No Confusion of Two Natures, But What of Conflict

In chapter eight of the 1689 Baptist Confession we read the following regarding the incarnation of the Son of God:

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowing her, so that He was born to a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David, in accordance with the Scriptures.

This is really an amazing thing to ponder. Have you ever actually thought about what this means? Jesus did not have an earthly father. Mary got pregnant through some miraculous working of the Holy Spirit, and humanity and deity were joined together. As we have been continuing to examine the Baptist Confession as a family, this truth has perhaps been one of the toughest for my children to grasp, and has not been all that easy for myself, either. The tendency is to conclude that, since Jesus had no earthly father, then he was half man and half God, making up a whole person, which would also result in the mixing of a divine nature with a human nature. The problem with this reasoning is that you end up with some Greek mythological creature who is not fully man OR fully God, but rather a concoction of both.

The Baptist Confession addresses this issue though, when it says of the joining of the human with the divine in the Son of God:

Thus two whole, perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion;

So that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, yet He is one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.

My little booklet on the Confession contains some great notes from Peter Masters, who explains in layman’s terms what this means:

• ‘Without conversion’ means that Christ’s divine nature was not transformed into humanity, but the latter was added to the divine.
• ‘Composition’ means mixing – the two natures could not possibly have been mixed.
• ‘Confusion’ did not occur either; in other words there was no disorder, contradiction or incompatibility involved in this sublime joining of two natures.

My question, though, is this…

Did the two natures of Jesus ever run contrary to one another?

It seems that at times they did conflict. I can think of two instances off the top of my head. One is when some Greeks seek Him out, and He says, “”Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour ‘? But for this purpose I came to this hour.”, and the other is in the garden prior to His betrayal when He asks for “this cup” to pass from Him, and then says, “Yet not as I will, but as You will.”