Limited Access to Salvation

"Mediatorship", once understood, clears up a lot of confusion folks have about the Hypostatic Union. That Christ would be One Person of TWO full natures makes some folks scratch their heads, wondering, "Well, Divine Will is different from human will, isn't it?" The problem most folks seem to have is that they don't understand the meaning of "will". "Will" is "Will". Ability to want, or refuse. Will is an attribute of personhood. By itself, it has no quality, but is just an attribute. So Christ's Personhood consists of His Will, consciousness, etc. These personhood attributes are true whether God or man. However, Quality, by contrast, is measured by other attributes, and it's the quality issue which requires distinguishing between His Two Natures. That's why you'll see theologians make distinctions in what's usually called the doctrine of the "Community of Attributes" to show the interaction. They subdivide the doctrine into "Attributes of Deity", "Attributes of Humanity", and "Attributes true for the Whole Person" (for some reason, "Entire" is eschewed in the nomenclature). "Whole Person" Attributes being used are, for example, in Ps31:5 (last sentence He uttered on the Cross, in its entirety -- last two Gospels only reference it), and Heb10:5. Whole Person, but speaking from Deity, would be, for example, John 8:58; Whole Person, but speaking from Humanity, would be, for example, John 19:28. [Biblio note: 92SD,L1239.]

This "community" structure really isn't so hard to understand. Deity is Deity; Humanity is Humanity. So Humanity, although capable of accessing Deity, is still Humanity. Kinda like how your body can send signals to your brain, and your brain, to your soul -- but the components, as it were, are all separate, still. So, Humanity's "will" is but a subset of the WHOLE Will of Christ, the God-Man Person. This structure makes His Life in 1st Advent the absolute hardest, for it was a constant option available, for Humanity to access Deity. Which, would have been for Him, a unique sin, had he accessed Deity contrary to the Father's Will at any time, awake or asleep.

Omniscience is an attribute of Deity, never Humanity. So, when He's using His Omniscience, He's God. His Human knowledge, though, remained human. It's easier to understand this fact, when you realize that human knowledge is "smaller". It's not mingling. Attributes of Deity adhere to Deity, as it were; of humanity, to humanity. So: as a Whole Person, He never willed for His Humanity to access Omniscience for the benefit of His Humanity. In short, He kept on willing to shield His Humanity from Omniscience. He kept on willing from the "human side", as it were, to be unaware of that knowledge. It required Him, as a Whole Person, to keep willing that, 24 hours a day! That's why it was the worst of all pressures, to BE both God and Man. Satan was counting on leveraging that pressure into sin, in Matt4.

It's very easy to overthink His Personal Structure. People become confused mostly because they are trying to get an understanding of how His Dual Nature functioned, and they can't fathom how He could compartmentalize His Awareness (i.e., keeping Omniscience away from the human "side"). The following analogies for how His Nature worked might help you, although all of them are incomplete metaphors. (It's actually harder to describe how His Dual Nature functions, than to understand how it works!)

Here's the analogy which made me understand the Hypostatic Union. His "Will" is the 'hub', as it were, of ALL His Attributes, both Divine and Human. Each Attribute is connected, as it were, to Will. ONE Will, because One Person. He can will thus to use any attribute at any time. So the question was, would He will to use His Divine Attributes to help out His Human ones? See, a person can "will" without "looking" at one of his attributes. The other "attributes" respond to will, since will is the hub of personhood. And that's the danger! One slip of the "will" and it's all over -- for Christ. That's what Satan was angling for, in Matt4: to get His Human nature to will a use of a Divine Attribute. Which, since Christ is One Person, inseparably Divine and Human, was always possible! What a pressure, to keep restraining self from using such power!

Another analogy: you know that you have a conscious mind, and an unconscious one. The latter you glimpse upon waking, if you remember a dream. Now, pretend that, instead of being UNABLE to access the unconscious, you had to keep willing to SHUT it out of your conscious mind. That's kinda like what He had to will for His Humanity's awareness: 24 hours a day.

Another metaphor: His Humanity could have accessed the knowledge, but had to keep refusing to do so. Kinda like ignoring a continually-horrible pain.

Another metaphor you can use to aid understanding: think of how you can cut off some desire or knowledge, in favor of something else. By an act of will.