom he wills, of bestowing righteousness and holiness.[9] Christ had been endowed with these prerogatives when he was manifested in the flesh. It is true that along with the Father he held them before the creation of the world, but it had not been in the same manner or respect, and they could not have been given to a man who was nothing but a man.[10]

It is only in the fourth point that we encounter the communication of idioms. Does Calvin offer a definition? In the first edition of the Institutes we read: “by the communication of properties [the Scriptures] assign to the divinity that which is proper to the humanity, and to the humanity that which concerns the divinity”; in his final edition we have “[the Scriptures] express this union of the two natures that is in Christ as sometimes to interchange them.” From both statements we can perhaps adapt a tentative definition: for example, the communication of idioms, or properties, is the interchange of properties of the divine and human nature of Christ.[11] This is and remains a working definition; in itself it is ambiguous, and therefore, as a definition, unsatisfactory.

In order to ascertain how Calvin himself understood the communication of properties, we first study the examples he used, and then how he understood them. Calvin wrote: “But the communicating of characteristics or properties consists in what Paul says: ‘God purchased the church with his blood’ (Acts 20:28), and ‘the Lord of glory was crucified’ (1 Cor 2:8). John says the same: ‘The Word of life was handled’ (1 John 1:1). Surely God does not have blood, does not suffer, cannot be touched with hands. But since Christ, who was true God and also true man, was crucified, and shed his blood for us, the things that he carried out in his human nature were transferred improperly, although not without reason, to his divinity.”[12]

In the three previous points, human attributes are properly applied to Christ because he is true man; divine qualities are properly attributed because he is likewise true God; finally, divine-human characteristics are properly assigned because he is God-Man. In the examples illustrating these three points, Jesus Christ is always the subject, or person, to whom the attributes (divine, human, or theandric) are assigned. But in the communication of idioms, there is an interchange, as Calvin says, “improper, but not without reason.” According to the fourth point we do not say “Jesus died,” as we would under the first, but by the communication of properties we say “God died.” Now, Calvin offers five examples of this communication. In the three given above, “God” (understood as the second person, and not the Trinity), the “Lord of glory” and “the Word of life” are the subject. This is the paradox, the seeming contradiction: the interchange is in predicating human attributes, for example, “having blood,” “dying,” and “being handled” to “God,” the “Lord of glory,” and the “Word of life.” None of these human attributes can be properly applied to the divine nature as such; one cannot say with truth, that the divine nature has blood, is mortal, or corporeal. To predicate such properties of the divine nature as such, or in the abstract, is also saying that the Father as well as the Holy Spirit became incarnate. In Calvin’s commentary on Acts 20:28, he affirms: “There is nothing more absurd than to suppose that God is corporeal or mortal….But when [the Scriptures] set God before us made manifest in the flesh, they do not separate his human nature from his divinity. Yet because, on the other hand, the two natures are so united in Christ as to constitute one person, what properly belongs to the one is sometimes improperly transferred to the other. For instance, in this verse Paul attributes blood to God, because the man Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for us, was also God. This figure of speech was called the communication of properties by the Fathers, because the property of one nature is applied to the other.”[13]

Calvin offers two more examples: “God laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16) and he adds that “a property of humanity is shared with the other nature”; and Christ on earth said, “No one has ascended into heaven but the Son of Man who was in heaven” (John 3:13), and notes that “because the selfsame was both God and man for the sake of the union of both natures he gave to the one what belongs to the other.”14 The example from 1 John is similar to the three earlier examples since a human characteristic is applied to God; the second, however, is an example of a divine attribute being predicated of the Son of Man. In all of Calvin’s five examples, the divine or human property is said of a subject, a person (Jesus Christ), and that subject is designated either in function of his divine nature as “God,” or “Lord of glory,” or in function of his human nature as “Son of Man.” In none of the examples is the property of one nature applied to the other nature as such; it is always applied to a subject possessing that nature. It is true that Calvin writes “a property of humanity is shared with the other nature,”[15] and that the Scriptures “assign to the divinity that which is proper to the humanity, and to the humanity that which concerns the divinity”[16] but these statements should be interpreted in accordance with Calvin’s mind and examples.

