Jesus is the Father Incarnate

Pattern Christology claims that Jesus is the son of God (the Father) according to His human nature, in the same way that ordinary Christians are considered sons of God. It also claims that His divine nature is rightly regarded as the Father (God) dwelling within the Son (Jesus) through the divine person of the Word (Logos). Because the Father dwells in the Son in a way that allows people to regard them as the same person (Jhn 14:8-10) and because “Father” and “God” are used as synonyms throughout the new testament, it is appropriate to say that Jesus is the Father incarnate, in the same way that we would say that Jesus is God incarnate.

Viewing the hypostatic union (Jesus’ divine and human natures) as the Father dwelling in and being joined to his human son has led some to criticize the pattern as committing the error of nestorianism. This is not an unfair assessment. Nestorianism holds that there are two separate persons within the incarnate Christ — one divine, and one human. Orthodox Christology on the other hand claims that there is one person in the incarnate Christ, comprised of two distinct natures — one human and one divine.

Pattern Christology agrees with both perspectives, asserting that Jesus is one person comprised of two distinct natures — and each of His natures is also distinctly personal. We reconcile the plurality of persons within a unified Christ by appealing to the biblical concept of composite personhood, a hermeneutic that allows multiple persons to be joined together, speak, relate, and behave as a single unified body/voice/person, while simultaneously remaining distinct persons. The trinity itself implicitly relies on this principle, which we will demonstrate below. But first, we’ll examine some of the biblical evidence for a plurality of persons within Christ.

It can be remarkably difficult to find a biblically-based argument against nestorianism, in terms of prooftexts that would be used to refute it. I’ve searched online, and in a variety of systematic theologies for prooftexts against nestorianism, but most seem to focus on the history of the controversy, and supposed lack of evidence for a plurality of persons in the God-man.

To be sure, prooftexts exist to affirm the unity of Christ’s person, and by implication this would refute nestorianism in its classic definition, which purportedly rejects a unified person of Christ. But such prooftexts would not refute a perspective like pattern christology, which views Jesus as a unified, composite person, comprised of multiple persons who are one. Sometimes the God-man speaks and relates to others as a single person, such as when Jesus spoke with His disciples about His relationship to Abraham (Jhn 8:57-59). Sometimes God and man speak with and relate to one another, such as when Jesus was dying on the cross (Mat 27:46).

Wayne Grudem offers the most complete critique of nestorianism that I’ve found. He wrote,

Nestorianism is the doctrine that there were two separate persons in Christ, a human person and a divine person, a teaching that is distinct from the biblical view that sees Jesus as one person… Nestorius was a popular preacher at Antioch, and from A.D. 428 was bishop of Constantinople. Although Nestorius himself probably never taught the heretical view that goes by his name (the idea that Christ was two persons in one body, rather than one person), through a combination of several personal conflicts and a good deal of ecclesiastical politics, he was removed from his office of bishop and his teachings were condemned.

It is important to understand why the church could not accept the view that Christ was two distinct persons. Nowhere in Scripture do we have an indication that the human nature of Christ, for example, is an independent person, deciding to do something contrary to the divine nature of Christ. Nowhere do we have an indication of the human and divine natures talking to each other or struggling within Christ, or any such thing. Rather, we have a consistent picture of a single person acting in wholeness and unity. Jesus always speaks as “I,” not as “we,” though he can refer to himself and the Father together as “we” (John 14:23). The Bible always speaks of Jesus as “he,” not as “they.” And, though we can sometimes distinguish actions of his divine nature and actions of his human nature in order to help us understand some of the statements and actions recorded in Scripture, the Bible itself does not say “Jesus’ human nature did this” or “Jesus’ divine nature did that,” as though they were separate persons, but always talks about what the person of Christ did. Therefore, the church continued to insist that Jesus was one person, although possessing both a human nature and a divine nature.

— Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, chapter 26

There are several claims in the assessment above that warrant a response.

