The Mingling of Humanity and Divinity
“And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father, full of grace and reality.” — John 1:14
“The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” — Romans 8:16
Biblical Testimony
The Incarnation: Where the Union Begins
John 1:14 declares: “the Word became flesh” — the second Person of the Godhead took on human nature and became Jesus of Nazareth. This was not God pretending to be human, nor humanity elevated into divinity, but two natures genuinely co-present in one Person. This event is the historical and ontological starting point of the entire doctrine of the union of humanity and divinity: from Jesus Christ onward, the divine and the human are no longer only Creator and creature gazing at each other across an unbridgeable distance, but genuinely meeting in one living Person — forever.
Paul writes in Romans 8:16: “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit.” The Greek συμμαρτυρέω (summartureo) — from σύν (“with”) and μαρτυρέω (“to bear witness”) — describes the Spirit’s testimony and our spirit’s testimony occurring simultaneously, confirming each other. This is not a one-way declaration but the resonance of two witnesses. Orthodox commentators such as Ellicott note explicitly: though Paul’s language here is deeply mystical, he never confuses the divine and the human. (BibleHub: Romans 8:16)
Further Biblical Basis
- 2 Peter 1:4 — “partakers of the divine nature” (θεία φύσις, theia physis): the word “nature” is explicit — believers genuinely participate in what is essentially God’s own.
- 1 John 4:13 — “We abide in Him and He in us”: the language of mutual indwelling — union without absorption.
- Galatians 2:20 — “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”: Christ lives in the believer without replacing human nature but living through it.
How the Church Has Understood It
Chalcedon: The Boundary Established
The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) set permanent boundaries on the union of the two natures in Christ with four adverbs: ἀσυγχύτως (without confusion), ἀτρέπτως (without change), ἀδιαιρέτως (without division), ἀχωρίστως (without separation). (CCEL: Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II) The first two rule out Eutychianism — the blending of the two natures into one; the second two rule out Nestorianism — the splitting of the two natures into two persons. “Without confusion, without change” is the critical constraint on any language of “mingling”: the union is real, but ontological fusion is not.
Athanasius: The Sentence That Changed History
Athanasius wrote in On the Incarnation, §54: “For He was made man that we might be made God.” (CCEL: Athanasius, On the Incarnation §54) This sentence became the signature expression of theosis in the Eastern Church. Athanasius declares here that the purpose of the incarnation is not only redemption (forgiveness of sins) but elevation — genuine participation in the divine nature.
Cyril of Alexandria, at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD), pressed further: the difference of the natures is not taken away by the union — “the divinity and the humanity make perfect for us the one Lord Jesus Christ by their ineffable and inexpressible union.” (New Advent: Council of Ephesus documents) Cyril explicitly rejected the language of “mixture” (κρᾶσις, krasis) — the union is hypostatic (of the Person), not a fusion of natures.
Communicatio Idiomatum and Perichoresis
Two classical doctrinal terms describe how the two natures operate within one Person: communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties) — divine attributes may be predicated of the man, and human attributes of God the Word; perichoresis (mutual indwelling) — the divine nature permeates the human, the human is filled by the divine, like iron heated white in fire — iron remains iron, fire remains fire, yet the two genuinely interpenetrate one another. (CCEL: Schmid, Doctrinal Theology) This very analogy acknowledges the difference between “interpenetration” and “fusion.”
Eastern Orthodox theology uses “deification” (theosis) to describe the believer’s participation in God: believers share in God’s energies — not His essence. (OrthodoxWiki: Theosis) This distinction guards the unbridgeable ontological line between Creator and creature while affirming the genuine reality of the union.
