Posts are showing up on Facebook arguing that it is theologically incorrect to affirm that the incarnate Christ is “fully God and fully man.” Supposedly, these expressions should be avoided in favor of the creedal wording “truly God” and “truly man.” One individual claimed that “the orthodox” have rejected the description “fully” in this context. (I’ll just comment right here that there is zero support for this claim.) Another claimed that these expressions “misrepresent” orthodox Christianity, even asserting that the only correct word to use in this context is the word “truly.” A common complaint is that “fully” is at best “sloppy” and is at least potentially heretical. The basic argument against the word “fully” is that it supposedly leads to or implies the contradictory position that Jesus is only God and that he is only man, rather than both God and man.
The source for this line of criticism is an offhand comment made by the late R. C. Sproul in response to John MacArthur in a panel discussion at Ligonier’s 2017 National Conference. When MacArthur affirmed that Jesus was (and is) “fully God, fully man,” Sproul replied:
Well, I prefer “truly God and truly man,” because it can be confused. And when you say that Jesus was fully God and fully man, if you mean by that, that that one person was absolutely, totally God, and that’s all, then you’d be denying his humanity. Or if you say He was fully man, then there’s no room for his deity. That’s why we like to say vere homo, vere Deus: “Truly God, truly man.”[1]
I’d like to point out that Sproul expressed his point in far more modest language than is being used by those who are using his argument on social media to impugn the theological soundness of other Christians. Sproul began by saying “I prefer” and concluded by saying “we like to say.” He never suggested that MacArthur was sloppy, espousing a contradictory Christology, misrepresenting orthodox Christianity, or teaching something potentially heretical. Sproul merely asserted that he preferred the wording using “truly” because he thought it avoided a possible confusion. Agree or disagree with Sproul, he made his point in a fair-minded and humble fashion in a polite exchange with a friend.
That having been said, I have several points to make in response to the argument that it is in any way problematic to speak of the incarnate Christ as “fully” God and man.
It’s no less confusing to say “truly” than “fully.”
First, there’s really no significant danger of people being more confused by “fully God and fully man” than by “truly God and truly man.” Antitrinitarians routinely complain that the doctrine of the Incarnation is incoherent or self-contradictory, including formulations using the word “truly.” Such critics universally argue that if someone is truly God, he cannot at the same time also be truly man.
“Fully” is not inconsistent with “truly.”
When MacArthur described Christ as “fully God, fully man,” he was not saying something incompatible with “truly God, truly man.” The description “truly God and truly man” (Greek, Θεὸν ἀληθῶς καὶ ἄνθρωπον ἀληθῶς; Latin, Deum verum et hominem verum) comes from the Definition of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451).[2] Immediately preceding this description, the Definition describes Christ as “perfect” (τέλειον, perfectum) in both deity and humanity. These two descriptions are synonymous in this context. Right away we see that the Definition itself contradicts the claim being made by some that “truly” is the only correct word to be used here.
By “perfect,” I should note, the Definition is not describing Christ’s humanity as meeting some absolute, ideal standard of perfection, as though he was the first such human. Rather, it emphasizes that he was just as human as the rest of us. This leads me to the next point.
“Fully” expresses the same idea found in Chalcedon.
The Definition of Chalcedon makes a very specific point in describing the incarnate Christ as “perfect” in deity and humanity, as “truly” God and man: The whole nature of deity and the whole nature of humanity are united in the one person of Christ in his incarnation. The Definition explains that Christ in his humanity has both a human soul and body, making him “consubstantial” with us in humanity or humanness, “in all things like us, without sin.” Likewise, the Definition states that Christ is consubstantial with the Father according to the divine nature.
In the context of his exchange with Sproul, MacArthur was explaining that the incarnate Christ “was not a human shell with only a divine mind—he had a human mind . . . fully God, fully man, with all the reasonableness of men.” This explanation alludes directly to the point made in the Definition that Christ had and has “a reasonable [λογικῆς, rationali] soul” as well as a body. In this context, by “fully” MacArthur clearly was saying that Christ’s human nature was not an incomplete or partial human nature. Christ was not a human body inhabited by a divine mind; his human nature included a human mind, united with his divine nature (which includes a divine mind). In short, “fully” means that Christ’s human nature is complete or whole, rather than incomplete or partial. It does not mean that Christ is only human or that he is only divine.
The descriptions of Christ as “fully God” and “fully man” have a long history.
English-speaking Christians have been describing the incarnate Christ as “fully God” for over three hundred fifty years. The earliest example I have found comes from a Protestant apologetic text by Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715), a well-educated Scottish minister who later became bishop of Salisbury. In 1677, Burnet published A Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England, written in response to a Catholic tract entitled Arguments to Prove the Invalidity of the Orders of the Church of England. Burnet’s tract was later published in A Preservative against Popery (1738), a collection of texts defending the Church of England that went through several editions. In his tract, Burnet defended the Church of England ministry in part by explaining that its bishops were required to affirm classic, orthodox Christian theology:
Let him that is to be ordained a Bishop . . . above all things, if he assert the Articles of Faith in simple Words; that is to say, affirms that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are one God; and teaches that the whole Deity of the Trinity is co-essential, consubstantial, co-eternal, and co-omnipotent; and that every Person of the Trinity is fully God, and all the three Persons are one God.[3]
A sermon published by a minister named Samuel Henry in 1748 contains the earliest reference I have found to Christ being “fully” both God and man:
By this Dwelling of the fulness of the Godhead in Christ Bodily, understand Really or Personally. Christ the Son of God, that was in being from Eternity with him, John, 1.1. Did in the appointed Time assume the Human Nature (a true Body and a reasonable Soul, now forever United) and in that Human Nature, all the fulness of the Godhead (which I have hinted at) abides for ever since his Incarnation, and therefore he is fully God as well as Man.[4]
“Fully God” simply paraphrases Colossians.