• Nowhere in Scripture do we have an indication that the human nature of Christ, for example, is an independent person, deciding to do something contrary to the divine nature of Christ. This offers an inconsistent standard for personhood. Choosing to do something contrary to the divine nature of Christ is not a requirement of personhood. Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve lived in perfect obedience to God, yet they were still personal beings. In eternity, we are promised that all who have placed their faith in Christ will no longer sin (Phi 1:6, Rev 21:8, 27, 22:15). That doesn’t mean that we are no longer distinct from God in any way. We are human beings, who will live forever without doing anything contrary to the will of the divine nature of Christ, or any divine person for that matter. In the same way, in His incarnation, Jesus lived in full obedience to God (Heb 5:7-8, 4:15). His obedience doesn’t make Him any more or less of a distinct person than He would have been if He had He sinned.
• Nowhere do we have an indication of the human and divine natures talking to each other or struggling within Christ, or any such thing. This comes down to a matter of definitions. If you accept that Jesus is the Father incarnate, then scripture offers countless places where Jesus’ human and divine natures interact and speak with one another. Of particular note is Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17, where Jesus refers to the Father as “the only true God” who at least in some sense was “in” Him. Evidence also exists of a struggle between these two natures. His first two prayers in Gethsemane (Mat 26:38-42) indicate a struggle between His will, and the will of His Father. He warned His disciples to follow His example — “watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mat 26:41 ESV) Hebrews 5:7-8 gives commentary on Gethsemane, telling us that Jesus Himself was experiencing this same temptation and weakness that He warned His disciples about. Surely this was not a conflict between the wills of God the Father and God the Son, as Grudem will later agree. Rather, this was a conflict between Jesus’ human will, and God’s will. The presence of a human will that is necessarily distinct from Jesus’ divine will provides us with strong evidence of a distinctly personal human nature, as we will discuss below.
• Jesus always speaks as “I,” not as “we,” though he can refer to himself and the Father together as “we” (John 14:23). Again, this comes down to a matter of definitions. If you accept that Jesus is the Father incarnate, then scripture offers plenty of places where Jesus’s human and divine persons are spoken of as “we,” as Grudem notes above (see also Jhn 17:11, 21, 22). If you view scripture through the lens of trinitarian theology, then you could arguably dismiss all of the evidence of distinct personhood for the human nature of Christ, though not without problems (such as the human will issue above). But if you view scripture through the lens of pattern theology, recognizing the human sonship of Christ rather than the divine, then plenty of biblical evidence for a plurality of persons within the God-man begins to surface.

The distinction between Jesus’ human and divine wills is worth a fuller examination in light of what Grudem later writes concerning the orthodox understanding of Christ.

The distinction between Jesus’ human and divine natures also helps us understand Jesus’ temptations. With respect to his human nature, he certainly was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). Yet with respect to his divine nature, he was not tempted, because God cannot be tempted with evil (James 1:13).

At this point it seems necessary to say that Jesus had two distinct wills, a human will and a divine will, and that the wills belong to the two distinct natures of Christ, not to the person. In fact, there was a position, called the monothelite view, which held that Jesus had only “one will,” but that was certainly a minority view in the church, and it was rejected as heretical at a church council in Constantinople in A.D. 681. Since then the view that Christ had two wills (a human will and a divine will) has been generally, but not universally, held through the church. In fact, Charles Hodge says:

“The decision against Nestorius, in which the unity of Christ’s person was asserted; that against Eutyches, affirming the distinction of natures; and that against the Monothelites, declaring that the possession of a human nature involves of necessity the possession of a human will, have been received as the true faith by the Church universal, the Greek, Latin, and Protestant.”

Hodge explains that the church thought that “to deny Christ a human will, was to deny he had a human nature, or was truly a man. Besides, it precluded the possibility of his having been tempted, and therefore contradicted the Scriptures, and separated him so far from his people he could not sympathize with them in their temptations.” Moreover, Hodge notes that along with the idea that Christ had two wills is the related idea that he had two centers of consciousness or intelligence: “As there are two distinct natures, human and divine, there are of necessity two intelligences and two wills, the one fallible and finite, the other immutable and infinite.”