Calvin does not mean that a human concrete attribute as “blood” or “dying” can be applied to divinity as such, or to the divine nature in the abstract, for example, “divinity is mortal,” because he has already rejected such predication in his commentary on Acts 20:28. But he does mean, and so do the Scriptures, that “blood” and “dying” can be predicated of divinity in the concrete, of a divine being, if the subject, besides being divine, is also human, and therefore has blood and is mortal. Hence, since Christ is a single subject having two real natures (he is true God and true man) we can truthfully say by the communication of idioms that “God purchased the church with his blood.”[17]

Therefore, in the communication of properties, an attribute of one nature is affirmed of a subject or person, named, indicated or denominated by his other nature: for example, in “God purchased the church with his blood” Jesus Christ, the subject, is denominated by his divine nature and of him is affirmed the human attribute of possessing blood; in “the Son of man was in heaven” Jesus Christ, the subject, is denominated by his human nature, and of him is affirmed the divine attribute of eternity.[18] Hence, when Calvin says that there is an interchange of properties, or that what is proper to the humanity is assigned to the divinity, and what belongs to the divinity is affirmed of the humanity, both the attributes and the subject of predication must be taken in the concrete and not in the abstract.[19]

To affirm the opposite, or so to understand the texts as to mean that divine properties may be attributed to human nature as such, and vice versa, we come to the manner in which the Lutherans extend the use of the communication of idioms. In Luther’s controversy with Zwingli over the Lord’s Supper, he gave considerable importance to the communication of properties; by this he meant the attributing to Christ’s humanity of certain properties of his divine nature, and conversely, the attributing of certain properties of his human nature to his divine nature. In his Confession on the Lord’s Supper, Luther wrote: “Because the divinity and the humanity form in Christ one single person, the Scriptures attribute to the divinity, on account of this personal unity, everything that concerns humanity, and conversely.”[20] Zwingli, on the other hand, claims that what the Scriptures affirm of Christ according to his humanity and which belongs only to his divinity, is told in but an inadequate manner and that consequently there could not be properly speaking any communication of idiomata.[21]

In extending the communication of idioms so that ubiquity could be attributed to the human nature of Christ, the Lutherans hoped to explain Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist.[22] Calvin rejects such ubiquity for Christ’s human nature,[23] and in the Preface to his Commentary on Jeremiah, he so expressed his mind: “If the infinity of God appertains to the flesh of Christ, then with equal reason his divinity may be said to have grieved, to have been thirsty, to have been subject to death, in short to have died. They cannot escape as it is a similar mode of reasoning….What they bring forward as to the communication of properties, it is unreasonable, and what I may say without offending them, they mistake in a matter that is very simple and plain; for to ascribe what is peculiar to Deity to the Son of Man [humanity], and again to attribute to Deity what belongs only to humanity, is very improper and rash.”[24] Once again Calvin denies that the properties of one nature can be attributed to the other nature. He denies that the ubiquity, infinity, and immensity of God belong to the flesh; moreover, to so blend both natures of Christ that when he became man the attributes of divinity were communicated to his human nature is to repeat the heresy of Eutyches.[25]

To conclude, we may summarize Calvin’s thought in this manner: the communication of idioms is not a real ontological communication of properties (whereby the characteristics of one nature ontologically belong to the other nature), but it is the assigning of attributes to a person or subject.[26] When Calvin says, together with Luther, that the Scriptures assign to one nature what is proper to the other, both Reformers understand the phrase differently. For Calvin, an attribute of one nature is assigned to the person of Christ, though designated by his other nature; for Luther, the attribute of one nature is granted to the other nature. Finally a definition: the communication of properties is that interchange of properties by which a subject denominated by one of his two natures, so possesses the other nature and its properties that these properties may be truly attributed to him.[27]