The Lord’s Recovery’s Emphasis
Brother Witness Lee’s Formulation
Brother Witness Lee articulates “the mingling of humanity and divinity” as the central theological reality of both the incarnation and the Christian experience. He cites Athanasius’s sentence as patristic precedent and adds a critical qualification: “becoming God in life and nature, but not in the Godhead.” This qualification maps directly onto the classical distinction between God’s communicable attributes (love, holiness, light — imparted to believers) and His incommunicable attributes (omnipotence, omniscience, the eternal “I AM” — never transferred to creatures). (an-open-letter.org: ETS 2015 paper)
His core argument is that the incarnation is not merely God entering into human nature but God and human nature being mingled into one entity — this entity possesses both the divine nature and the human nature, as iron heated through by fire genuinely interpenetrates with it while each retaining its own nature. (Ministry Samples: The Mingling of Divinity and Humanity to Produce One Entity)
He Explicitly Denies the Production of a Third Nature
Brother Witness Lee explicitly rejects the claim that “mingling” produces a new, third nature. He writes that Christ “has two natures yet is still one complete Person,” and that believers’ participation in the divine nature is a real participation in life — not an ontological merger. (MDPI Religions 2025: Study of Nee and Lee on Sanctification, Union with Christ, and Deification) Human nature is not annulled but elevated — through union with Christ, in death and resurrection, the soul is transformed into the Lord’s image (2 Cor. 3:18), not absorbed into divinity.
The Spirit and the Human Spirit
At the level of the believer’s experience, Brother Witness Lee grounds this teaching in the indwelling of the Spirit: the Spirit and the human spirit co-witness (Rom. 8:16), so that the human spirit, by contacting the divine Spirit, genuinely shares in the divine nature in life and disposition. This is the theological foundation of the mingled spirit teaching — not two spirits becoming one spirit, but the divine and the human spirit genuinely meeting, mutually indwelling, in fellowship and co-habitation.
Comparison
| Historical Orthodox | Lord’s Recovery | |
|---|---|---|
| Core emphasis | The two natures genuinely united in Christ; believers participate in God’s grace through faith | God and man mingled into one entity in the incarnation; believers genuinely share divine nature in life and disposition |
| Scope of deification | Eastern: participation in God’s energies, not essence; Western: justification and glorification | ”Becoming God in life and nature but not in the Godhead”; communicable vs. incommunicable divine attributes |
| Key scriptures | John 1:14 (incarnation); 2 Pet. 1:4 (partakers of divine nature); 1 John 4:13 (mutual indwelling) | Same, plus Rom. 8:16 (Spirit co-witnessing — two spirits interpenetrating); Gal. 2:20 (Christ living in me) |
| Analogies and language | White-hot iron (Lutheran scholastics); perichoresis; communicatio idiomatum | ”Mingled into one entity”; “humanity and divinity genuinely interpenetrating”; “humanity elevated through resurrection” |
| Position on Chalcedon | Explicitly affirms: without confusion, change, division, or separation | Explicitly affirms and cites; denies production of a third nature |
| Where they agree | The incarnation is genuine union; believers genuinely participate in divine nature; human nature is not cancelled | Fully consistent with historical orthodoxy, presenting the same truth in “high peak” formulation |
| Where they differ | Less emphasis on “mingling” language at the believer level; primarily uses juridical/ethical categories (justification, sanctification) | Uses organic life-language (interpenetration, mingling, blending) to describe the union — exceeding the vocabulary typical of Western theology |
Discernment
The word “mingling” carries theological risk: Eutyches was condemned at Chalcedon precisely for teaching that the two natures were fused into one. Brother Witness Lee was aware of this risk and explicitly added the qualification “not in the Godhead,” denying also the production of a third nature. CRI (the Christian Research Institute), after six years of study, concluded in 2009 that the Lord’s Recovery is theologically orthodox, publicly acknowledging that its prior characterization had been wrong. (CRI: We Were Wrong)
Yet discernment remains appropriate: the boundaries of terminology are more easily blurred in actual preaching than formal theological positions. If “mingling” language is used without the explicit modifications “without confusion, without change,” listeners can easily misunderstand — either that human nature is swallowed up by the divine, or that believers become ontologically equivalent to God. Chalcedon’s four adverbs are not merely historical documents; they are the spiritual language every generation must maintain when approaching this mystery.
The mystery itself is real: God has genuinely united Himself with humanity, and the purpose of this union is that mankind might be brought to fullness in Christ — “until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).