This distinction of two wills and two centers of consciousness helps us understand how Jesus could learn things and yet know all things. On the one hand, with respect to his human nature, he had limited knowledge (Mark 13:32; Luke 2:52). On the other hand, Jesus clearly knew all things (John 2:25; 16:30; 21:17). Now this is only understandable if Jesus learned things and had limited knowledge with respect to his human nature but was always omniscient with respect to his divine nature, and therefore he was able any time to “call to mind” whatever information would be needed for his ministry. In this way we can understand Jesus’ statement concerning the time of his return: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). This ignorance of the time of his return was true of Jesus’ human nature and human consciousness only, for in his divine nature he was certainly omniscient and certainly knew the time when he would return to the earth.

At this point someone may object that if we say that Jesus had two centers of consciousness and two wills, that requires that he was two distinct persons, and we have really fallen into the error of “Nestorianism.” But in response, it must simply be affirmed that two wills and two centers of consciousness do not require that Jesus be two distinct persons. It is mere assertion without proof to say that they do. If someone responds that he or she does not understand how Jesus could have two centers of consciousness and still be one person, then that fact may certainly be admitted by all.

But failing to understand something does not mean that it is impossible, only that our understanding is limited. The great majority of the church throughout its history has said that Jesus had two wills and centers of consciousness, yet he remained one person. Such a formulation is not impossible, merely a mystery that we do not now fully understand. To adopt any other solution would create a far greater problem: it would require that we give up either the full deity or the full humanity of Christ, and that we cannot do.

— Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, chapter 26 (emphasis mine)

Notably, there actually isn’t a threat here to the true divinity or true humanity of Christ; nestorianism doesn’t diminish either nature. The problem is that it doesn’t provide us with a way to explain passages that speak of Jesus as if He were a single person.

In any case, Grudem rules out nestorianism (together with all viewpoints that see plurality in Christ), then concludes that the orthodox view of two natures and one person must be true, even if we can’t understand how. But Grudem here is begging the question (assuming the conclusion he wants to prove).

In the first section he wrote, “Nowhere in Scripture do we have an indication that the human nature of Christ, for example, is an independent person.” Then in the second section, he addresses multiple lines of evidence that would lead ordinary people to reasonably conclude that the human nature of Christ is an independent person, namely that it has an independent mind and will. Yet instead of acknowledging the evidence as potential support for nestorianism, and a potential challenge to the orthodox view, he dismisses it as something that doesn’t count, because he’s already concluded that nestorianism is an error — because there is no evidence for it, because the evidence doesn’t count, because nestorianism is false, because there is not evidence for it, etc. This is circular reasoning. Finally he protects the orthodox view by arguing that while we can’t understand how two independent minds/wills can be reconciled with the concept of a single person, it isn’t a true contradiction, just a mystery.

Pattern christology resolves this mystery cleanly, by addressing the one true problem that nestorianism exhibits in its denial of a unified person. Patternists affirm both a plurality of persons, and a unified, composite person in the God-man. This resolves the issues that we see in orthodox christology concerning the two wills and two minds of Christ (which Grudem does acknowledge as a problem in the quote above). It does this without compromising either nature, and without compromising the unified person of Christ.

The idea of composite personhood can sound strange, particularly to the ears of those living in highly individualistic societies. Yet scripture regularly speaks of nations, families, churches, and people groups as if they were one person, and it frequently goes beyond mere personification to suggest that God views them as true composite persons, individuals united as one. For the purposes of this article, it should be sufficient to demonstrate that trinitarians themselves make use of this concept in their interpretation of scripture surrounding the godhead, albeit often unconsciously.

The formal definition of the trinity views God as three persons who share one divine nature or essence, typically referred to as “God.” This allows trinitarians to retain a belief in three divine persons, without affirming three gods.

The classic Christian doctrine of the Trinity is well summarized by what is known as the Athanasian Creed… The key defining statements are captured in this phrase: “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Subsistence.” The doctrine of the Trinity, simply put, is that God is absolutely and eternally one essence subsisting in three distinct and ordered persons without division and without replication of the essence.

— John MacArthur / Richard Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, Chapter 3: The Trinity

This definition of the trinity is fairly representative of trinitarian belief. Of particular note, the personhood of God is distinguished from the nature or essence of God, allowing there to be three persons, but only one essence. This is easy enough to understand, but when you apply that model to scripture, it produces a subtle interpretive challenge. Very often, the old and new testaments refer to “God” in a personal way, rather than specify which person in the godhead is in view. If “God” in scripture refers to the united essence of God, then how are we to understand passages that speak of God as a personal being?