Notes

1. Calvin employs the following expressions: communicatio idiomatum in the 1536 edition of the Institutes, cf. Calvin volumes of Corpus Reformatorum (CR) 1:66; ijdiwmavtwn koinwniva in the 1539 and succeeding editions, CR 1:520; and we find the combination idiomatum koinwniva in the 1559 edition, CR 2:1031. ijdivwma is defined by H. Stephanus (Estienne) as proprietas, propria cujusque rei natura (Thesaurus graecae linguae), and G. W. H. Lampe gives “characteristic property, distinctive feature” as its definition in his A Patristic Greek Lexicon (London, 1961). For our discussion a property is something which properly belongs to a nature, and which can be attributed to the subject possessing that nature. The expression communicatio idiomatum is translated differently by different authors, e.g., “the communication of idioms,” or “properties,” or “peculiarities,” or “characteristics.”
2. Cf. the various theological encyclopedias and dictionaries; e.g., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York, 1909) 3, pp. 179-81; Lutheran Cyclopedia, ed. by E. L. Lueker (St. Louis, 1954), p. 495; Karl Rahner, Theological Dictionary (New York, 1965), p. 90; New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967), 4, pp. 35-37; Dictionnaire de la théologie catholique, ed. by A. Vacant (Paris, 1899-), 7, pp. 595-602.
3. The indices in the Calvin volumes of CR (vols. 22 and 59) give only nine references.
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, xiv, 1, ed. by John T. McNeill, trans. by Ford Lewis Battles. Library of Christian Classics XX, XXI (Philadelphia, 1960); CR 2:353. In Opera Selecta (OS), ed. by P. Barth and G. Niesel, 3, p. 459.
5. CR 1, p. 66; OS 1, p. 79.
6. Cf. Inst., II, xiv, 2; CR 2, p. 354; OS 3, pp. 459-60.
7. Comm. on Harmony of the Gospels, Matt 24:36 (Mark 13:32). CR 45, 672.
8. Cf. Inst., II, xiv, 2; CR 2, pp. 353-54; OS 3, p. 459.
9. Cf. Inst., II, xiv, 3; CR 2, pp. 354-55; OS 3, pp. 460-61.
10. Theologians have been accustomed to call these the theandric acts of Christ, i.e., acts or operations in which both the divine and the human natures cooperate, each nature exercising its own proper activity, but join together in producing a single effect. The human nature in this case is the instrument of the divine. John Damascene treats of these actions in his De fide orthodoxa III, 19 (Migne, Patrologia graeca [PG] 94:1077). He calls these qeandrikaiv ejnevrgeiai or theandrica.
11. McNeill offers this in his edition, cf. Inst., 11, xiv, 1, n. 4.
12. Inst., II, xiv, 2; CR 2, p. 354; OS 3, p. 460.
13. Comm. on Acts 20:28; CR 48, pp. 469-70. When Calvin speaks of the transfer or interchange of attributes, he says, as in this quotation, that it is because of the two natures united in Christ in one person. Since we are talking about an interchange of properties, and the properties proceed from each of the two natures, it follows that there can only be such an interchange or communication because of the fact of the hypostatic union. I find it, therefore, difficult to agree with K. McDonnell in his John Calvin, the Church, and the Eucharist (Princeton, 1967) p. 217, where he says: “For Calvin the communication of idioms is not to be found in the ontological union of two integral natures but exclusively in the office of Christ the Mediator.” To confirm his statement, McDonnell cites the following: “[Christ] does not ascribe these qualities solely to his human nature, but takes them upon himself as being in harmony with the person of the Mediator” (Inst., II, xiv, 2). My reading of the statement is as given above, namely, Calvin is emphasizing the fact that the attributes are predicated of a person, a subject having that nature, and not solely of the nature itself. Furthermore, in the passage Calvin says nothing about the office of Mediator, and, moreover, Calvin wrote that statement in explanation of the first and not the fourth point where he treats the communication of idioms. True, Christ’s office of Mediator goes hand in hand with his Incarnation, with Christ’s ontological constitution in unity of person and duality of natures. The fact that Christ may have been appointed to the office of Mediator prior to his Incarnation does not make the office of Mediator the exclusive basis for the communication of idioms. The Word who was Mediator, but not yet incarnate, could not have been the subject of the communication of properties; rather, only when he is in possession of both natures could he be the subject of such predication. Hence, the hypostatic union seems to be the proximate and immediate basis of such a communication; the office of Mediator is, at most, the remote and ultimate basis.
14. Inst., II, xiv, 2; CR 2, p. 354; OS 3, p. 460.
15. Ibid.
16. CR 1, p. 66; OS 1, p. 79.
