John Calvin on the person of Christ
One person in two natures, unconfused and undivided
He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For we maintain, that the divinity was so conjoined and united with the humanity, that the entire properties of each nature remain entire, and yet the two natures constitute only one Christ.
THE POSITION
One person in two natures, each keeping its own properties entire. Calvin names and rejects both errors by name: Nestorius 'presuming to dissect rather than distinguish between the two natures, devised a double Christ,' and Eutyches destroyed the two natures in demonstrating the unity of person — 'it being not more lawful to confound the two natures of Christ than to divide them' (Institutes II.xiv.4). He accepts the term 'hypostatic union' as the ancients' coinage against Nestorius (II.xiv.5), and explains the communication of properties: God has no blood, but what was done in Christ's human nature is transferred to his divinity because the one who acted was true God and true man.
14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
12 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Reformer of Geneva and the most systematic of the first-generation Reformers. This entry rests on the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion in Henry Beveridge's translation, checked section by section, with Calvin's own commentaries on 1 John, John, the Harmony of the Evangelists, the Psalms and the Harmony of the Law used where the Institutes are thin.
Cite this page
"John Calvin on the person of Christ", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/calvin/christology (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/calvin/christology).