This can be resolved in two ways. One is to ascribe personhood to the essence itself, understanding the plurality of persons in the godhead to be united as one composite person, similar to what we have been discussing in the case of the God-man Christ. Another option is to assign one of the three persons to be the representative taking the name “God.” Grudem seems to acknowledge and use this latter option in the following statement:

When we realize that the New Testament authors generally use the name “God” (Gk. θεός, G2536) to refer to God the Father and the name “Lord” (Gk. Κύριος, G3261) to refer to God the Son, then it is clear that there is another trinitarian expression in 1 Corinthians 12:4–6…

— Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, chapter 14

Hermeneutics like the above will choose one of the three persons to be “God” in a given passage — typically God the Father — rather than leave it as referring to the entire godhead. Even if such an interpretation is accurate in some passages (which I don’t believe is the case, but will allow it for the sake of argument), there are still others that don’t fit into that mold. These require us to affirm the other option of ascribing composite personhood to the entire godhead. Consider for example the Shema, the classic prooftext used to establish monotheism and the oneness of God. MacArthur writes,

The Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 states, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This Jewish creed, concerning Yahweh as the one true God and as only “one,” itself allows for a plurality of God as one. The word “one” in Deuteronomy 6:4 translates the Hebrew adjective ekhad, which affirms God’s unity but can also allow for plurality in that unity. This word is also used in Genesis 2:24 of the “one flesh” of the husband and wife in marriage. It is true that in other uses of ekhad, a compound unity is not meant. But if Deuteronomy 6:4 had been intended to assert that God is only one person, another Hebrew word would certainly have been used, namely, yakhid, which has the sense of “only, solitary” (see Ps. 68:6). Deuteronomy 6:4 is an affirmation of monotheism, not Unitarianism. It does not contradict the doctrine of the Trinity (see 1 Cor. 8:6) and even allows for God to be more than one person.

— John MacArthur / Richard Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, Chapter 3: The Trinity

Patternists of course would take no issue with the above assessment, as we too believe in a plurality of persons in the godhead, specifically two persons who are one rather than three. The point to note is that the Shema describes “God” in a way which refers to the entire godhead as being personal.

Consider the alternative interpretation of the word “God” (here translated “LORD”) in the Shema. If we were to apply the above hermeneutic, which replaces the term “God” with one of the specific persons of the godhead, then it would undermine the divinity of the other two. “Hear O Israel, God the Father, our God, the Father is one.” If “one” here is meant to establish that the subject (“LORD”) is the only true God, as MacArthur states, then interpreting the Shema as speaking of God the Father would mean that the Son and the Spirit are not God, because they are not part of the “one”.

So the Shema forces trinitarians to interpret the “LORD” and “God” of this passage as referring to the entire godhead — Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in their view. That would be fine, except that the passage in its context speaks of the LORD as if he were a person, not only a divine “essence.” It describes the entire godhead with personal language, requiring trinitarians to view their three persons as one composite person. The LORD gives commands to His people (Deut 6:1); He is to be feared (Deut 6:2); He makes promises (Deut 6:3); He is one [God] (Deut 6:4); He is to be loved with your whole person (Deut 6:5).

Now this is the commandment–the statutes and the rules–that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.

Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deut 6:1-5)

Passages like the Shema therefore lead trinitarians to treat the godhead (the divine “essence”) as a composite person, whether they recognize it or not. And this is usually the most natural way to read the Bible whenever “God” is referred to in personal ways. There is no need to arbitrarily pick one of the persons within the godhead to serve as the subject of personal language, because God Himself is personal.

This is why pattern christology is able to remove both the Father and the Son from being distinct persons within the godhead. The term “Father” is used interchangeably with the term “God” throughout much of the new testament, leaving us with the very natural interpretation of viewing the term “Father” as a description of the entire godhead, not an individual person within the godhead. The Father is personal, because the godhead is a composite person.

The Son on the other hand is personal because Jesus is a man, a human son of the divine Father, just like everyday Christians. To be sure, Jesus is the Father (God) incarnate, allowing both divine and human activities to be attributed to His composite person. But the personal distinction that we see between Father and Son is nothing more than a personal distinction between God and man, between Jesus’ divine and human natures.