17. We find the same teaching in John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, III, 4 (PG 94:997): “When we speak of the divinity we do not predicate of it the properties [idiomata] of the humanity; thus we do not say that the divinity is subject to suffering or is created. Nor do we assign to flesh or humanity the properties of the divinity; thus we do not say that flesh or humanity is uncreated. However, since we are speaking about a person, whether we name him by reason of both [natures] together, or only one, we assign to him the properties of either nature.” Leo the Great is of the same mind in his epistle Ad monachos palaestinos (ep. 124) 7: “It is irrelevant from which nature Christ is denominated, since, given the unity of person, it is the same being who is the whole Son of Man in virtue of the flesh and who is the whole Son of God in virtue of the unique divinity held with the Father” (Migne, PL, 54:1066). There seem to be divergent views regarding Calvin’s interpretation of the Fathers on the communication of idioms. Calvin merely states that this interchange of properties has been called the communication of idioms by the “ancient writers” (Inst., II, xiv, 1), “Fathers” (Comm. on Acts 20:28), “Holy Fathers” (Inst., IV, xvii, 30), and “orthodox writers” (Preface to Comm. on Jeremiah). Unfortunately, the Reformer neither gives names, nor does he quote any patristic writing. McNeill, note 4 to Inst., II, xiv, 1, offers a partial list of patristic references and affirms that Calvin approves their doctrine (cf. also note 6 to Inst., IV, xvii, 30). McDonnell, op. cit., p. 218, thinks that Calvin’s “doctrine of the communication of idioms falls short of the patristic doctrine” and refers, in note 38, to J. Ternus who is said to be of the opinion that Calvin’s concept “is not that of the Fathers” (“Chalkedon und die Entwicklung der protestantischen Theologie,” Das Konzil von Chalkedon, ed. by A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht [Würzburg, 1954] III, pp. 531-611); but since the page reference of 497 is an error, I am not exactly sure which passage of Ternus he is interpreting; perhaps it is pp. 556-57, but even there Ternus is indirectly quoting Paul Althaus. McDonnell further asserts (again p. 218) that J. Witte “says that [Calvin] took over the patristic meaning….The Calvinist theologian E. Emmen is of the same mind.” A problem arises here since Witte is commenting on Calvin’s statement of Inst., II, xii, 2: “Who could have done this had not the selfsame Son of God become the Son of man, and had not so taken what was ours as to impart what was his to us, and to make what was his by nature ours by grace?”, and not on Inst., II, xiv, 1–2 where the Reformer treats the communication of properties. Secondly, Witte says something about Calvin and the passage referred to other than what is attributed to him, namely, that Calvin adopted the expression of the Middle Ages and the patristic times, without giving it the same meaning. “Wir sind denn auch der Ansicht, dass Calvin im obigen Zitat vom Ubertragen dessen auf uns ‘war von Natur aus das Seine war,’ eine mittelalterliche bezeihungsweise patristische Ausdrucksweise übernommen hat ohne ihr dieselbe Bedeutung zu geben….So versteht auch der Calvinist E. Emmen die Kommutationslehre bei Calvin ganz anders als die mittelalterlichen Theologen und die Kirchenvater” (“Die Christologie Calvins” in Das Konzil von Chalkedon, III, p. 496). Here it is Witte’s opinion that Calvin’s christology lacks some insights regarding the hypostatic union, and hence, though he may use patristic expressions, he does not necessarily endow them with the same meaning. Witte examines Calvin on the communication of properties in pp. 500-05, and concludes that the communicatio idiomatum had little importance for the Reformer, since Calvin saw it as being based on too static a view of the God-Man. Witte considers Calvin’s attitude understandable as a reaction to the scholasticism of the Late Middle Ages. It is certainly true that Calvin never explains the meaning or use of the communicatio idioimatum, nor does he write as explicitly as did John Damascene or Leo the Great, namely, that in the communication of properties it is the person of Christ, denominated by one nature, that is the subject of predication of an attribute of the other nature. This is not explicit in Calvin, but by reason of the examples he used, and his rejection of any real ontological exchange of properties of one nature to the other, I would judge that the patristic teaching is, at least, implicit in Calvin. I also think that had Calvin offered any explanation of the communicatio idiomatum, and had he given rules for its predication, this would have made it a bit too philosophico-speculative. Hence, Calvin seems to have contented himself with the mere statement that the Fathers called this exchange by the term communicatio idiomatum.
18. It may do well to explain what Calvin means by saying that in the communication of properties there is an improper transfer, but still not without reason. In the statement, “Christ purchased the church with his blood,” we understand Christ as constituted of two natures in one person, therefore, as divine and human. Hence, to apply the possession of blood and mortality to Christ is proper attribution since Christ, the God-Man, is true man. In the statement, “God purchased the church with his blood,” the transfer of a human attribute to a subject designated by function of his divine nature is said to be improper since mortality cannot be predicated of divinity as such; however, in the unique case of Christ, who has both natures, it does apply to the subject; therefore, such predication is true and hence not without reason.
19. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 16, art. 4 ad Resp.: “We may predicate of the man what is attributed to the divine nature; and we may predicate of God what is attributed to the human nature”; q. 16, art. 1. ad 3: “An abstract is not predicated of an abstract term, but only a concrete term of a concrete term.” Thomas gives his treatment of the communication of idioms in q.16, especially arts. 4 and 5.
20. Vom Abendmahl Christi, Bekenntnis. WA 26, p. 321.
21. Cf. W. Wendel, Calvin. trans. by Philip Mairet (London, 1965- Fontana Lib. ed.) pp. 221-22, who adds: “Calvin’s constant care to make a difference, as clearly as possible, between the diviity and the humanity ought to have led him to similar conclusions.” One wonders if Wendel is recommending such a conclusion! Zwingli seems to have relegated the communication of idioms to a mere manner of speaking about the two natures. Both Zwingli and Calvin say (only verbally) that this interchange is improper, but Calvin adds the qualification that it is not without reason. In a letter to Viret, dated Jan 23, 1548, commenting on a book Viret had written and sent to him for his observations, Calvin writes: “Correxi enim manu mea nonnihil in similitudine quam alicubi adducis ex personis: item quum de communications idiomatum loqueris, quoniam idiomata interpretatus fueras linguas, reposui quod mihi videbatur magis probabile, hoc est, proprietates. Inde etiam ducta loquutio, quod scriptura, quae in unam naturam competebant tanquam propria, transfert ad alteram” (CR 12, p. 654). I read Calvin as saying that the idiomata are not words or expressions, but properties or realities, and hence, the communicatio idiomatum is not a mere manner of speaking. In the real order, the communication of idioms is based on the union of the two natures in one person; in the logical order it is constituted by the predication of human properties to Christ-God, and by the predication of divine properties to Christ-Man. P. van Buren. Christ in Our Place (Edinburgh, 1957), p. 22, is of the opinion that “Calvin takes pains to point out that [the communication of properties] is only a manner of speaking.” Van Buren arrives at this conclusion because he seems to interpret the communication of idioms as a real giving to one nature of what strictly belongs to another. I doubt that Calvin would say that John’s expression, “The Word was made flesh,” is only a manner of speaking.
22. Luther uses ubiquity to explain this presence in Wider die himmlischen Propheten (1525) WA 18, p. 206, 211; Vom Abendmahl Christi. Bekenntnis (1528) WA 26, pp. 318, 428-29.
23. Cf. Inst., IV, xvii, 30; CR 2, pp. 1031-32; OS 5, pp. 387-89.
24. The translation is from the Calvin Translation Society’s volume, p. xviii; CR 20, p. 74. One may wonder why Calvin deals with this matter in a Preface to Jeremiah! The commentary is dedicated to Frederick III (“The Pious”), Elector Palatine of the Rhine, who, because he had preferred Calvin’s interpretation of the Lord’s Supper to that of Luther, and had begun systematically to introduce Calvinism into the Palatinate, suffered, as Calvin says, the rage of “turbulent and unreasonable men.” It was this same Frederick who commissioned the Heidelberg theologians to prepare what eventually became known as the Heidelberg Catechism, adopted in January 1563, only six months prior to the date (July 23, 1563) of the dedicatory preface. In tendering him this commentary, Calvin praises Frederick for his steadfastness while under assault, and takes occasion to give a brief refutation of the Lutheran teaching.
25. Cf. Preface to Comm. on Jeremiah, p. xviii; CR 20, p. 73. “It is absurd and even shameful…to say that the communication of properties is the real blending of two natures” (p. xix; CR 20:74).
26. This is the manner in which Jean Cadier understands it; cf. Institution de la religion chrétienne (Geneva, 1955–58) Vol. 2, p. 238, footnote to II, xiv, 2. Earlier Reformed theologians were of the same opinion; e.g., Johannes Wollebius [Wolleb] (1586–1629) interpreted the communication of idioms as “the bestowal of the special qualities of each nature upon the unique person”; cf. Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius, F. Turretin, ed. and trans. by John W. Beardslee III, (New York, 1965) pp. 91-92. The quotation is from Wollebius’ Compendium theologiae christianae.
27. E.g., “the Son of God,” Jesus, a divine person, denominated by his divine nature, also possesses a human nature and the properties of that nature so that he can be truly said to be “man,” to have “suffered,” and to have been “crucified.” Also “Son of Man,” Jesus, a divine person, denominated by his human nature, also possesses a divine nature and the properties of that nature so that he can be truly said to be “God,” “omnipotent,” and “creator.”