Henry’s statement quoted above illustrates the fact that descriptions of Christ as “fully God” frequently allude rather clearly to Colossians 1:19 and 2:9. Henry’s reference to “this Dwelling of the fulness of the Godhead in Christ Bodily” is an explicit reference to Colossians 2:9. Here are the two texts in Colossians (quoting from the ESV):
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:19).
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9).
These two verses in Colossians are rightly understood in orthodox Christian theology as affirming that Christ is God incarnate—that he actually possesses the divine nature. Paul’s use of the word πλήρωμα (“fullness”) in both texts expresses in redundant fashion (with πᾶν, “all” or “whole”) that Christ’s deity is complete, not partial.[5]
Frankly, it is difficult to understand why any theologian would take issue with the expression “fully God” as compared to “truly God” when the former clearly echoes Paul’s statements in Colossians.
Leading scholars of Christology have described Christ as “fully God and fully man.”
One claim circulating in social media that Sproul did not make is that speaking of the incarnate Christ as “fully” God and man, instead of “truly” God and man, is somehow theologically sloppy. Ironically, while this claim is being made (at least in the examples I have found) by lay people, the fact is that leading theologians, including those specializing in Christology, often speak of Christ as “fully God” and “fully man.” Let me give just a few examples.
- Stephen Wellum, in his respected textbook on Christology, frequently speaks of Christ as “fully God and fully man.”[6]
- Robert Letham, another leading theologian on the Trinity and Christology, repeatedly states that Christ is “fully human” without, of course, giving any impression that Christ is only or exclusively human. According to Letham, “Paul shows he regards Jesus as having the status of God, fully and without the slightest abridgement.”[7]
- In his textbook on systematic theology (undoubtedly the most widely used such textbook among evangelicals), Wayne Grudem states, “We may summarize the biblical teaching about the person of Christ as follows: Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person and will be so forever.”[8]
- Brandon Crowe, in his new Christology textbook, states: “The creeds promote greater understanding about Christ in the church as they wrestle with the proper language to explain the rich, wonderful mystery of Christ, who is fully God and fully man.”[9]
Many other examples could be given.[10] My point is not that lay people cannot be right or that these theologians are necessarily right. Rather, it stretches credulity to claim that all of these academically trained, published theologians are “sloppy” in their wording.
Even R. C. Sproul himself has used similar wording.
In a 2006 book expounding on the doctrine of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Sproul wrote the following:
Hymns and sermons are often heard that have God setting aside his deity when he becomes incarnate. That is heretical. The divine nature of Christ during the incarnation is fully divine. Christ did not give up any divinity when he took upon himself a human nature. All the divine attributes are retained in the person of Christ. And when the divine nature adds a human nature, the human nature does not lack any of its humanity. Christ’s human nature is fully human.[11]
There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between saying that Christ is “fully God” and “fully human” and saying, as Sproul did, that Christ’s divine nature is “fully divine” and that his human nature is “fully human.” These are different ways of making the same point with almost the same words, including the word “fully.” Indeed, the substantive theological point Sproul made here is precisely the same point that MacArthur was making when he said that Christ was “fully God, fully man.”
For all these reasons, there is simply no basis for the recent criticisms of using the term “fully” to describe the deity and humanity of the incarnate Christ. In short, we are fully justified in continuing to use this terminology.[12]
NOTES
[1] “Dr. RC Sproul vs. Dr. John MacArthur,” Gospel Partners Media / Wretched, ep. 2049, YouTube, May 1, 2017.
[2] For the texts, see Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890), 2:62–63. Reformed scholar Charlie J. Ray presents the texts from Schaff conveniently online, “The Definition of Chalcedon in English, Greek, and Latin,” Reasonable Christian (blog), Dec. 23, 2012.
[3] Gilbert Burnet, A Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England (1677), in Edmund Gibson, ed., A Preservative against Popery, in Several Select Discourses upon the Principal Heads of Controversy between Protestants and Papists (London: Printed for H. Knaplock, et al., 1738), 1:262. All emphasis in quotations are mine except as otherwise noted.
[4] Samuel Henry, A Sermon Preach’d in the Church of Kilcollum, on the fifth of June, 1748 (Waterford: Jeremiah Calwell, 1748), 14, paragraph break removed.
[5] Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski, The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2024), 308–10. This book is due to be in print in November 2024.
[6] Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ, ed. John S. Feinberg, Foundations of Evangelical Theology Series (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 39, 188, 217, 272–73, 297–99, and elsewhere.
[7] Robert Letham, The Message of the Person of Christ: The Word Made Flesh, ed. Derek Tidball, The Bible Speaks Today: Bible Themes Series (Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2013), 213.
[8] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 663, emphasis in original.
[9] Brandon D. Crowe, The Lord Jesus Christ: The Biblical Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ, We Believe: Studies in Reformed Biblical Doctrine, Vol. 3, John McClean and Murray J. Smith, series eds. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2023), 179.
[10] E.g., George Hunsinger, “Salvator Mundi: Three Types of Christology,” in Christology, Ancient & Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, ed. Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 53, 59; John C. Clark and Marcus Peter Johnson, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 11; Malcolm B. Yarnell III, God the Trinity: Biblical Portraits (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), 43.
[11] R. C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Layman’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Volume One: The Triune God (Chapters 1–8 of the Confession) (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006), 244–45.
[12] This article is not part of any larger agenda in defense of MacArthur or in critique of Sproul. Overall, I actually have more concerns about MacArthur’s teachings (albeit not about anything that I would consider heretical) than Sproul’s.