Thus the Father is not properly a member of the godhead, since He is the godhead. Neither is the Son a member of the godhead, as His distinct personhood comes from His human nature. As we looked at above, He exhibits a human will that is distinct from that of His Father; He faces human tempations; He experiences the limitations of a human mind. By removing both the Father and the Son from the godhead, this leaves us with the Word and the Spirit, two persons united as one in the composite person of the Father.

Trinitarians of course will disagree with the above revisions, but the point is that their theological system also demands the concept of a composite person. If, therefore, trinitarians are prepared to use composite personhood to explain what scripture teaches about the godhead, then is there any reason not to use the same kind of concept in explaining the two (seemingly personal) natures of Christ?

It could actually be argued that granting Jesus composite personhood is the only way to maintain His true divinity and true humanity. Human beings derive our personhood from the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God. Because He is a person, therefore we are persons — distinct from our creator, but personal as He is (Gen 1:26-27, 5:1-3, 9:6). If Jesus is truly a man, possessing everything that it means to be truly human — including a human soul, body, mind and will — then he must also therefore be a human person, because human beings are personal.

Orthodox christology tries to work around this by making Jesus’ personhood a higher abstraction that encompasses both of His natures. But when this process is examined carefully, in light of the trinitarian theology of the Son, it ultimately devolves to rendering his personhood as a property of his divine nature alone. Consider MacArthur’s description of the hypostatic union.

While the human nature that the Son of God received in his incarnation allows him to experience humanity, he does not exist as two persons. He is but one person with two natures—the divine and the human. Christ’s deity effects the individualization (involving character and personality) of his human nature. God the Father prepared Christ’s physical human body (Heb 10:5-7; see Ps. 40:6-8) for the incarnation so that the Son of God might do the will of the Father. Each nature possesses its own will…

— John MacArthur / Richard Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, Chapter 4: Incarnate Christ (emphasis mine)

While MacArthur’s meaning may be somewhat ambiguous here, depending on the intended definition of certain words, the sentence in bold appears to be an admission that Jesus’ divine nature drives his personhood. Whether or not this is his intended meaning, it nevertheless is the logical conclusion of trinitarian christology.

Trinitarians view Jesus’ divine nature as being distinctly personal, independent of his humanity. God the Son (Jesus’ divine nature) is purportedly one of the three eternally existing divine persons in the godhead. If God had chosen never to create humanity, never to enter our race through joining himself with a human nature, then Jesus would still exist as a divine person, God the Son.

This produces a difficulty for the incarnation, if we are supposed to view both of Jesus’ natures as being joined together as only one person. We know that Jesus’ divine nature is already personal. This would seem to imply then that his human nature is entirely impersonal, because we already have the person of Christ through his divine nature. One might grant that God the Son could take on a human body, soul, mind and will without producing a distinct human person. But the resulting union would not be truly man, because man’s personhood comes from the fact that he is created in the image and likeness of the personal God.

It is extremely important that human beings be regarded as truly and fully in the image of God, including human personhood. Without personhood, we cannot be held accountable to moral laws, and such depersonalized human beings are moved into other categories of ethics and law, such as what one does with impersonal forms of property. The image of God in man is the only philosophical foundation that can logically support human rights as distinct from other creatures and impersonal matter. When that foundation is removed, it leads to atrocities against human beings, such as the genocide of abortion. The infamous decision in Roe vs Wade that led to billions of deaths worldwide stated the following:

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a “person” within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment [which grants protection of life to persons]. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

— Roe Versus Wade court decision

While Christ Jesus wouldn’t have been depersonalized under Roe, if somehow they accepted the personhood of his divine nature, nevertheless the trinitarian category for an impersonal human being is philosophically dangerous, and seemingly contradicts the general testimony of scripture. Whether it is a true contradiction, or simply another mystery generated by orthodox christology, here again pattern christology provides us with an elegant resolution. By viewing Jesus as a composite union of two persons who are one, we can avoid diminishing his true humanity in our work to affirm his united personhood.

