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“The number of wills in Christ becomes clear when we understand the nature of the incarnation. The incarnation is not a mere indwelling of God in a man, but God coming to be man. The incarnation did not bring into being a separate human person, but rather it was God Himself taking on a new manner of existence as man. (See my article entitled Avoiding the Achilles Heel of Trinitarianism, Modalistic Monarchianism, and Nestorianism: The Acknowledgment and Proper Placement of the Distinction Between Father and Son) The difference between Jesus and all other men lies in the fact that we are man existing as man, while Jesus is God existing as man, not God existing as God and man existing as man together in union. To say Jesus is God existing as man and man existing as man together in union creates two personal subjects, and two centers of consciousness in Christ. Such a confession falls into the same error inherent to Nestorianism and Adoptionism; i.e. it confesses the existence of a distinct human person from the divine person in Christ. God became man; God did not become a man. God's humanity was not that of a distinct human person, but was genuine human nature hypostasized (made personal) by God Himself. There is only one personal subject in Christ—God—not two.

“Jesus is God existing as man, not God and a man existing together in one geographical locale; not a divine person and a human person coexisting side-by-side. Because Jesus is God existing as man, of necessity there can only be one personal subject in Christ, not two. God is that personal subject. Just as we are the subject of all our acts, likewise God is the subject of all Christ’s acts. Yet in Christ God is not acting as God, but as man. Everything Christ does He does as man because in Christ God has come to be man, and has come to act through human nature. Jesus is not God willing as God, and man willing as man in conjunction with one another, but God willing as man through His human mode of existence.

“There can be no equivocation of a nature and a person, however. A nature is the essential properties or attributes that mark off what sort of thing an individual is. Human nature (physis) is abstract, generic substance common to all mankind. A person, however, is concrete, immaterial conscious substance, a personality, a self; an individual who consists of a certain nature; the particularization of a generic substance. A person is the concrete self, the ego, defining who it is who is of a particular substance. It takes a concrete person (hypostasis) to actualize the generic nature. In the case of Christ, the person who actualizes the human nature is God, not a separate human person.

“While an act (such as the exercising of the will) is the work of a person, not a nature, the nature is the action’s cause/means of actualization, execution, or implementation. Normally there is one hypostasis for each physis. In the case of Christ, however, there are two physeis (natures) for one hypostasis (person). There are two distinct sources of causation for all of Christ's acts, yet only one person to actualize them. Since Christ’s natures are distinct the cause of His actions are distinct, yet because of the union of the natures in the one person all of Christ’s acts are actualized by that one person, and should be considered theandric acts. All of Christ’s activities must be “ascribed to the self that commits them.” Christ's actions, thoughts, and will have God as their subject, because in Christ God Himself is existing as man.

“The actions of Christ do not flow from His natures, but from His person. The divine person utilizes each nature to perform the functions peculiar to each, but both natures are motivated by the one and selfsame person. The one person of Christ carries out His activities in, through, and with both natures. The natures do not act; the person acts. The “one incarnate Logos does by means of each nature the acts that are appropriate to it,” deciding the actions made possible by the natures.

“We must confess that Christ's experiences have a duality of origin because of His duality of natures, but His experiences all exude forth from a single person. He could not sleep, for example, if it were not for His human nature giving Him the capacity to experience fatigue and rest. Likewise, Christ could not will as man if it were not for His human nature giving Him the capacity to will in a human manner. The human will of Christ pertains properly to the humanity “according to its nature, but to God according to the person, for there is one person consisting of both” deity and humanity. God willed as man in and through His human existence, via the human properties that were His by virtue of the hypostatic union of His divine person and the human nature. Jesus may be able to experience certain experiences because of His divine identity, and others because of His human identity, “but ultimately it is He Himself and not either of His natures, who has the experience and is the subject of them.” All of Christ’s human actions are to be predicated of the personal subject in Christ: God. Since there is only one personal subject in Christ, God is the subject of all divine and human acts and attributes.

“Nestorius erred in that he posited a human subject who performed human actions and a divine subject who performed divine actions in conjunction with one another. Christ's human experiences were not predicated of God, but the assumed human person. This is a denial of a true incarnation and akin to Adoptionism. Cyril rightly understood that God became man, not that God and a man were united in one common person, as Nestorius called it. Jesus is one person subsisting in two natures, not two persons subsisting in two natures united in one external and functional conjunction. Because God assumed a human nature, making it personal, God Himself can will as man in Christ without Christ being a separate human person.”

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