We took an in-depth look at the angel of the Lord in a previous article about the preincarnate sonship of Christ. One point that we didn’t bring up is that there is a subtle problem that trinitarians face concerning the personhood of this angel / messenger. Trinitarians will often claim the angel of the Lord as evidence for the doctrine of the trinity, because there are two persons who interact with one another, and both are considered yahweh God. They sometimes speak as if they are distinct persons, and they sometimes speak as if they were the same person, Yahweh. This is considered evidence that there is one God, but (at least) two persons within the godhead.

The difficulty that is often missed is that Yahweh (the Lord) and the angel of Yahweh (the angel of the Lord) not only share the same divine nature and name (e.g. Exo 23:20-25, Josh 5:13-6:2), but they also share the same divine person. Trinitarian theology posits three non-overlapping persons who are united with one nature. They would affirm the oneness of God’s nature (and perhaps allow the one nature to be a composite person), but they would deny claims that the Father is the Son (in any sense), or that the Son is the Father.

By viewing Yahweh as the Father, and the angel of Yahweh as the Son / Jesus, trinitarians are able to demonstrate quite powerfully that multiple persons are considered divine in the old testament, and that those persons are united as one God. But this comes at the cost of also being forced to acknowledge an overlap of their persons, which trinitarians would deny. Consider for example Jacob’s encounter with God at Bethel.

Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. … And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. … Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” (Gen 28:10, 12-13, 16 ESV)

Here, the passage identifies the speaker as Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob. This is a common self-description of God throughout the old and new testaments, typically viewed by trinitarians as God the Father (e.g. Exo 6:2-8, Act 3:12-15). However, Jacob later has a dream where the “angel of God” claims to be the person who spoke with Jacob at Bethel.

In the breeding season of the flock I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and mottled. Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am!’ And he said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.'” (Gen 31:10-13 ESV)

Here, the angel of the Lord identifies himself as the God of Bethel, the very person to whom Jacob made a vow. In the earlier passage, Jacob made a vow to Yahweh. In this passage, he made a vow to the angel of Yahweh. (The word for “God” used by Jacob here isn’t actually Yahweh, since the patriarchs didn’t know his name (Exo 6:3). The narrator (Moses) however identifies this angel as Yahweh earlier in the passage, (Gen 31:3)).

Trinitarians rightly distinguish between Yahweh and the angel of Yahweh here and in other passages, to establish a plurality of persons who are considered divine. But what is often missed is that there is an overlap not only of nature, but also of personhood. The angel of God claims to be the person to whom Jacob made an earlier vow. He claims to have a relationship with Jacob. Here and elsewhere, he speaks as if he is the same person as Yahweh, sharing not only the same nature, but also the same personhood of Yahweh.

As argued in the previous article, patternists would view this dynamic in a completely different light. This is not describing two persons within the godhead, but rather two persons within a preincarnate hypostatic union — Yahweh (the Father) dwelling in and speaking through the angel of the Lord (the Son) prior to his incarnation as a human. But regardless of that issue, the point here is simply to demonstrate two things.

1. The angel of the Lord does not support the trinity; it rather contradicts it by blurring the identity (the person) of the angel with Yahweh.
2. The angel of the Lord serves as another example of composite personhood. The person of the angel being is joined with the person of Yahweh, such that they can speak as one united person, or as two. This is very similar to what we see in the hypostatic union, granting further evidence that Jesus is the Father incarnate.

When examined closely, scripture offers us plenty of reasons to believe that individual persons can and do unite into composite persons, in various contexts. We’ve seen this with the godhead itself, with the angel of the Lord, and with nations and other corporate groups of people. Given that Jesus exhibits symptoms of plurality within a unified person — including two distinct minds and wills — we have good reason to view Him through the same kind of lens. Granting Jesus composite personhood resolves the problems of both nestorianism and orthodox christology, producing a more robust theological system that can explain what we see in scripture, with fewer “mysteries.”

With that said, the final article in this series on pattern christology will delve into a truly unsolved mystery shared by both patternists and trinitarians — In what way did Jesus’ divine nature/person unite with His human nature/person? Scripture describes it as an indwelling, but this raises a question concerning how Jesus’ indwelling of the Word differs from our indwelling of the Spirit. Why is he considered divine when we are not?